Canfield Master Card Counting System

The Canfield Master Count system is the harder version of the Canfield Expert system. This one is a multi-level card counting system set at Level 2 and is also classified as advanced. This level II system means that the indexes range through a greater number of values such as (-2,-1,0,+1,+2). Because of this, it is obviously much harder to learn and is more complicated because players need to memorize a greater index. Although, the difficulty is still intermediate because this is a balanced system, which means when you start the count at zero on a freshly shuffled deck, your count should also be zero at the end of the deck after all the cards have been dealt. This makes it easier to learn since you can know for sure if your count is accurate after going through a whole deck.

The Canfield Master actually has the same efficiency as the Expert methods but it does have a much higher betting and insurance correlation percentage. This is one of the big benefits of using a more advanced count but you need to sacrifice ease for better odds and more advantage over the house. Just like the Expert style, the Master count was invented by Richard Canfield, a former pit boss who worked at casinos and wrote the book "Blackjack Your Way to Riches". Canfield Master Count is what actually lead up to the Bryce Carlson's Omega II count system where the indices of both systems are virtually identical.

Canfield originally designed this system for single deck blackjack in the 1970s but as time went on and casinos cracked down on card counters, a one deck hand dealt game is very rare to come by. You will find many 6:5 blackjack odds tables with single decks but the 6:5 odds are a scam and it's just not worth playing since multiple deck 3:2 games will offer better odds with card counting anyways. The Master count lost popularity as more decks were increased to the shoe but it is still powerful if you can find a single deck game or even two decks.

The indexes are displayed in the table below in chart format. When viewing the left column, this shows what value of cards in the deck while the right side of the chart shows the index or distribution of count values assigned to each card.

The goal is to watch the cards that are dealt to all players and to the dealer. Then you need to add up the count numbers in your indexes. For example, if two jacks and two kings are dealt in a hand, your running count would be -8. The main strategy and method with all counting systems is to bet high when the count is high, which correlates to more high valued cards such as tens in the deck, which benefits you more than the dealer in terms of probability odds and advantage edge. Likewise, when your count is low or negative, you will know when to tame your betting down a notch.