Question about non-volatile shoes

Recently had one of those annoying sessions where I was playing a good 6D game and nothing happened. I was at the table for over two-and-a-half hours and had one brief stretch where the count dictated I raise my bet, and that was just to three units.

Shoe after shoe cruised neutral--no volatility. I didn't switch tables because of a belief that eventually we'd have to start seeing some swings.

This table happened to have a Shufflemaster, so I was actually playing two 6D shoes, both caught in a remarkable state of even card distribution. I'm not meaning to bring the SM into the discussion, however. I've had the same thing happen, and am sure others have, when the cards are being hand-shuffled. In fact, I often seek out SMs because of the increase in hands per hour they grant, and don't believe they pose any disadvantage versus hand-shuffling.

Back to my question: Is there any sense in getting up and leaving when shoe after shoe hangs around neutral from beginning to end? My brain was telling me to take a break and find a different table. But then my brain would tell me to stay, the next shoe could zoom positive as easily at my table as at the next.

I've played 6D where the shoe goes way negative one time, then gives a nice stretch of positive counts the next, because the cards have gotten way out of whack, and the shuffles don't seem to change that--or change it slowly. So when shoes are running neutral, can they have a tendency to stay that way for a few hours at a time? Should you try a different table?

SJ

I recently played a hand shuffled double deck game and it kept going slightly to very negative. I looked like a ploppy king, flat betting the table mininum for about 4 hours. (Might have made about one or two 2 unit bets in that 4 hour period.) Attempted cutting the deck thin at the top, thin at the bottom, etc. Nothing worked. Negative counts for about half a shift, through relief dealers, different number of players, etc.

I finally started spreading about 1:20 when the deck starting getting positive counts again, and left shortly after the dealer started telling the pit how 'lucky' I was when I bet big, but did lousy when I bet small. This was right after a double down on 9 vs 7, with about a 10 unit original bet. Left with a small profit.

I was told by a Shufflemaster engineer that the machine is made specifically to cut down on the distortions by getting as close to a random shuffle as possible...I think the hand shuffled shoes are better...When three blackjacks are placed into the discard tray at the same time, and if the dealer does a loose shuffle, those high cards have a greater tendency to stay together.

Part of the value to the Casino's of multiple decks, is the reduction in the amount of time that favourable conditions will occur for a card counter...Sometimes that means nothing advantageous for long periods of time...We tend to take it for granted when there is an inordinant number of good betting situations and remember it more vividly when there are none.

When three blackjacks are placed into the discard tray at the same time, and if the dealer does a loose shuffle, those high cards have a greater tendency to stay together.

I did a study on this and thought I'd discovered a profitable new avenue of advantage play. The results were disappointing though-basically, if initially adjacent aces and tens are separated by only one card post-riffle in a heads-up game, the player gains an advantage of 0.05% per deck over basic strategy for every 10% likelihood this will occur, over the spectrum of the shoe. Not bad perhaps, but given riffling of this quality traditional sequencing is more potent.
Whether a clump of aces & tens such as you describe has a stronger effect I don't know, but I wasn't motivated to continue the analysis. It is possible that cumulative effects would be more than the sum of their parts.

See the article "1...2...3 sequence-counting" in New chance & Circumstance magazine for more info.

since I began to play against Auto Shufflers 2 years ago.

I am convinced a bad shoe will stay that way for several passes and I just leave and try to find one that is positive and they most always seem to stay that way for, again, several passes.

I have not noticed this so much with hand shuffle.

This weekend while playing a new set of cards in DD I asked the player who had cut the red deck to cut it again and in the same spot, that I wanted to do an experiment, the dealer had gotten a bj on the first round out but the deck had been good for us.

Sure enough he cut the same spot and the dealer got the same BJ on the first round out and the rest of the rounds were almost the same as the first. All were very surprised at what happened.

Joe.

The posters on this subject seem to agree that multiple-deck shoes can run either neutral, negative or positive for a considerable period of time, repeating the trend shoe after shoe. I, too, have experienced this phenomenon.

This is the same phenomenon on which Jerry Patterson bases his 'Target 21' playing technique and yet most posters on this site deride his method. Why is that? If the phenomenon exists why not utilize it? Why not seek out and play in positive shoes that repeat themselves rather than neutral or negative shoes that last for long periods?

Duke

His theory suggest play against hot shoes(dealers busting and players get good cards) this appears to provoke exactly the opposite of what you suspected, where a gambler using pattersons approach will actually be playing against more negative shoes (not positive) most of the time due to the 'hot cards" coming out. It's easy to see how this approach is useless.