Beyond Counting by James Grosjean

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Beyond Counting

Beyond Counting by James Grosjean sounds like an esoteric blackjack strategy book, but it's actually a little more interesting than that even. Casinos make their money by offering games which have a built-in house advantage. Advantage players are gamblers who are skillful and knowledgeable enough to turn these negative expectation games into positive expectation games. Counting cards is one way of getting a mathematical advantage over a casino in blackjack. James Grosjean's Beyond Counting looks at several other ways advantage players can gain an advantage over the casino.

Blackjack Shuffle Tracking

One of the advantage play techniques described in Beyond Counting is blackjack shuffle tracking. For those who don't know (which is probably almost everyone), blackjack shuffle tracking is the ability to keep up with where certain cards are in the deck during a shuffle. Shuffling a deck of cards doesn't create a totally true random deck unless the deck is shuffled 30 times or so. Having a good idea of where the 10's and aces are in the deck give you an obvious advantage, because you can raise the size of your bets when you're more likely to be dealt a blackjack.

Roulette Wheel Clocking

Roulette wheel clocking is an advantage technique where you get an advantage at the roulette table by predicting where the ball will land. There are multiple ways to do this. One is to clock the results of a vast number of spins at a particular wheel in order to detect any kind of mechanical bias the machine might have. A strong enough bias for a certain "neighborhood" on the roulette wheel could result in certain bets having an advantage over certain other bets. And some roulette dealers spin the ball at a predictable enough speed that a skilled player can tell within a few numbers where the ball is likely to land. This would, again, give the player an advantage when betting on certain numbers.

Advantage Slot Machine Play

Slot machines would seem to be a game where you really could never get an advantage over the casino, but there are a couple of scenarios where you might be able to gain an advantage. Some slot machines are called "banking" slot machines, and a certain amount of each bet goes into a "bank" to be eventually won by a player. If that bank grows large enough, then the game becomes positive expectation for the player. (Piggy Bankin' is such a machine.) Another possibility is that a casino will offer bonus points for slots play in such a large amount that a better machine will provide a positive expectation when you add in the cash back and perks from being a slots club member.

Other Advantage Plays Discussed in Beyond Counting

Some casinos offer bonus payouts or different pay structures in games like Sic Bo or keno. In some cases, they'll provide a payout that turns a game like that into a positive expectation game for the player, but the player has to understand the math of the game well enough to find such a situation and recognize it when she sees it. Some video poker games can be played with an advantage. In fact, Beyond Counting covers more possibilities for advantage play in a casino than I can possibly recount here.

Beyond Counting offers a great deal of information about advantage gambling and the math involved in figuring out how to get an advantage over the casino. James Grosjean has done the advantage gambling community a great service by writing this book.