Hedonist said:

Could someone elaborate a tad on the Fred Renzeys' Kiss III count system? Never heard tht one before!

KISS III, much like KO and RED 7 is a level one unbalanced count. It tries to make the most of why one would use an unbalanced count in the first place by using a positive IRC (initial running count, or "starting count"), so that there's little or no crossing back and forth from a positive running count to negative during play.

Whether the game is double deck or an 8 deck shoe, your Key Count (running count at which you begin to ramp up your bets) is "20". At that point, your true count (count per deck) will always be somewhere between +1.3 and +1.8 -- regardless of how deep into the deck or shoe you are.

Your Pivot Point (that one-and-only point in an unbalanced running count where the true count will always be the same) is "21". At that juncture, your true count will always be +2.0. This general territory is where most of your multi-unit bets will be placed, and I believe it's a better place to have your greatest accuracy than at +4.0 true (as some others do).

The system comes with a set of 21 index plays, all to be triggered in at running counts between "4" (hitting 12 vs. 6) and "30" (standing with 16 vs. 9).

CARD TAGs:
red 2....blk 2......3......4......5......6.....7.....8.....9....10.....A
...0.......+1......+1.....+1....+1....+1....+1....0.....0....-1....-1
Betting Correlation: 96%
Playing Efficiency: 55%

KISS III can be "grown into gradually" by first learning KISS I (no 3's, 7's 10-spots or Aces), then progressing to KISS II (no 7's or Aces), then the full scale KISS III.


OPTIONAL UPGRADES:(these can improve the performance of KISS III beyond that of Hi/Lo).
There are optional lessons on how to easily "true fudge" your bets and index plays so that their implementation is virtually as accurate as a true counted balanced system at all running counts.

Down the road, the BC and PE of KISS III can be further improved to 97% and 56% by counting ALL the deuces as +.5, rather than half of them as +1.

There are detailed instructions on how to play the five "-1 true" hands with true counted accuracy (9 vs. 3; 12 vs. 6; 13 vs. 2; A/2 vs. 5; A/4 vs. 4).

The system is thoroughly presented in Blackjack Bluebook II (isbn 0615131042), and has made card counting AP's out of many otherwise stagnated basic strategy players.

Hedonist said:

There's been so much discussion, on which system is better, most opining in favour of the HiLo, but am I right if I say, that the only difference between the two is tht the KO considers the 7 as a +1, whilst the HiLo considers it as a 0; isnt that very marginal?

Could someone elaborate a tad on the Fred Renzeys' Kiss III count system? Never heard tht one before!

There is another difference. When you use an unbalanced count, the pivot point is fixed, so that over the entire shoe, it attempts to recognize somewhere around a TC of +1 or +2 in hi-lo equivalent values. But if you run sims, you discover that with KO you make fewer big bets over the same set of hands as you do with hi-lo. meaning you missed an occasional opportunity to get a bigger bet out, because the IRC takes a while to reach the pivot point. early in the shoe you will likely under-bet your advantage, late in the shoe you can overbet easily... The true-count conversion eliminates that...