Is this considered a good Counting Method above Hi Lo???

I have a friend who has been playing blackjack as an experienced counter for several years now. On top of basic Hi Lo he employs the method of counting 7's and 9's as well (7s of course being plus 1 and 9s neg 1). He ignores the 8s always. He said he has found it to be more effective than excluding all 7-9. He had never heard of anyone else using this system and today I found that the MIT team actually does after reading up more on the documentary. My question is to some of the more experienced players in their opinion of whether they believe this method is a more effective one, could work against you or basically makes no difference?

Cacarulo used side count of 7s, and his technique adds about 6% to the SCORE. Not sure about 9s, probably very little for the effort.

That is the Silver Fox count. It is not a better method over hi-lo for the majority of situations.

The effects of removal of both the 9 and the 7 are to close to zero to be of any value for betting purposes.
It is slightly more defensive than Hilo but certainly not better.

Francis Salmon

Where did you get that MIT was using this counting method ?

The method was initially developed by Koko Ita and known as "Green Fountain". It was subsequently rediscovered by Ralph Stricker, who called it "Silver Fox", and Edward Early. Thorp mentions it also in Beat The dealer. For most games it does not outperform hi-lo or KO.

There is actually very little difference in performance generally between count systems, in terms of EV, at least in shoe games. Generally they all perform within 5-10% of the win rate for each other in specific games, and further convergence is caused by the fact that each tends to perform better or worse given micro-adjustments across the broad paramater of game conditions.

Review: Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich

Excerpt:
- How did they do it? They created a team of math geeks that descended on casinos. Their strategy: They would place a spotter at each table who would count the cards being played.

>>>They used a high/low method, tracking how many "low cards" were in the deck (2-7) versus the "high cards" (9-A).<<<<

When the number of high cards remaining in the undealt deck was significantly more than the low cards, the spotter would signal a team member on the casino floor. Having more high or "bust" cards in the deck gives a slight advantage to the players versus the house. That team member would join the table and bet heavy until the deck was either no longer rich, or until it was an appropriate time to leave. When the deck was rich, they'd do seemingly dumb things to increase their bets and their profit, including splitting face cards and standing on certain hands that you'd never do under normal circumstances.

That is the reviewer saying how they did it, not an excerpt from the book. I could be wrong but I do not think they used the Silver Fox.