Mafia Wars - BlackJack - Counting Cards

Hi Mobsters,

For all those eager to try your hands at the Mafia Wars Blackjack, here’s a quick and easy card counting strategy.

To get started, here’s a brief summary of how Blackjack works. The objective of the game is to beat the MW boss with a Total of 21 or less. If you want to be a successful Blackjack player there are two things you should know. One is the Basic Strategy and the other is Card Counting.

Ideally, in Blackjack, as each card is dealt, the deck changes in composition and thus the odds lilt subtly in favour back and forth between Dealer and Player. The process of card counting seeks to identify those periods which favour the player, and bet high, and those periods which favour the Dealer, and bet low. There are two things a Player has the power to make decisions over. One is the way he plays his cards, the other is how much he bets. Well, the Basic Strategy has the card playing sorted out. All that needs to be done now is turn your attention to betting big when you think you are going to win, betting small when you’re going to lose.

The simple high-low strategy for card counting:

This involves counting off the high cards against the low cards. The Low Cards are 2 to 6 and the High Cards are 10 to Ace. For every low card you count "+1" and for every high card you count "-1". Seven, eight and nine receive no value at all. So,  we have 5 low cards and 5 high cards.

  

Thus, the basic logic applies that if you receive more low cards than high cards, further on along the deal you’re going to receive more high cards than low cards. It’s simple – if there are only 5 of each. Depleting one incrementally increases the chances of receiving the other. If you run out of low cards, then you only have high cards to receive. In card counting, this is exactly what is meant by keeping count – the proportion of high cards to low cards yet to be dealt.

When the count is even, and the deck favours neither high cards or low cards, there is no particular advantage to either Player or Dealer. But when the count goes high, indicating that the deck has proportionally more 10’s and Aces than it does 2’s to 6’s, the play favours the player and he will win more often than he loses. If he bets high, he will win more while he is winning more often. However, when the count is low, indicating that the deck has proportionally fewer Aces and 10's then it does 2's to 6's, then play will favour the Dealer and the Player will lose more often. If he bets low, he will lose less while he is losing more often. You should aim at being able to reliably count off a deck in 30 seconds or less. Then try counting multiple decks.

Why don’t you give this a try in Mafia Wars? Check out Blackjack now!

-The Mafia Wars Team

reposted from Official Mafia Wars Blog