Must-Know Card Counting Strategy Tips

Blackjack Card counting MUST be optimally camouflaged.

With all the buzz on the movie 21, everyone and his uncle want to be the next Jim Sturgess, Jeffry Ma, Kevin Lewis, or anyone else either realistically or fictionally involved in the MIT Blackjack Team movie. My e-mail box is filling up every day with questions about the team, the movie, card counting strategy, tips, anything and everything at all concerning this new phenomenon that is, at least for the time being, getting more hype than poker.

All the inquiries have been concentrated on card counting strategies, techniques, which countries and casinos offer the best counting opportunities, as well as legality issues, which it is of course perfectly legal to card count! However, not one of my e-mailers seems cognizant of the fact that the LEAST important component of card counting is card counting. That's right, card counting itself is easy. Anyone with half a brain, relatively good eyesight and some capacity for data retention can learn to count cards sufficiently in a day or two, be it the simple plus/minus system or some of the more advanced counting methods.

But what's really important and most integral to a successful card counting operation is being able to implement it without drawing attention and being able to play for as long as possible before you finally do, which at some point has to happen, unless, of course, you're bad at it or never win enough money to get noticed.

So how do you do this? As an individual or a card counting team? The answer is in one word: CAMOUFLAGE. The word has obvious military connotations, but any good card counting team should indeed be run as a military operation. My 25-year casino cheating operation surely was. So then remember what you're about to read here, because it is the most important ingredient to success in card counting. In fact, I will list these crucial camouflage techniques in random order because one is as important as the other.

1) The LAST places you or your team should visit at the casino are the blackjack tables. That's right, if you're alone or using the counter/big player team strategy, make sure your big players are seen playing big elsewhere in the casino first. Have them play craps, roulette or baccarat before blackjack. You may think that it's a bad idea for them to be seen by the casino bosses. Not so. The key is that they will be seen as high rollers; craps high rollers, roulette high rollers and baccarat high rollers. See what I'm saying? So that when they are later signalled over to a hot blackjack table with a high true count and lay down the big bets, the bosses in the blackjack pit will already have been made aware that these big players have been gambling big in games other than blackjack. Yes, communication from the craps, roulette and baccarat pits reaches the blackjack pits. True, gambling elsewhere will hurt your bankroll a bit, but it more than pays off at the end because it will have bought you much more time card counting at blackjack where you will spend many more hours than you did at the other games, with at least the same percentage advantage as the disadvantage you had playing craps, roulette and baccarat. Of course while playing those other games, stay away from foolhardy bets like "hard-ways" and other proposition bets in craps, tie hands in baccarat, and use single-zero roulette wheels if the casino has them.

2) When you make scores card counting, do not have your big players cash out chips of a denomination higher than $100. Instead, have them break down $500 chips and up into smaller denomination chips at the tables they were playing at BEFORE your team started playing blackjack. This means have your big players return to the craps, roulette and baccarat tables where they first showed their big action and break down their big chips into $100 and $25 chips. If you've won too much, then just get the $100 chips. The key is you don't want to hit the casino cage with $500 and $1,000 chips. THAT draws heat!

3) When you have losing sessions, it doesn't necessarily mean that you've taken less exposure and can return to the same casino on the same shift the next day. Remember that casinos hip to card counters watch HOW you play more than whether you win or lose.

4) VERY IMPORTANT: Learn how to change your card counting strategy in mid-play! Yes, there are other ways to go about card counting than the classic counter/big player strategy. When I was a professional casino cheater, my team was able to change its strategy (which cheat move we would do at a table) at any given moment due to certain playing conditions in the casino. The same capability is necessary for successful card counting teams. To read the specifics of changing strategy, go to my card counting page. For those of you seriously interested, I do teach card counting classes.

Finally, remember that above all, discipline, perseverance and cleverness is what makes the successful card counter, not the ability to count the cards.

James Grosjean and the Griffin Black Book

With MIT Blackjack Team's Jeffrey Ma getting all the publicity surrounding the card counting movie "21," many people are forgetting who the real best card counter in history was: James Grosjean. If you don't want to take that from me, just ask Beverly Griffin, the head of the notorious Griffin Investigations Agency, the organization that not only claims to have put an end to the MIT card counting team's Vegas and Atlantic City exploits but also chased me around Vegas for two decades. I can't say for sure what effect Griffin Investigations had on the eventual demise of the MIT Blackjack Team, but I can tell you they had absolutely none on me. Notorious Griffin Agent Andy Anderson will tell you how he personally chased me around Las Vegas for 20 years, never succeeding more than getting me interrogated in a casino back room.

But with James Grosjean, Griffin not only met their match but also their demise. After a series of incidents in the year 2000 that saw Grosjean detained by Caesars Palace and the Imperial Palace casinos for card counting, then arrested by agents from the Nevada Gaming Control Board Enforcement Division and sent to jail, Griffin had the bad sense to label Grosjean as a "cheater," and courts have ruled both in Las Vegas and Atlantic City that card counting is not cheating. What really ended up frying Griffin's ass was its decision to put Grosjean in its notorious "Griffin Book" or "Griffin Mug Book" and brandishing him as a known casino cheat.

Grosjean ended up filing suit against Griffin for defamation.

On September 13th, 2005, Griffin Investigations was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy due to legal costs and damages stemming from a successful defamation lawsuit against the company by Grosjean and Michael Russo, another card counter. Griffin Investigations had long worked for the casinos, compiling information on cheaters, card counters, and other "undesirable" casino patrons. In many cases, casinos would detain or ban customers based on the information provided by the firm. The lawsuit stated that Russo and Grosjean had both been improperly detained, labeled as cheaters, and arrested, all due to information provided by Griffin Investigations. In July of 2005, a jury in Clark County District Court issued a $45,659 judgment on behalf of the two gamblers. Russo was awarded $25,000 in damages and $15,000 in punitive damages, and Grosjean was awarded $25,000 in damages and $10,000 in punitive damages.

Among Casino card counters, cheats and crossroaders, James Grosjean is a true hero for having crumpled the much hated Griffin Investigations. Andy Anderson, the agent who was the face of Griffin during the 80s and 90s as well as my personal nemesis, now works as an independent casino consultant, and he has told me that his final dealings with Griffin Investigations left him with a bad taste in his mouth.