As a blackjack card counter then one of the primary skills that you will require is to be able to count quickly. If you can do this then it will be far easier to be able to keep a track of the count and also to be able to make money. When you say to a non player that in order to use a simple card counting system then all you have to do is add and subtract quickly in units of one then it is difficult for them to appreciate just how difficult that can be.

Firstly it isn’t just as straight forward as adding and subtracting in units of one. You first have to make a visual identification of what cards are coming out and then convert that card to a point total. Then and only then can you make the calculation. Then on top of this there are all of the usual casino distractions. Fast dealers for instance often make it difficult for novice card counters and a very faster dealer can be a distraction to a player. Then on top of this if you are a novice counter then the environment that you are in can be somewhat nerve wracking.

I never suffered from nerves personally and thought that the entire thing was like some big game which of course it was. But to assist your counting speed in blackjack then you can simply use what is called a cancellation system. If the dealer has dealt four hands that are 8,9…..TT…5,2 and 6,4 then every single hand cancels out. With a level one counting system like the Hi-Lo then eights and nines are classed as zero but these fall on the same hand so the entire hand totals zero.

Tens are counted as minus one so the second hand is minus two in total but cards 2 through 6 are counted as plus one so the third hand cancels out the second hand so the total after three hands is still zero so that just leaves the count of plus two for the final hand. Quite often combinations of cards fall together so with the merest scan of a table you can clock as many as sixteen cards in little more than two seconds when they cancel out like this.

These techniques greatly improve counting speed and put the player into a very advantageous situation where they appear to look less like a card counter to the casino staff. Any player who is closely scrutinising the cards is really going to stand out a mile to casino staff and this is the biggest problem for card counters when it comes to playing blackjack. But learning to use cancellation systems like these in blackjack is not just an important task but it is also a vital one from the perspective of being able to escape detection by acting and behaving like a normal everyday blackjack player. If you can learn cancellation systems then this really will quantum leap forward your blackjack game.