Effects on Other Players

How does Back-Counting affect others?

We have all heard it — “You took the dealer's bust card.” Silly, but in fact, one player can have an effect on another. 

 Back-Counting or wonging, playing only good counts, is clearly a method of improving card counting advantage. But what happens when someone else back-counts your table? There are two sims behind this chart. The first sim consisted of two players, a basic strategy player in seat one and a Hi-Lo card counter in seat two. The second sim was the same, but a third player sat down at a true count of +2 and left at a true count of -1. We are interested in the effect on the Hi-Lo player in seat two. This chart displays the win rate by true count for the seat two Hi-Lo player in each sim plus the back-counter. The red area displays the win rate for each TC for the Hi-Lo player at the first table. The green area shows the win rate for the same player, only at a table where a back-counter comes and goes. The blue ribbon is the win rate of the back-counter. We can see that at the higher counts, where we win money, the interrupted player's winnings are reduced. The back-counter is stealing some of his good cards. Overall, the Hi-Lo player's edge drops from 1.37% to 1.23% when the back-counter appears at the table.

The Blackjack basic strategy player is not charted here but is also impacted. For him, the house edge moves from .38% to .42%.

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 © 2009 Norman Wattenberger