> snip> An excellent practical way to blend
> in the Ace with the main body of a count
> system is to assign it a value which is less
> than that of the 10's.

> Arnold Snyder's "Zen Count" is a
> good example, counting the 10's as -2 and
> the Aces as
> -1. For the double deck and shoe games, my
> own simulations have indicated that about
> the highest performing level two system
> without any side counts is the "Mentor
> Count" (I don't believe Norm has tested
> that one). It has a 97% betting correlation
> with a 62% playing efficiency and is
> structured as follows:

> 2 = +1
> 3 = +2
> 4 = +2
> 5 = +2
> 6 = +2
> 7 = +1
> 8 = 0
> 9 = -1
> 10= -2
> A = -1

> Those same simulations show that you could
> pick up about another 0.02% in EV by going
> to the Mentor III. It touts a BC of 98% with
> a PE of 61.5% and goes like this:

> 2 = +2
> 3 = +2
> 4 = +3
> 5 = +3
> 6 = +3
> 7 = +2
> 8 = 0
> 9 = -1
> 10= -3
> A = -2

Fred,

Count systems shouldn't be evaluated by PE and/or BE. You need to calculate the SCORE and believe me that a system that assigns "-1" to the nines is inferior to one that assigns "0" to the same cards. In terms of PE the "-1" hurts Insurance and that makes the SCORE to goes down.

Mentor count is UBZII plus the nine but played in TC mode. Now, in shoe games ZEN performs better than UBZII true counted and even better than Halves, which is a three-level count. Actually, ZEN is the best count system for shoes if you don't want to side-count any card.

Sincerely,
Cacarulo