K-O – Card Counting Strategy

KO – KO stands for Knock Out Blackjack and also Ken and Olaf, the designers of the KO Count. A very easy, yet powerful, unbalanced strategy optimized for betting. Becoming one of the most popular card counting systems and probably the easiest of legitimate, published Blackjack strategies. Described in Olaf Vancura and Ken Fuchs book Knock-Out Blackjack, Isochoric Publishing, 1996. Most experts initially had difficulty accepting that this count could be as powerful as it is given its simplicity. (Some still cannot.) However, it is now generally accepted to be on a par with Hi-Lo. For extra gain, some people true-count K-O. Although this increases difficulty.

Olaf Vancura is now working on the casino side. Ken Fuchs is no longer active in Blackjack and sold his interest to Anthony Curtis.

Card Tag Values

Strategy	A	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	T
K-O	-1	1	1	1	1	1	1	0	0	-1

Specifics

K-O
Strategy Type	Unbalanced
Level	I
Betting Correlation	.98
Playing Efficiency	.55
Insurance Correlation	.78
Ease of use	7.5
Ace-Reckoned	Yes
Compromise Indexes	Yes
Suit Aware	No

Definitions can be found at the bottom of Card Counting Summary.