Your first task is to memorize the tables. The easiest way for me is to remember the patterns. I have created printable versions of the tables at www.qfit.com/thebook. I suggest printing them and keeping them around your home.

In olden days, we dealt ourselves Blackjack at the kitchen table to practice or created flashcards from index cards with tests on the front and answers on the back. There are several problems with this approach that are solved by using software:

Ø  How do you know if you are making mistakes? Humans are much worse than they think at test self-administration. The tester must be an objective second party and software is cheaper than a teacher.

Ø  How do you identify weaknesses? This is very easy for software as it can accurately track your every move. If you want to push your speed, you cannot track your progress at the same time yourself.

Ø  How do you spot trends? Are you getting better or worse? Are your skills deteriorating in one area? Again, software can provide accurate answers.

Ø  How do you grow your skills? You may wish to add more advanced techniques. But how do you know if you are performing them correctly? How do you know if they are actually helping you?

Ø  Speed. Software can present you with situations and score you against those situations vastly faster than you or a human teacher can. By forcing you to move far faster than you ever would in a real casino, you can build your skill level to the point that you will have spare brain time in the casino. This is invaluable when you get to card counting as it allows you to chat with the pit bosses and other players and to appear as a normal player — not as a counter. This is where you make the breakthrough — allowing card counting to become second nature.

Ø  When you get to counting, how do you practice it all at once? You can try counting down a real deck of cards or use flashcards to test indexes. But software is the only way to test all

 © 2009 Norman Wattenberger