Description of a Casino's Penetration in the Current Blackjack News

I took the plunge and have purchased my first CBJN. The August issue should be in my e-mail inbox on Friday.

Dr. Wong has been nice enough to provide us with a sample issue on BJ21.com. My question has to do with how penetration at each casino is described in CBJN. On page 3 of the sample CBJN, here is the cut description: "The column labeled �cut� shows the number of decks yet unseen when the dealer is undecided on whether to shuffle or deal another round. For games with a �cut card� to determine the shuffle point, �decks unseen� is the number of cards behind the cut card plus the number of burned cards unseen, divided by 52."

1) Regarding the first sentence in quotation marks above ("The column labeled 'cut' shows the number of decks...").7, for example, in the "Cut" Column of CBJN would mean that the dealer may decide to shuffle when there is still 70% of the single deck yet to be played?

1b)Is there any agreement between "Rule of 5" or "Rule of 6" or "Rule of 7" and what is indicated in this "Cut" Column of CBJN? For instance, would .4 under the "Cut" Column indicate Rule of 6? Rule of 4?

2) Regarding the second sentence in quotation marks above("For games with a 'cut card' to..."), does the dealer just "eyeball" where to place the cut card?

3) Don't any casinos just deal out a specified # of rounds for single deck? In other words, there is no guesswork. For example, maybe a casino employs the Rule of 6, so for head to head play you know for certain you will receive 5 rounds, no more/no less?

Overkill,

1. Yes, if the Cut = 0.7, that means that 0.7 decks (36-37 cards) are behind the cut card (if they use one) or are still in the dealer's hand when she decides to shuffle.

1b. If the SD game is dealt as "Rule of X", then the Cut value shows an approximation. Clearly, the smaller the Cut number, the better the pen, but I don't know the exact formula used.

2. Most times the dealer "eyeballs" it, but in some casinos the dealer inserts the freshly-shuffled deck into the discard rack and inserts the cut card at the spot indicated by a "notch" on the discard rack. I personally cannot recall seeing a notch used at SD, but I have seen it at DD and shoe games.

3. At SD, many casinos don't use a CC at all, and instead simply follow the "Rule of X".

Getting back to Point 1 above, you do realize that if no CC is used, the "Cut" value is an approximation, and is usually too high. For example, let's say "Hypothetical Casino" (HC) deals a SD game with a pen of exactly 26 cards, and you are the CBJN reporter assigned to determine the pen for the publication. You go in to observe the SD game.

1. Now if HC uses a CC, you quickly realize that, counting the burn card, the CC is immediately after the 26th card, and you report the Cut as 0.5. Job finished!

2. On the other hand, if HC does NOT use a CC, then you count the number of cards burned and seen before the dealer shuffles. The penultimate round ends with the dealer still holding 28 cards, so she deals another round (using 7 cards) and then, now holding only 21 cards, she shuffles. "Aha!" you exclaim (quietly, I hope!) to yourself, "HC is giving a Cut of 21/52 = 0.4!"

Thus, if HC does not use a CC, you can see how the pen can be exaggerated. In that case you'd have to watch a few decks, determine the apparent Cut for each, and report the worst value. But the we get into the problem of how precisely the dealer can determine that she has 26 cards... as you can see, there's a bit of guesswork involved! That's why so many pitch games have the "Pen varies by dealer" notation.

Hope this helps!

Dog Hand