The green bars still show zero max bets below TC +4. But a much smaller number of max bets are made at TC +4 since the player is not increasing the bet after a loss even if the TC increases. There are fewer max bets at higher TCs also, but the red and green bars grow closer since the TC is less likely to make large increases at higher counts. The cost in this instance is under-betting when the count is high. In addition, the cost can be high since the entire point of card counting is to bet high when the count is high.

Cover 2 – No decrease after a win

In these charts, I add the “no decrease after win” rule. This is the blue set of bars. There are two charts here depending on the player's actions at the start of a shuffle. In the left chart, the player always drops to one unit after a shuffle. In the right chart, the player follows the cover rules. For example, suppose you bet 16 units on the previous hand and you won. The cover rule says that you will not decrease your bet after a win. So, you would bet 16 units even if the count dropped in the right-hand chart. However, some people use the shuffle as an excuse to ignore the cover rule and always drop to one unit — the correct bet. This looks OK in shoe games but is harder to get away with in single-deck.

At TCs +4 and above, we see about the same number of bets as with not using this rule. But now we see that max bets are being made at TCs +2 and +3. That is, we are sometimes over-betting at these counts. In the right-hand chart, we also see max bets at TC 0 since we will sometimes not be able to reduce our bet at the start of the shoe. This is very costly since there is negative EV at TC 0.

 © 2009 Norman Wattenberger