Quote Originally Posted by Cardguy View Post
I'm considering switching from HiLo to Halves and I'd like some advice from any experts among you. Do you double the tag values and indices or not? Are there any important differences with the indices compared to HiLo? How long should I expect it to take to get fast enough and accurate enough to use it in the casino? Is it worth making the change? I play shoe games exclusively and play about 150 hours per year. Thanks!
Actually, it is I that play shoe games exclusively, and play around 150 hours per year..... :-)

Until around four years ago, I used Hi-Lo (35 index numbers) exclusively. At that time, I switched to Halves. So that I could keep the same index numbers (in most cases), I used the "half" amount, via saying "K" in my head to mean "and a half"- If I was at +6, and the next four cards were 2, 7, 5, A, I would think "6K, 7, 8K, 7K". But it really didn't take very long to switch. I changed my insurance index from 3 to 3.5, but don't recall changing any others- though I recall that one (or two?) other index numbers, of the 35 I use, could have used a change of 1 also. Is it worth it? For me, definitely. It really wasn't hard for me to do at all. For you, maybe- I guess if counting by half values isn't easy, it may be more difficult to do.

Far harder was what I did a couple of years ago, changing to using a second (balanced) count, and side-counting aces, for a blackjack variant in which doing so is worth it (simulation proven). That is far tougher- keeping one count in numbers, one (a level three) count in letters....