Card counting effectively takes a lot of time and effort. Aces and Fives is a simple system for you to gain useful practice before moving on to something more complicated.

The majority of casual players stick to basic strategy, even though making all the right moves leaves the house with an edge of .5 percent. That is exactly why card counting is the hottest topic in the world of blackjack.

If you are really interested in winning at blackjack, you have to learn advantage play, strategies which are legal but tip the edge in your favor. And the most obvious example is learning to count cards.

In fact, the majority of pro blackjack players are card counters, most of whom use the Hi-Lo system. While the system works well, it takes a lot of time and practice and is frustrating for many aspiring players. Some experts advise starting with a simpler system before working your way up to Hi-Lo.

That’s where Aces and Fives comes in. Its not the most accurate counting system out there, but it is easy to learn and serves as a good building block as you work your way up to bigger and better things.

How Aces and Fives works

Aces and Fives is a simpler card counting system than Hi-Lo because the player only needs to count two different cards (we think you can guess which ones) instead of each card that comes out of the dealer’s hand. You simply assign a +1 to a five and a -1 to an ace.

Here’s an example. The dealer has dealt two fives (+2) and one ace (-1) from the current deck. That adds up to a count of +1. Counting strategy says that a count of one or higher means that you should bet more than the minimum, so increase the amount of money you put on the table.

The same basic principle of Hi-Lo applies here. The higher the count, the more money you should bet, because you chances of beating the dealer have increased. Whereas in Hi-Lo a higher count means a higher chance of landing face cards in general, in Aces and Fives a higher count means a higher chance of landing one card in particular: aces.

Having a high count means that more fives than aces have been dealt. This means that relatively more aces remain in the deck. This is good for you, because landing an ace gives you a good chance of ending up with a blackjack, or at the very least a strong hand.

Pros of the system

This is a pretty open and shut case. Aces and Fives is a good system because it is very easy to learn and to practice. The player only needs to watch and adjust the count for two cards. Yes, you still have to pay constant attention to every card coming out of the dealer’s hand. But you don’t have to make as many computations.

Blackjack experts recommend spending about 40 hours practicing at home before attempting to use the Hi-Lo system in a casino. With Aces and Fives, you only need to spend about half that time. Sure, practice makes perfect. But we see it as a stepping stone to more complex systems.

Cons

The downside of Aces and Fives is that isn’t terribly accurate. It only informs the player on how many aces are left in the deck, instead of how many face cards in general. So a player using this system is not going to have as much success as one using Hi-Lo or a system like Omega II that uses even more complex blackjack signals.

There are situations where the count is high but the remaining cards are not necessarily in the player’s favor. For example, many fives have been dealt, so the count is high. However, it may be possible that many tens and jacks have also been dealt while many low cards remain. So the deck is really not in the player’s favor, despite what the count says.

The count also never varies very much, so there aren’t many different amounts worth betting. What this means is that the count will very rarely be more than +2 and will hover between -1, 0 and +1 throughout most of the shoes, so the spread between the minimum and maximum bet never changes much.

To use or not to use?

While Hi-Lo is predicted to shift the house edge into the player’s favor by as much as 2 percent, the impact of Aces and Fives isn’t as great. Basically what Aces and Fives does is help a new advantage player learn to count while still giving them an advantage over the house, albeit a smaller one.

All in all, Aces and Fives is great for someone who already has basic strategy down but is just starting to learn how to count. There is nothing wrong with using it for a month or so as a practicing tool. Just make sure that you move up to Hi-Lo as soon as you are ready.