Counting drill

You don't memorize the cards. Nobody does that. The name is misleading — you're not counting cards, you're keeping one score.

Counting is one number, kept in your head. Every card that hits the table counts — yours, the other players', the dealer's. One card at a time, you add one, subtract one, or do nothing. Then you're back to one number.

That's the whole mechanic. The system is called Hi-Lo.

The ace counts as a high card. It's minus one because it's a card you want still coming, not already gone.

You start at zero when the deck is fresh, and you keep one running total until it's shuffled.

When low cards leave the deck, the number goes up. When high cards leave, it goes down. A high number means more tens and aces are still to come.

Tens and aces are the cards that pay you. They make blackjacks, and they break the dealer when the rules force them to keep drawing. When more of them are left, the game tilts a little your way. That's the whole reason anyone counts.

That is the situation you want, so you bet more. And in a few specific spots, the right play changes too — the course covers exactly which.

You are not tracking cards. You are tracking one tally.

It is arithmetic you already have. What's hard is doing it fast, for an hour, without losing the number. That is what the drills are for. The Test is where you prove you can do it, instead of being told you're ready.