Hole Card Blackjack
- Blackjack Cards Play
- Blackjack Hole Card Peeker
- Dealers Blackjack Hole Card Why
- Blackjack Hole Card Techniques
- Cards Blackjack 24 7
In blackjack, in particular, hole carding means to look at the dealer’s hole card at the right time in order to see its value. If the player knows the value of the dealer’s down card, they can use that information to make smart/er playing decisions. Blackjack hole-card play: A play that is based on the knowledge of the dealer's hole-card. Perfect play can get the player an advantage of up to 13%. This is a demo of a hole card switch in single deck casino blackjack, as would be done by a crooked casino dealer. Although single deck games are no longer c. The following description of hole-carding is taken from our book Cheating at Blackjack by Dustin Marks, one of the all-time greatest blackjack cheats, especially considering he cheated from both sides of the table—player and dealer—and was never caught.
Blackjack Cards Play
Why Blackjack hole-carding is so vastly popular as a cheating method—even when handheld blackjack games have all but virtually disappeared.
Well, to start off, it is one of two cheating methods that carries very little risk to those participating in it. Like collusion partnerships in poker, playing the exposed hole-card at blackjack is considered cheating in the majority of land-based gaming areas, but conversely, it is almost impossible to prove, and I have yet heard of anyone being convicted of a crime for hole-carding blackjack. Yes, there have been a handful of arrests over the past few decades, maybe even a dozen, but when push comes to shove in court–in the rare event it gets that far–judges have always told the prosecuting casinos to take a walk.
So what have the hassled blackjack hole-carders systematically done after their day in court? Obviously take a walk right back to the blackjack tables.
When considering the vast forms of cheating inside land-based casinos in many important gaming areas like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Mississippi and Connecticut, ANY form of casino–cheating is considered a felony–and can be punished with a five-year prison sentence even on a first conviction. So this makes hole-carding ever so appealing to casino cheats who want to stay inside the casinos and out of jail.
Finding Good Blackjack Games and Applying Strong Hole-Carding Strategy
Casinos have long been aware of blackjack hole-carding and even longer simple blackjack card-counting. They have taken various measures over the years to protect themselves against it. The biggest measure taken against card-counting, as most of you are aware of, has been the installation of automatic card-shufflers and cutting off a sizeable percentage of the cards in the shoe remaining to be dealt.
But what some of you may not be aware of, especially those who were not frequenting land-based casinos before the 1990s, is that back then there were lots of handheld blackjack games using one or two decks, where dealers held the pack of cards chest-high and flung them to the players around the table much like poker-dealers do today. Casinos began removing handheld games in the 1980s when card-counting went on a rage similar to the one poker experienced in the 2000s. Today there a very few handheld games left in the world, and some major gaming areas including Atlantic City, Connecticut and Mississippi never even had a handheld blackjack game.
Even though hole-carding was not a well-known cheating-art when handheld games began disappearing, for those who practiced it, that removal was devastating. At the height of handheld games dozens of dealers could be found at every major casino flashing their hole-cards as they slid them off the top of the deck and tucked them underneath their up-cards. Hole-carders working in teams with players sitting at either side of the table and standing behind the dealer across the pit could get accurate reads on the dealers´ hole-cards better than 50% of the time in some cases. All that was needed to generate a good profit was 20% if the team applied accurate basic strategy to the hands where they couldn´t read the hole-card.
But suddenly the handheld games were gone, replaced by four and six-deck card-shoes, leaving the bulk of hole-carders looking for a new cheat-technique to apply. But some did not go away so easily. They found dealers who still gave a view to their hole-cards as they slid them underneath their up-cards, or during the instant before, when they would shift the card to one side to make the card-tucking a bit easier. Good hole-card readers were able to identify the value of the cards from just a tiny peak at their corners.
So hole-carding was born again, even though it took more than a decade to regain the popularity it had during the handheld days.
So what is the optimum hole-carding strategy like present–day? It hasn’t changed much. You can see all the different strategies (which operate basically the same) with a simple online search. But the two keys to employing them are these: find dealers that are at least 15% readable; and make camouflage plays every so often to hide what you´re doing. If you stand your hand three times against a ten up-card and then you hit three times against a ten up-card and are right all six times, someone watching will catch onto to you. So give up a bit of your edge to stay in hole-carding action longer. Remember this: DON’T BE GREEDY!
Hole-Carding Fusion
What does this mean? It simply means if you’re going to go through the trouble becoming an expert hole-carder, you might as well marry it to other methods of taking advantage of casino blackjack games. Advantage-player strategies such as advanced-counting, ace-steering and super-team play can be combined to give the hole-carders doing so a very ripe advantage over the casinos.
This article was written by former professional casino cheater, Richard Marcus. Richard Marcus is also the author of American Roulette, a controversial book that reveals how he and other professional cheaters ripped off casinos.
More articles from Richard Marcus:
- Ex professional casino cheater reveals The Top 3 Cheating Methods in Blackjack.
In card games, hole carding is the obtaining of knowledge of cards that are supposed to be hidden from view. The term is usually applied to blackjack but can apply to other games with hidden hole cards, like three card poker and Caribbean stud poker. So long as it does not involve the use of a device like a mirror or actions like touching the dealer's cards, in most jurisdictions hole carding is a legal form of advantage gambling in casino table games. In other games, like stud poker, casinos normally have rules against rubbernecking or having a confederate stand behind an opponent to signal hole cards.
Blackjack Hole Card Peeker
Blackjack players must usually make playing decisions based on only seeing one of the dealer's cards (the upcard). But if the dealer's hole card is spotted, a player who plays correctly has a theoretical advantage of up to 13% instead of the normal player disadvantage of around 0.5%. A hole-card player will often choose not to make certain plays, such as hitting a hard 19 against a dealer 20, so as not to reveal that he can see the dealer's hole card.
This technique is not applicable in most games outside of the United States where the second dealer card is normally not dealt until all players have played.
Strategies[edit]
A normal blackjack strategy has ten columns, for an ace through dealer ten value card. Strategy tables for hole carding differ from normal blackjack tables as they include a column for each possible total dealer hand instead of simply the visible card. Below is a sample hole card hit/stand table for six decks, stand on soft-17. The columns are based on the dealer hand and the rows based on the player hand. Green denotes a hit.
First-basing and spooking[edit]
One method of hole carding is to peek at the card when the dealer checks the hole card for blackjack. This is called 'first-basing'.[1] A modification called 'spooking' refers to a partner with a better view peeking at the hole card in the same circumstance and communicating the information to the player. Peeking devices have made these methods largely obsolete.[2]
Front-loading[edit]
Front-loading refers to observing the hole card as it is slid under the upcard.[3] Newer methods of hole-carding concentrate on observation before the down card is placed under the upcard. This provides information about the card even if the dealer upcard is not a ten or an ace. The advantage varies depending on the rules, the percentage of cards seen, and the strategies used.
Partial information[edit]
At times the player will see a corner of the hole card, but not enough to determine the exact card. For example, if there is no pip in the corner, the card may be an ace, 2 or 3. Or, if there is a pip in the corner, it is a 4-10, but not a face card. To make use of this additional information, a different set of strategy tables must be used depending on the set of possible cards in the hole.[4]
Below is a sample blackjack, partial hole card hit/stand table for two decks. The columns are based on the dealer upcard and the rows based on the player hand. Partial hole card tables contain ten columns as the dealer's total hand is not known with complete certainty. A different set of tables must be used depending on the information acquired from the hole card. In this table, the hole card is a six or seven. Green denotes a hit. One might note that this table bears little resemblance to standard blackjack strategy.
Next card play[edit]
Hole carding generally refers to knowing the dealer’s hole card. Next card play refers to knowing the next card to be dealt. If a round has not started, and a player knows what his or her first card will be, one can simply alter one's bet depending on the value of that card. In a game like blackjack, if the dealer has already dealt a player's first two cards, and the player knows the next card to be dealt, it becomes possible for playing decisions to be altered to include this additional information.[4]:255 Strategies are significantly more complex as there exists a different strategy table for each possible next card. Strategies may also differ depending on a player's position in the dealing rotation:
- First Seat – If the player does not take the known card, another player gets it.
- Last Seat – If the player does not take the card, the dealer may draw it. This also applies in a situation where no player to one's left is likely to draw a card.
- No hole card – In a no-hole-card game, if the player does not take the card, it may become the dealer’s second card.
Other methods[edit]
Dealers Blackjack Hole Card Why
- Warped cards – In a casino where a blackjack dealer bends the hole card to check for a blackjack, the cards can become warped. The warps can be later used to determine the value of a face down card. This method is largely obsolete as most casinos use devices instead of bending cards to determine dealer blackjacks, and cards are regularly replaced with new decks.[5]
- Dealer tells – When a blackjack dealer checks for a blackjack, some dealers may give clues as to the value of the down card, akin to Poker tells. Again, most casinos now use devices to check the down card, rendering this obsolete in most casinos.[6]
- Peeking at other players' cards – Depending on the game and casino, this may or may not be acceptable and may aid player decisions.
- Counting by inference – In blackjack where player cards are dealt face down, the actions of other players can provide clues as to their hidden cards. This is less valuable in modern casinos due to the fewer number of single-deck games and reduction in penetration (how deeply the dealer deals before shuffling.)
Notes[edit]
Blackjack Hole Card Techniques
- ^Blaine, Rick. Blackjack blueprint : how to play like a pro-- part-time. Huntington Press. p. 154. ISBN0-929712-16-1.
- ^Snyder, Arnold. The big book of blackjack (1st ed.). Cardoza Pub. p. 311. ISBN1-58042-155-5.
- ^Uston, Ken. Million dollar blackjack (6th rev. print ed.). Gambling Times. p. 197. ISBN0-89746-068-5.
- ^ abGrosjean, James. Exhibit CAA : beyond counting (1st ed.). South Side Advantage Press, LLC. p. 279. ISBN0-9790061-4-7.
- ^Humble, Lance; Cooper, Carl. The world's greatest blackjack book (Rev. ed.). Doubleday. p. 141. ISBN0-385-15382-1.
- ^Snyder, Arnold (2005). Blackbelt in blackjack : playing 21 as a martial art (3rd ed.). New York: Cardoza Pub. ISBN978-1580421430.