Canfield Expert System

The canfield expert system became popular after the book Blackjack your way to riches was published in 1977 by Richard Albert Canfield. The writer was probably the country's first great casino operator who died in 1914. Some think that this Canfield was really John Hinton who was a former pit boss and an expert gambler. The book contains a lot of information and is nicely written.

The writers explained number of rules that had to be met for the canfield expert system. According to them, just because a system is more complex doesn't mean that it is going to be more effective and powerful. To them, the system must be easy for the students to learn and implement in short time and also can be used in real casino environment. Also, the system has to be equally good for both single and multiple deck games and adaptive to the changing casino conditions. Moreover, the player must not feel tired while using this and the Ace must be a neutral card in this system.

In the canfield expert system 3 to 7 are counted as +1 and all 9 to 10 cards as -1. The Ace, 2 and 8 are counted as neutral. The 2 can help the dealer make a lot of hands, so it is a little tricky. As a result, its removal helps the player only a little.

The Ace is a high card for betting purposes, that is why it is counted as a neutral in the canfield expert system. Although it is not sure how effective it is as betting variations is much more important than the playing variations.

Because of having a balanced count and playing with more than one deck of cards, the running count must be converted into a true count. In the canfield expert system, they call it an exact count instead of a true count. You just have to divide the running count with the number of decks remaining in the game for getting the exact count. You will be adding or subtracting fractions like Å' or 1/3 from the exact count as you have to adjust the ace.