Shuffle Tracking

Hi currently i am playing around with learning shuffle tracking.

I am using 5 red decks and 1 blue deck, mainly just looking at where the none used cards from the shoe go. I figure after shuffling if i cut 1 deck off the bottom, all the cards end up mixed in the first 2 decks of the new shoe, which i guess is useful coz you know the exact count from last shoe of the left overs. Is there any other simply cuts that do similar things?

How else can i practise this? Is there any good online tutorials?

That is the best way to learn shuffle tracking. First you want to know the house shuffle for the casino(s) that you want to play. You may want to watch a couple of different dealers, because sometimes you will get a different variety of house shuffle from each person. Then at home try starting the blue deck in different areas of the shoe before shuffling and see where you need to cut to get the positive area where you want it. Sometiimes you will want it at the front so you can come out of the gate firing away, which is perfect cover.

What about those automatic shuffle machines (not continuous shufflers that are integrated with a shoe)? Do they totally prevent shuffle tracking?

Most all Blackjack in my area uses the automatic shufflers after dealing a shoe.

Theo

I do not shuffle track. All that I know about it is that you must be an extremely proficient counter to be a shuffle tracker.

You're honest... likeable.... great asset to Bj21.

You take a lot of heat here, but I will say that it is mostly unwarranted!

Oh.. except for that time that you proclaimed H17 better for the players. Funny... but a reasonable mistake, especially from the "dark side".

Keep it up. I'm on your side!

quark...

I'm not looking for a defense but I appreciate the support. About the H17, I was trying to get some answers out of bfbagain who insisted S17 was better. While I've been told since that S17 is better, I still have no reasons why it is. At least I gave some specific examples for advantages of H17. I got nothing from bfb about it other than stuff like "Ha Ha..you're stupid". I just stopped responding to them, because no one cares what each other has to say. Everyone just wants the last word. Look at these arguments a month or so ago with Chappy and others. No one wanted to back down from a argument, which had nothing to do with gambling of any sort, just some soap opera about who did what to whom. Its office politics and no one will ever claim defeat.

Anyway, I still keep an open mind about anyone's opinions and information so long as they have a constuctive tone to them. I try to tell it how it is on the casino side, its just a customer service job. Its essentially no different than working at WalMart, Denny's, or the mall. No one cares about "the man", not even pit critters. They, of course, have a job to do (watching for counters is the least of their worries), but I don't know how else to explain it for those who won't listen or believe it.

For those of you who own your own business or consultant work possibly, it may be hard to comprehend the fact that your employees do not care about your bottom line no matter how much they suck up and brown nose. Especially when you put in your time to a company and they just keep taking away your freedoms and benefits little by little. It happens to everybody, sooner or later. You'll put in 20 years at your job and one day they come to tell you to pack your stuff, cause you're too old and too overpaid for them to keep you despite your knowledge, sacrifice, loyalty, or ability.

Anyway, just wanted to take a little bit of sugar coating off of life.

H17 is worse for the players because it increases the house advantage. In a six deck game, it increases the house advantage by .215%.

By the way, I agree that working for a casino is no different than working for Walmart.

We can definately agree that H17 is worse for basic strategy, that's a given. My question is, why is it worse for counters? I want an example to weigh. My rebuttle is that your high counts will result in bigger bets where the dealer (if soft 17 should come up) will result in a hard 17 or bust anyway. If you are holding 16 or less which will most likely be the case then H17 can only help you. The only time H17 can hurt you is when you are holding 17 or better AND you get outdrawn when the soft 17 is shown. Now when you're counting the only time you are most likely to get outdrawn is when the count is low, in which case your bets will be low and you probably won't have 17 or better anyway.

Now if someone has some examples on the other side of the fence, and how often they occur, I'd like to hear it. Don't just reply with "S17 is better" without something else to go with it. Remember, based on COUNTING, not BS.

Whether H17 is better or not is not the question here. It's WHY is it one way or another.

Go to any source of EV tables, and look at the EV for any hand you want to try, and look at the EV for a H17 game and for a S17 game. The EV for H17 hands is simply lower across the board.

From the wizard of odds:

Dealer has an A up, player has an A-7. S17 ev, best play is hit, for an EV of -.100359 for that hand. H17 ev, best play is to hit, for an EV of -.165428 which is worse for the player. This is repeated all over the place, and is where the extra -.22 comes from for H17 vs S17. Count is irrelevant, because you get those hands at + and - and neutral counts. With a soft-17, there are 13 cards you can draw. 4 will help, A,2,3 and 4, which improve the hand. 4 won't change anything, 10, J, Q or K. The other 5 cards will cause the dealer to hit yet again. Unfortunately, 8 cards with 1/2 of them helping and 1/2 of them causing no change, results in an increase in the house edge..

S17 is simply a better game, whether you count, play perfect BS, or make wild guesses.

Imagine a number-line on a wall. This number-line starts at 0 on the left and goes to 100 on the right. There's a point on this number-line which represents the advantage/disadvantage of the H17 rule. If we consider the number "50" to be the break-even point (meaning that the H17 rule would have absolutely no impact on the player's advantage at all), then Bootlegger's figure of .215% would be represented by a point on the number-line situated at ~49.8925.

Based on your arguments for H17, how much advantage do you think the H17 rule provides the player? One percent? Half-a-percent? One quarter-of-a-percent? At a one-percent advantage, your point on our number-line would be situated at 50.5. At a half-a-percent advantage, your point would be at 50.25, and at a quarter-of-a-percent, your point would be located at 50.125.

Now, take a step back and look at our number-line. Based solely on your estimate, without doing any number-crunching whatsover, your estimate of the H17 advantage/disadvantage has come incredibly close to the "real" figure provided by those who actually DID do the number-crunching. If you believe that the player has a quarter-of-a-percent advantage, your strictly mental arrival at that figure may only be off by a factor of 1% (50.125 vs the actual 49.8925). That's a pretty damn good mental esitmate! It just so happens to be slightly on the opposite side of the mid-point of our number-line in this instance. Those are the breaks.

If you were to try to tell us that the player's advantage is somewhere in the neighborhood of 10%, I'd tell you that your perception is way off. I don't really have a problem with anyone who arrives at the (mistaken) conclusion that H17 is slightly better for the player, once I understand that he's reached that conclusion strictly via mental gymnastics. There are, however, plenty of people who've already taken the time to do the number-crunching for us. Their results have been checked and re-checked, so I don't understand why you'd voluntarily choose to ignore their conclusions and go strictly with your own perceptions. If you want to crunch your own numbers, by all means be my guest, but I doubt that many people here are interested in re-inventing the wheel just to answer your question, particularly when your mental perception is already so incredibly close to the reality.