In order to get a winning edge while playing blackjack you certainly need to apply advanced blackjack strategies. There are several strategies that one can apply during game play and in this guide I will look at one of the best effective blackjack strategies known as card counting. 

Blackjack card counting is a strategy that can help you to win effectively but the only setback is that you need to be fast in terms of keeping track of the cards being dealt on the board as well as calculating points.  An advantage of using the card counting technique is that you can simply practice any of the card counting systems making use of a blackjack trainer before you consider playing with real money. 

All card counting systems keep track of the high cards and low cards being played on the table so as to determine whether the shoe deck is high card rich or low card rich. For instance, a deck that is high card rich gives an added advantage to the players at which it is more likely for players to get blackjack or 20s and on the other hand the dealer is more likely to burst.  Therefore, with all card counting techniques, the main accept is to determine when the shoe deck is high card rich or low card rich.

If the shoe deck is low card rich this means that the dealer will not bust easily and players would have to reduce their bet units whereas for a shoe deck that is high card rich players would have to increase their bet units and maximize on the advantage. 

However, card counting is not easy at all but with great practice and frequent play you will soon master any of the various card counting systems. Most card counting systems take note of the running count and true count. The running count is the calculation of the cards being played on the table at which each card is given a point value.  High cards carry a negative point value while low cards carry a positive point value. 

Most card counting techniques start of with a running count of 0 as soon as the shoe deck is reshuffled.  When low cards are dealt on the table the running count shows a positive sign and if it remains positive this indicates that more low cards have been played and the shoe deck is high card rich. A negative running count indicates more high cards played and the shoe deck is low card rich. 

From determining the running count, the true count is used for accuracy at which it is calculated by dividing the running count by the number of decks being used. Depending on the card counting technique being used, others do not make use of the true count at which the initial running count starts of as a negative value to improve the accuracy and these card counting systems are known as the unbalanced level card counting systems. 

Mastering any of the card counting techniques will certainly give you a winning edge. All you have to do is to try out all card counting systems and select the one that suits your game play.