I spent a few summers in the mid-90s card counting with a couple friends on summer vacation from college. Vegas was saturated so we focussed on Reno and Mississippi. I'm pretty sure we were about the only ones in Mississippi because the rules weren't always great (the basic rules are fixed of course but casinos can and do change the "edge cases" like the ability to double after splitting) and they played with big "shoes" of multiple decks, usually 8.
The thing is when you count you start at zero when the deck(s) are shuffled and then keep a running count. So it's just one number. Each card you see modifies the count up or down (we used the Omega II system where 10s were -2, aces and 8s were 0, 4/5/6 were +2, etc). Once you practice (a lot) it's not hard: I could count a double deck perfectly as fast as someone could push cards off the top.
The thing about playing games with a lot of decks is that they let players join at pretty much any point. In a single or double deck game you have to wait for the shuffle. So we could wander around the casino, wait for a (massive) shuffle and then start counting without playing. If the count got good, it could get really good, and once a bunch of "bad" cards were out it would stay good for a while. Long enough to jump in and play a few hands, until the count went bad and then you could pick up your winnings and move along.
Fun times. We made good money for college kids but never had enough starting cash to really make a splash and get caught.
The thing is when you count you start at zero when the deck(s) are shuffled and then keep a running count. So it's just one number. Each card you see modifies the count up or down (we used the Omega II system where 10s were -2, aces and 8s were 0, 4/5/6 were +2, etc). Once you practice (a lot) it's not hard: I could count a double deck perfectly as fast as someone could push cards off the top.
The thing about playing games with a lot of decks is that they let players join at pretty much any point. In a single or double deck game you have to wait for the shuffle. So we could wander around the casino, wait for a (massive) shuffle and then start counting without playing. If the count got good, it could get really good, and once a bunch of "bad" cards were out it would stay good for a while. Long enough to jump in and play a few hands, until the count went bad and then you could pick up your winnings and move along.
Fun times. We made good money for college kids but never had enough starting cash to really make a splash and get caught.