Been keeping track of a local casino and after writing things down and looking at the numbers, 30 out of 33 shoes ended with a negative count, Most of them at a -1.7% to -2.3% disadvantage at the end (yes that is percent, not true count). Also noting that the shoe pretty much stayed negative throughout the entire games of the shoe. Does this seem normal?
It is too small of a sample size to mean anything. But if you are suggesting that the casino in question has removed a couple cards, your thinking is backwards. For the count to be negative each shoe, more high cards would have had to come out prior to the shuffle. To achieve that they would have had to remove a couple LOW cards. This means the player would be playing at an advantage all the time.
What you have to worry about is when the shoe ends with a positive count each time. This would mean the low cards which are bad for the player have come out and the high cards which are good for the players are always behind the cut card (or possibly missing). But, in today's world of corporate owned casinos, regulations and fines, it just doesn't happen that way any more.
Thank you for the response. I understand the whole removal of hi or low cards thing, but I guess it looked funny that 30 out of 33 shoes always ended on a negative count with almost a -2% disadvantage. The 3 times it was positive it was only about +.5% advantage.
For the 30 that were negative, the disadvantage hovered around -1.0% to -1.5% throughout most of the shoe. So even though these high cards keep coming out, the percent advantage is negative, so how is one playing at an advantage at that point if the percent is minus?
Six deck shoe. If all cards were played before shuffle, after the last card the count would be zero. Now if you stop at any point during that six deck shoe, the count will indicates two things. What has happened up to this point and what is likely to happen in the future. And they have to balance out. So if you stopped 3 decks into a six deck shoe and the count was significantly negative, that means that going forward, the remaining 3 decks would be played at a disadvantage, with more small cards coming out. Conversely, this means that the 3 decks already played with the high cards coming out were played at an advantage, it is just that you didn't know it until after the fact.
So a negative count at any time, only indicates a disadvantage, GOING FORWARD. The hands that were already played were played at an advantage.
So if at the shuffle point, the count is negative 30 of 33 times that means that IF you played another hand, which you can't, you would be playing at a disadvantage, but the previous hands were played at an advantage.
Again, what you have to worry about is the complete opposite scenario. Each time you get to the shuffle, the count is positive. That COULD indicate that small cards have been removed and you are playing at a disadvantage.
Thank you for the response. I understand better now. If 30 out of 33 shoes going and staying negative at about -1.5% to -2.0% disadvantage is not a big enough sample, what would be? hardly ever see them go positive. Thank you.
...are you using? IOW, are you SURE you're counting properly?
Hope many decks do they deal before shuffling?
you could have been playing the shoes of a shuffle tracker!
The solution to possibly rigged decks is to play single deck games. You can remember 4 aces. They can't remove them and maybe the count can't go so negative.
By the way can I use high-low in single decks?
Pen is 60 to 70. 8 deck. I don't think the dealer was tracking. Just seemed odd to me that such a high percentage of shoes are always being negative and ending negative, yet the wins aren't happening even though such high cards are coming out during the shoe.
Shuffle tracking is a technique used by a player (not a dealer)to cut out portions of a shoe with low cards and play portions of shoe with high cards. Therefore a player successfully using this technique will appear to be playing decks where the count becomes negative. You will win more in the long run playing with more high cards coming out so maybe you observed a fluctuation of more losses in the small sample you looked at.
...the chances of looking at a ST's play are probably pretty slim though.
