Side Counts

There are several methods of side-counting used to increase strategy efficiency. Side counts are counts kept in addition to the running count and are quite difficult. For example, some people keep a side-count of aces since aces are both a high card and a low card and an excess of aces is good for betting but not for playing. For a discussion of five side-counting techniques, see page 185-187.

Ease of Use

Ease of use of a strategy is a subjective measurement that depends on the number of tag values, true count requirement, level of count, number of pairs of tag values that cancel, number of indexes, compromise indexes, side counts, imbalance of tags, suit awareness, and other factors based purely on my own opinions. I measure ease of use from 1-10 with 10 the easiest.

Strategy Type

The TYPE column key for the table on the next page follows:

·         B – Balanced count requiring the calculation of a true count

·         U – Unbalanced count with no true count

·         S – Suit Aware count requiring different counts for red and black cards

·         C – Compromise indexes used for greater ease

·         1, 2, 3, 4 – Level. That is the number of different positive tag values

Note: Playing Efficiency (as defined by Griffin) is not relevant to unbalanced counting systems and is only an estimate. PE & BC stated here do not include side counts. An efficiency calculator that calculates BC, PE and IC can be found in the CVData simulation software.

 © 2009 Norman Wattenberger