Card Counting Professional

Card counting professional is a label that many blackjack players like to use to describe themselves, even if they don’t actually make any money from the game over the long term.

Most self-proclaimed card counting professionals think that they are the brightest colour in the Crayon box. They all believe that their crackerjack skills can beat the house at will, at any time and in any place. In reality, there are far more mediocre counters than good ones.

Casinos work hard to make sure that the genuinely good card counting professionals don’t break their bank. They have their pit bosses hassling counters by putting more decks in the game, burying more cards on the shuffle, stopping mid-entry shoe betting, having the dealer shuffle half way through the deck, and when all else fails, telling you to take a hike.

Another countermeasure, premature shuffling, can single-handedly destroy the advantageous situation that counters typically enjoy. The successful card counting professional (and there are some) combat this early shuffling countermeasure by camouflaging their play in an effort to remain undetected by pit personnel. If that doesn’t work, the player will inevitably be identified as a counter and asked to leave the game.

If a player can somehow get around all of the above, and play proficiently, then he can – theoretically – turn the tables in his favour with an ever-so-slight mathematical edge over the casino. However, there is still one more enormous edge that the casino has over a card counter, and that is their virtually endless bankroll. The casino can sustain short-term losses that card counters cannot.

There is a select group of card counting professionals that make money week in and week out, and that consists of players who have created a cottage industry of seminars, tapes, books and newsletters on the subject of counting itself. For most counting experts, writing about playing is far more lucrative than playing itself.
 

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