ANALYZING TABLE CONDITIONS

After studying the options for the location you plan to visit, you., ' should be able to identify several favorable casinos. Once you enter 11 these casinos you will be confronted with more options to analyze, ; several varying from table to table.

NUMBER OF DECKS

In general, the more decks that are used, the worse it is for the player. One of the first moves the casinos made to counter, Thorp's 10-count system in Beat the Dealer was to increase the number of decks. The casinos figured that trying to determine the' ratio of lOs to non-10s would just be too difficult with up to 208, cards to keep track of. They were right, of course, until the sec-ond edition, in 1966, introduced the concept of a plus-minus count similar to the Hi-Opt I. Counting with multiple decks was no more difficult for the player; extra cards merely provided the, with fewer rest breaks as dealers shuffled.

What happens to the dealer advantage was unsuspected at tha time. We now know that the dealer gains about .5 per cent in multiple-deck games. Even though the overall ratio of good an bad cards may be the same in either a single- or a multiple-dec game, the dealer has a larger pool of favorable cards to dra from with multiple decks. He busts less often as a result.

When you have a choice, play at a table with the fewest num-ber of decks. Four decks is the common number currently played in most casinos, with some smaller houses still offering one- or two-deck games. Watch out for five-deck games masquerading as four-deck games! In the middle of 1977, one of the more success-ful Blackjack players phoned to warn me about this at the Stardust. As you will see, you must know the number of decks to properly use the Hi-Opt I system. In any case, a five-deck game is harder to profit from than a four-deck one.

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