CSM'S

hello all,

i am new to advantage play. ive read where other ap's say that it is a waste of time to play against csm's, that card counting cant beat them. why? if you are playing a 6 or 8 deck shoe, what diff does it make whether a csm shuffles the cards, or the dealer shuffles by hand?

thanks,

jefftrader

Continues Shuffle Machine (CSM) or Automatic Shuffle Machine (ASM).

Your getting confused with these two totally different types of systems. The CSM is the bad one for counters. It usually works with 4 or 5 decks. As the cards are played they go into the discard tray. The problem is that the dealer does not let more than usually a very small amount of cards stack up until they are inserted back into the machine to be shuffled back into the rest of the pack. It can be counted, but essentially the penetration may only be 5% to 15% percent before shuffling occurs again. You really can only count what is out of the machine on the table. When it goes back into the machine for shuffling, you start your count over at zero. You are never able to play against a CSM during a high count because the cards are contantly being reshuffled.

An ASM is generally okay as long as it completely random. The best part about it is that it is fast and keeps the game moving without much down time for shuffling. As far as I know, the main problem is that it won't allow for shuffle tracking.

Happy New Year to all.

thanks stealth! yes, i had the 2 confused......ive never played against a csm, i was confusing them with asm's. ive played the borgata in a.c., with asm's, and i've had terrible luck there....last time, with 2 $200 bets out on a positive 20 shoe, i was dealt 2 20's. dealer pulls a 5 card 21 to beat me, from a +20 count shoe! i couldnt believe it.....i guess these things happen once in a blue moon...so i was trying to rationalize by thinking it was the asm. thanks for clearing it up!

"last time, with 2 $200 bets out on a positive 20 shoe, i was dealt 2 20's. dealer pulls a 5 card 21 to beat me, from a +20 count shoe! i couldnt believe it.....i guess these things happen once in a blue moon..."

These things happen so often that your experience is totally ordinary. The dealer has pulled a multi card 21 in a super high count. That's life at the tables. Better get used to it. Blue moons are rare. Your experience is common.

Here is a trivia question, quite unrelated.

What is the greatest number of cards that can be played in a head's up single deck game in one round of play?

To be more specific, only the dealer and the player are at the table, the player is playing *one* spot at the table against the dealer. The rules are H17, DOA, NDAS, Spl4, split aces get one card each.

I was thinking of this because in my bj simulation program I do not want to shuffle the whole deck each time, only the cards that had been played in the round need to be randomly swapped.

Answer...

First, the player. 4 2's and split 'em into 4 hands. On each hand, we stack on a 3 (total=7), then a 4 (total = 11) then an A (total=12), then a 5 (total=17) and then one more card for each hand that breaks them. 6 cards per hand, total=24.

Dealer gets 3 cards out of what is left. Total = 27 cards?

I discovered that can be beat as I came up with one whacky scheme where the dealer gets a 10 card hand:

(2-2-2-2-3-3-A-A-A-X)

and the player gets the following 4 hands: (splitting 4's to 4 hands)

(4-A-3-3-3-5-X)
(4-5-5-6-X)
(4-6-6-X)
(4-6-7-X)

Total cards = 30 if I did that right.

there are 5 threes in your deck!

Was also wondering what the dealer was showing. Depending on what the dealer was showing, would have determined whether or not you chose the right decession of standing on your 20's rather than spliting. However, spliting would not have made the dealer any less likely of pulling the five card 21.

In a heads-up game, if the player busts all four split hands, the dealer never gets his third card.

cant remember exactly what the dealer was showing, but it was a low card...i remember that.....i have been hesitant to split 10's initially, for obvious cover reasons. but i sure would like to start doing that against the bust cards with a high count, it seems too juicy to pass up!

Mine is a 'go for the gusto, I came to gamble' wild man act. I can sell it too. ;-)

yes, i need to work on my acting.....i actually used a similar ruse 2 weeks ago and it worked....the "i dont know what im doing but im going for it" kind of thing.....i even held out my hand to show the dealer i was shaking, in full view of the pit boss of course. it was the shoe from heaven, $2,700 in half a shoe, won almost every hand, spread to 3 hands, it made up for the 5 card 21 dealer had that i mentioned!

2+3 = 7 is another little issue with your post 8-)

Your answer is correct, the path to it is not. Can you find a legal way of getting 30 cards into play in one round?

I presume that the player need not play anything like BS ? If your concern is writing a simulator, then you may need to permit all kinds of voodoo and ploppy strategies.

In the example above, a BS player would never split 4s against a 2.

Can th player hit hard 17? What about Hard 18, etc.
More seriously, he has our player hit Soft 21 ((4-A-3-3-3-5-X) . I do not think this should be allowed. Doubling on Soft 21 is one thing, but hitting is another.

I think his dealers hits Hard 17 as well.

To get a long dealer sequence, you need to have a 5. You draw to Soft 17, then you pull a 5 to get to a hard 12. Anything less than 5 gives the dealers a terminal hand.

You can do this A A A 2 2 5 A 2 2 in single deck, which is 9 cards.

In multiple deck, you can draw 7 Aces, a 5, and then 5 more Aces. This is with H17.

>Can th player hit hard 17? What about Hard 18, etc.

If the player can't hit a hand with a hard total of 17 or more, then the max number of cards I can get is 27, not 30. The 27 cards completely follows basic strategy for 1D H17 all the way.

This is not really a hard question 8-)

Eliot wrote ;

If the player can't hit a hand with a hard total of 17 or more, then the max number of cards I can get is 27, not 30. The 27 cards completely follows basic strategy for 1D H17 all the way.

Suppose that I can use 27 cards playing BS. Now say that you allow me to hit Hard 17 and higher. Then I can hit all 4 of my split hands., which brings the total number of cards to 31.

I think the last scenario I came up with used 29 cards, but the players hit hard 20 or something.

I am having trouble using a lot of cards playing BS. To split low cards you need a low upcard, which requires stopping at hard 12 or 13.

The difference is that with 27, the dealer hits to make a hand. With 30, all 4 hands have busted, so the dealer doesn't hit.

When you want the solution...

That it is now fairly obvious. The possibly of everybody busting out was something I had not considered.

I have a scenario where we split 4 times, and each hand draws a 6 card 21, following BS. This is 26 cards. The dealer has an up-card and a down-card. I count this as 26 cards Because so many low cards are out, the dealer can only draw only one more card, for 27.

If the player is allowed to deviate from BS (in a big way), he/she can bust all 4 hands. So the player uses 4 times 7 = 28 cards. There is also the dealer up-card and down-card, for 30.

I can only think of one choice for the dealer up-card.

In vegas, summer 2004, I was playing at a shoe game with a family member. I had "wonged" us in at the MGM and we were playing along, when two young Korean kids walked up and bought in. Second round they (they played one hand together, $100 bet at a $10 min) they got 10-10 vs dealer 6 up. They could hardly speek a word of English, but they could say "double" which they did. Dealer asked repeatedly "are you sure?" They were adamant. Dealer called pit boss over and he and another pit critter talked them out of it. They stood. Next card dealt was an Ace!. More conference and they comped the kids to a couple of meals at the buffet.

So strange things do happen, and we almost had a profitable double on 20 vs 6 at my table. :)

player gets and splits 4 2's. Each hand then is played out the same:

2-3-4-5-6-A-X and breaks. 7 cards per hand. plus dealer's 2 cards...

:)

four identical player hands:

2-3-4-5-6-A-X, where that obviously "breaks" since the A made 21 for each hand. The four split cards could be 2-3-4-5-6 (not A since you normally get just one card). This way the dealer could have a 7-8-9-X up/down since they are all in the deck?