Who is the perfect target audience for someone selling (or giving away) card counting software? And who are the people who design blackjack card counting programs?
Complete beginners to blackjack and to card counting might be the perfect audience for someone interested in selling a blackjack card counting program. On the other hand, someone who has been counting cards for years might like to use a card counting program of some sort to learn a new card counting system. Imagine someone who has always used the hi-lo count, but who, for whatever reason, wants to learn to use the red seven count or the knockout count instead.
And the perfect person to design a piece of card counting software would also need a certain number of skills:
Card counting software might serve multiple purposes, and there might even be different kinds of card counting software that become available. The most obvious use for such software that I can think of would be as a tutorial or learning tool. The program would deal cards, track the count, and allow you to check to see if your mental count corresponded with the program's count.
But people with a more adventurous mind might be looking for blackjack card counting software that they could use in a casino to track the count for them, without having to mentally track the count. Maybe a computer program that had 2 buttons, one for pluses and one for minuses, and displayed the count on a tiny screen on the inside of some sunglasses? You could put the buttons in the toes of your shoes. Tap your left foot to add one and tap your right foot to subtract one.
That kind of card counting program would still require that you understand the basics of card counting (which cards have which point values), but maybe the card counter in question wouldn't have to concentrate so hard in order to remember the count. But using a device to help you win at gambling is surely considered cheating in most casinos, and it's illegal in most jurisdictions too. And I'm not sure that using such a device would really be much more helpful than just learning how to count cards in the first place. In fact, I think the perfect use for any kind of card counting software program is as a learning and practice tool.
A card counting program that actually helped you to count cards in a casino would probably be inconvenient to use anywhere except in a casino, but a card counting tutorial program would be something you could probably use from just about anywhere. If the program is a no-download tutorial available on the web, you'd need a location with Internet access, but a lot of programs are available where you get a disk and load the software onto your computer. Provided you have a laptop, you could theoretically use that card counting software to learn how to count cards from just about anywhere.
And such software would be available to you anytime you wanted. But the best time to use a card counting tutorial type software would be before you set foot in a casino and try to count cards for the first time.
I'm not sure that using such a program offers many benefits beyond the traditional means of learning to count cards though. Most people sit at a kitchen table with a deck of cards that they count through. If you're using a balanced card counting system, you can count through a deck of cards and know whether or not you got the count right by whether or not you got a total of 0 at the end. On the other hand, the blackjack strategy changes at various counts could be included in a card counting tutorial software. And learning the strategy deviations as well as the right times to raise and lower your bets is going to increase your advantage significantly.
A free card counting blackjack software is available at Super Blackjack 21. It's completely free, but it does require an Internet connection in order to work. You can choose to practice any of six different card counting strategies, and the device includes a toggle which will turn on or off the display of the running count. It also has a red light and a green light to let you know whether or not you're making the right strategy decision.
The best card counting program I'm aware of though is the one available at Qfit.com. It's the closest thing to a "perfect card counting program" you'll find anywhere. The site has references and testimonials from many of the most respected gambling writers and thinkers in the world. They offer multiple products to help aspiring blackjack advantage players learn to count cards, shuffle tracking, ace prediction, and basic strategy.
See also: