Mentor Card Counting System

The Mentor card counting system is another one of Fred Renzey's popular methods of gaining an edge over the house. He wrote about it in his book called "Blackjack Bluebook II" around 2003, so this is not a very old idea. This is also a multi-level count system as well at level II. This advanced level 2 type of style is related to how large the indices range from. For example, you need to worry about the index ranging from (+2,+1,0,-1,-2), so there are more numbers to keep track of that are assigned to each card.

This system is extremely similar to the Unbalanced Zen II Count in terms of the index distribution. The only difference is the Mentor count assigns -1 to the "9" cards where the Zen assigns 0. The Mentor system is also a balanced method, meaning that when you start your count at 0 during a newly shuffled deck, you should also have a count of zero after all the cards have been dealt. This makes it helpful in training since you can check to see if you kept an accurate count all through the deck.

The Mentor is also great for medium sized shoes or multiple decks. Three or four decks works great because the system is designed for a number of decks that range between big shoe games (eight decks) and single or double hand-held games. Since this is a level II game, it is a little more complicated to learn though. Fortunately, the aces are recognized and players do not have to be aware of the suits or the colors of the cards.

The indexes are shown below in the chart. The left side shows the card values and the right side is the count units that are assigned to that card value. There is a slightly complicated issue with this system though. You still need to do a conversion between the running count and true count. To find the true count, you need to divide your running count (the one that you are keeping track of in your head) by the remaining double decks. For example, if you have a running count of +24 and there are roughly four decks (two double decks) remaining in the shoe, then your true count is +12.

Since this is a balanced strategy, you start your count off at zero and when you see any of the cards fall on the table, you add the corresponding count unit to your running total that is counted up mentally in your head. For example, if a six, five, 9 and seven were dealt, your total count would be +4 and this would be giving you an advantage over the house by knowing that there are more large valued cards in the deck.

Remember that more tens in the deck benefit the player more than the dealer and you should bet more money when the count is high and positive and tune down the wagers when the count is low and negative. The Mentor card counting system works just like any other style but it has an extremely high betting correlation of 97% as well as a nice playing efficiency as well so this is a pretty powerful one to use for medium sized shoes.