Does anyone use finger binary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_binary) to communicate the running count to teammates? Do casinos know about this method?
Does anyone use finger binary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_binary) to communicate the running count to teammates? Do casinos know about this method?
I’m a low level player but when I’ve played with a friend who wants to know the count and he’s sitting on third base and I’m on first base I use chips sometimes. Obviously, I try not to make it obvious and I always have my chips in disarray but he knows which chips indicates the count. When I put reds out there he knows it’s negative and when I have greens out there it is positive. Whites or having no chips out there indicate the count is neutral. The number of chips indicates the true count.
I know some will ridicule me for this approach saying the casino will spot it, but we’ve never had that problem. Btw, this is one way Ben Affleck got caught. He was using chips to keep track of the count. But he was being very obvious.
Binary is such an obvious system. If you do decide to use it, note that you should only go up to 2^4, reserving one bit (thumb or pinkie) for sign.
Try using base 3 instead of base 2, it's slightly more obscure, and you can use no finger for 0, just a nub for 1, curled for 2, extended for 3.
It will be more subtle and more obscure.
I like the idea of using base 3 (if someone deemed hand signals necessary for their team instead of words for one reason or another). That said, you only need 3 positions total for each finger. So, 0, 1, 2. (Compared to base 2 with only 0 and 1). So I would just do no finger for 0, curled for 1, and extended for 2.
Haha you're right, I went and did base 4. *Insert joke about 0 based indexing...*
I've been writing in a language at work that indexes starting at 1, for the past year... Heh.
But yes, definitely don't use binary hand signals. Everyone and their mom will figure it out.
Bonus points to anyone who figures out how to do hexadecimal counting on their hand.
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