People keep finding this weblog by googling “the card counting book in The Hangover,” something I haven’t ever written about. (There’s a lot of card counting and a lot of book stuff, though.) Disappointment being impermissible and all, I’ll note that the card counting book appearing in the movie ‘The Hangover’ is The World’s Greatest Blackjack Book by Lance Humble and Carl Cooper.

The book, originally published in 1980, is a credible and well-regarded text known mainly for presenting a particular count system, the Hi-Opt 1 count. This is a great count for “pitch” games (i.e., for single- and double-deck). It’s less great for multi-deck shoes. As Nick Christenson explains in more detail, Hi-Opt 1 regards aces as neutral – it doesn’t count them – and this makes it superior to the so-called “ace-reckoned” counts for deciding how to play hands. (Aces, for playing purposes, are small cards, not big cards: you’re never going to bust with an ace. But ace-reckoned counts treat aces and tens almost identically. Totally identically in some cases. They do this because for betting purposes – i.e., for deciding when you have an edge, and how big that edge is – aces and big cards are similar. They both improve the player’s situation.) Hi-Opt 1, ignoring aces, gives players great information on how to play their hands in high counts. This is valuable in pitch games, where smaller bet spreads are necessary for heat reasons. The less you spread, the more your edge depends on playing deviations.

Humble’s count helps you deviate powerfully. It can help you bet powerfully, too, especially if you augment Hi-Opt 1 by keeping a separate count (a “side count”) of the aces. This mentally taxing approach really gets the money in pitch games.

It’s less good for shoes. Shoes are all about spreading your bets: that’s where the money comes from in 6-deck and 8-deck games. If you do use Hi-Opt 1 in shoes, you’ll really need to side-count the aces, which is that much harder with additional decks.  With hardness comes errors. With errors, your winnings diminish.

That’s why many pros, including the MIT Blackjack Team and Mossad (the team depicted in my book), rely on the High-Low Count. It’s simple, it’s ace-reckoned, and it performs well in shoes.

If you want to learn High-Low (and get a great introduction to all aspects of card counting), the GameMaster’s Blackjack School is a fine, free resource. If you want an up-to-date account of the real-life traumas and ecstasies of professional blackjack, Repeat Until Rich comes out March 18.