The Labouchere system presupposes that the previous hand will have an impact on the wager in the next hand. In other words you adjust your bet based on what happened during the previous hand. After a loss the player will increase their bet, after a win the next bet gets decreased. It sounds simple, but it is slightly more complicated than how it looks on first blush.
You choose a sequence of numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). You decide your wager by adding the first and last numbers in the sequence together (in the case of this example, 1+6 = 7). If you win the hand, cross out the first and last numbers in the sequence (the 1 and the 6). Now what you have left in your sequence is 2, 3, 4, 5. The wager on the next hand is decided by adding the first and last numbers in the remaining sequence (2+5 = 7). If you had lost that first hand, the wager is added to the end of the series so that the number are now 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. On the next bet the player will add the first and last numbers in the series together to get their wager amount (1+7 = 8).
For further clarification see the table below.
| Series | Wager | Result |
| (1,2,3,4,5,6) | 7 | L | -7 |
| (1,2,3,4,5,6,7) | 8 | W | +1 |
| (2,3,4,5,6) | 8 | L | -7 |
| (2,3,4,5,6,8) | 10 | L | -17 |
| (2,3,4,5,6,8,10) | 12 | W | -5 |
| (3,4,5,6,8) | 11 | L | -16 |
| (3,4,5,6,8,11) | 14 | L | -30 |
| (3,4,5,6,8,11,14) | 17 | W | -13 |
| (4,5,6,8,11) | 15 | W | +2 |
| (5,6,8) | 13 | W | +15 |
| (6) | - | END |
This system will yield painfully slow progress, but any progress at the blackjack table is something to be celebrated. Patience pays off when using this system. |
