Card counting

If memory serves, the classic card counting techniques provide a about a 1% advantage over the house. That is, there is an asymptotic 1% advantage assuming an infinite bank; a simulation shows that actually realizing that advantage requires a substantial bank and patience – something like 100 times the bet as a bank to reduce the chance of going bankrupt to 1%. A fancier heuristic can make a big difference, however. When I was a graduate student and had an opportunity to get over to Reno from Berkeley, I experimented with a four-slot card sorting technique that used both the weighted sum of the different category counts and the shape of the histogram ("buck-toothed” or “gap-toothed” shapes added additional information) to make decisions. I never had the time to run a real simulation, but the heuristic worked relatively well in practice even if I occasionally made stupid moves (intentionally, of course) to make it look like I was just being lucky. At any rate, coming up with a heuristic that provides useful information in practice (multi-deck shoe, different seating positions at the table, etc.) is an interesting challenge.

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