- The Wong Halves card counting systems was developed by Stanford Wong in 1975.
- To this day, Wong Halves remains one of the most accurate card counting strategies available.
LAS VEGAS – Wong Halves is one of the strongest card counting systems out there that utilizes fractional values for a simple, yet accurate strategy. In this article, we’ll explain the system and how it can be used to play legal blackjack online and at in-person casinos.
The core of the Wong Halves system focuses on a +/- of card values. Players keep a running count of the total sum of card values in the deck by adding and subtracting dealt cards based on the values below.
| Card | Wong Halves Value |
|---|---|
| 2 | +0.5 |
| 3 | +1 |
| 4 | +1 |
| 5 | +1 |
| 6 | +1 |
| 7 | +0.5 |
| 8 | 0 |
| 9 | -0.5 |
| 10, Jack, Queen, King | -1 |
| A | 0 |
Pros And Cons Of Wong Halves Blackjack Card Counting System
First introduced in 1975 with Wong’s book titled Professional Blackjack, the strategy still holds up today, but it’s difficult to use in a live casino setting. While the extremely high betting correlation at roughly 0.99 is highly effective for predicting player advantage, it is difficult to keep track of the fractional values like 0.5 (½) and 1.5 (1 ½) at full casino speed.
A practical way to learn the Wong Halves strategy is to double all values so that players can deal in whole numbers instead of halves. For example, nines would equal -1 instead of -0.5 and twos would equal +1 instead of 0.5. These simpler counts are effective for reducing error rate, but players must remember to halve their final running count for it to work.
All systems for card counting in blackjack emphasize playing efficiency and player advantage, but the Wong Halves system requires strong mental math that could result in errors. Still, the system holds up well in both shoe and pitch games to give player’s a strong advantage.
In summary, the Wong Halves card counting system is more effective for playing at real money blackjack sites than in-person due to the nature of needing to calculate values, but it requires a lot of practice to implement at a live casino.