Pai Gow

I'd like to hear the opinion of as many people as possible on this one:

I recently played pai gow at a casino as i was trying to divert some of the heat i had accumulated playing DD. I was playing $15 on the bet plus $5 on the bonus. After about 45 mins of playing, spreading from $15-$20 and $5-$10 on the bonus, I was up about $130, roughly double what i bought in for. Now this may seem as it is completely luck, and I would accept that for what it is, but here's the catch. I am a dealer at another casino nearby, and I rarely if ever see anyone leave up that high a percentage so quickly.

Now the casino that employs me uses a shuffle machine that is equipped with a sensor that allows the floorman to push a button when it is time to change cards, and the cards come out sorted into the order in which they were in when they were fresh out of an unopened deck. The casino which i was playing at uses a basic shuffler, without the sorting capability.

SO, is it possible that the casino i work at uses a machine that manipulates the cards as not to deal out any decent hands? Or at least not very frequently?

I cant wait to see some of your responses.

Anxious

When you say" ... the cards come out sorted into the order in which they were in when they were fresh out of an unopened deck." I find that VERY hard to believe.

Indeed, how can the shuffled cards be "unshuffled" without resorting to an affordable compact Time Machine !

I think it's possible, though I've never heard of it. It wouldn't be a big deal to build, compared to a regular shuffler. They might use them to repackage old decks for resale.

But they wouldn't use them at the table, and it's pretty unlikely they're using them to cheat.

..This is one of those stories that is somewhat unbelievable. Many years ago there was a cruise to nowhere ship out of the Port of Miami called the Tropicana. It was a damn nice boat that treated its regular customer very well. Good shoe games with late surrender and S17. Top notch restaurant, and I am talking white glove service and gourmet food, always comped, in addition to a pretty decent buffet. The ship was owed by a guy named Tom Collins, like the cocktail. For obvious reasons I quickly recalled his name in spite of my failing memory. He was in the refurbished slot machine business and sunk a fortune into this ship, literally.

I don't remember if this was before Shufflemaster invented the automatic shuffler, but someone in casino management decided that instead of having the dealers shuffle the six or eight deck shoes, they would have one of the floor people constantly shuffling the cards for all the tables. When a shoe was over, the dealer would hand him the old cards in exchange for a freshly shuffled pack. Logical, saves a lot of time on a three or four hour cruise,

My friend Bill L., "the professor", may he rest in peace, and I were playing at a full table, maybe six players total and the dealer starts dealing the cards. It took about one or two rounds before we realized the CARDS WERE NEVER SHUFFLED, and were coming out in suit and index order. Neither of us were counters at that time. We both caught on to what was happening at the same time. We weren't crazy, but were stupid enough not to know what to do with that information, 100% knowledge of the dealers hole card in addition to what our draw would be, on such short notice, although if I recall, we made a couple of perfect insurance calls and stood on some stiffs contrary to basic strategy, which was all we knew at the time. They dealt the entire shoe and nobody commented on it. The dealer never had a clue.

If that would only happen to me today in a heads-up game. Am I asking for too much?

Cobbson

If that were to happen, by the time you were done playing, the ship would be yours :-)

regards
waugh

so getting back to my question, can casinos use the shuffle machines to manipulate who gets what cards in pai gow?