shuffle tracking advice

I play with marginal rules (8ds17,1.5deck cut) but 20 min from my house and absolutely no heat, I spread 10 to 100X4, I do very well over 5 years(well above sim predicted) and I think it is partly because of wonging but also because the shuffle is pretty trackable.
I met a fellow AP who thinks am using the shuffle tracking wrong. I do 1 below and he does 2 and 3.
My question:
1. am I better to put the smalls in front, then verify a high count ( because I am not sure) bet like crazy at the normal time but risk that the bigs may preferentially be in the cutoff and I will get killed...( this is what I do)
2. put the smalls in the cutoff on purpose so that in theory most of the shoe is at a small advantage, then start my count and bet normally starting from 0 ( even though I think if my cut worked I am starting positive)
3. put the bigs in front and bet high during the packet of bigs then proceed as normal, downside is often you then need to find another table or wait for next shoe as it gets very neg??
thanks

I don't think one can give a clear cut answer to your question. It very much depends on your tracking ability.Personally, I prefer your method of cutting the small cards to the top.The fact that there is a rather generous penetration in a long 8-deck game is one more argument in favor of that.
Trying to cut high cards to the top or small cards behind the cut card (and then start with a +count)is very risky and I would do this only if I get bad penetration.
In my home tracking tests I noticed that my error rate was about 30% (even shuffling myself!) , definitely too much for the risky variation.
Frankly, I think you should stick to your method.

Francis Salmon

1 and 2 only if that's your only option but it doesn't have that much worth.

3 is what most players do, of course you have no idea if you're gonna be right until after you're finished and if the slug is bigger than a quarter deck you really should use NRS to figure changes in your advantage as you progress through the playzone.

There is a fourth option.

Cut the bigs to be basically right in front of the cut card so that they are the last part of the shoe that you play through. You lose the cover betting effects of being able to bet big off the top, but you will have a good idea headed into that segment that you've nailed the cut correctly since your TC should naturally rise as you head into that playzone. Just remember to subtract the value of the slug from your off the top RC and then add it back as your playzone begins. For deeply cut shoes at that point you don't even need NRS because your number of pseudodecks will roughly be equal to the number of actual decks remaining at that point. Also, since you're playing all anyway those negative advantage early parts of the shoe don't cost you anymore than they would have cost you if you had to play though them if they were positioned in the second half of the shoe. All ST does is change the TC frequency so it doesn't matter whether it's at the beginning of the shoe or the end of the shoe as long as you get the big cards when you want them. Of course if you turn a 6D game count frequency into a 2D game count frequency you can use a smaller spread to beat the game. If mid shoe entry is allowed you can even cut the cards play two rounds, go to the bathroom while other players eat up the negative rounds and then return from the bathroom in time for your Playzone and bomb away from your first hand back.

Cheers.

BP

I put the high cards right in front of the cut card. I was a counter for a long time and liked to let a count develop and bet into it. If I didn't have a + count when I reached the slug I went to 2 x 2X and finished the shoe. A true shuffle tracker puts the cards at the front of the shoe and bets into it. It avoids bet variation which is always nice. I considered what I was doing more as enhanced card counting rather than shuffle tracking. I was comfortable with it and did better over traditional counting the times I found conducive conditions. At the 6 deck games in the old Horseshoe in Shreveport I once cut six shoes in a row where the count went up and then came right back down on schedule. I have most of the shuffle tracking material out there as well as some privately developed material and have done traditional shuffle tracking but for this I was using Dennis Suggs Shuffle Trak and watching for high card and low card slugs and cutting from there.

I also thought of putting an identified highcard slug right before the cut card but I see two major problems with this.
The first problem is obvious: since you place this slug close to the end of the shoe the slightest imprecision will lead to it's being behind the cut card which would be very unfortunate.
The second problem is this: suppose you have identified a slug of high cards which after contamination you estimate at -10. Now you cut this slug to the 4th and 5th deck. The shoe starts with a series of low cards and reaches +10 very quickly. Now the big question: Do you attack or don't you?If you trust your cut you shoudn't since you're just facing a neutral deck. As I understand you won't. In that case you should actually have started your shoe with a count of -10, and later add +10 right before your slug.Do you? But if you have been mistaken with your cut or if the contamination was more important than you thought, you are missing a lot of opportunities in the first half of the shoe.
For this reason I prefer to cut an identified slug of high cards to third and fourth deck.

Francis Salmon

Also is the size of the slug. If your just cutting the best half you really don't have much choice in the matter.

Tip I got via an infamous ST team from the 80s is to always be extra conservative with your betting. Many a BR has been destroyed by seat of the pants tracking and trying to key card unfriendly shuffles. After you look at the shuffle be realistic about what you can actually get out of it. Remember if you can only negate the house edge you can still turn a poor game into a great one when you combine St with straight counting. St can work synergistically with a variety of other things like Ace tracking

thank you for great suggestions. the opinions confirm my impression that method 1 is really enhanced counting but is fairly safe while you are working on your skills

I forgot to mention in my original post I do also like to put the bigs before the cut card

I am still not reliable enough to do the early bigs and bet on faith method. Maybe that will come.
forgive my ignorance but what does NRS stand for?

thanks

I can't remember the link but if you google the "NRS-formula" you will certainly find this excellent theoretical article.

Francis Salmon

With traditional shuffle tracking I cut the high cards to the front as I mentioned. When I put the high cards in front of the cut card I was using Shuffle Trak. Shuffle Trak maps out the whole shoe. After running the shuffle before play began I knew where various segments of the shoe should wind up on average with adequate accuracy. As long as a dealer displayed the right tendencies and procedures were met I had all the confidence I needed. I also put low card slugs at the front of the shoe (not out of play) as well as high cards before the cut card so I created more opportunities than just tracking high card slugs. Since ST maps the whole shoe I usually would have a pretty good idea where both high and low card slugs should be located post shuffle without having to do much in the way of calculating at the table. I bet the count if there was no reason not to. If no + count developed when I hit the sweet spot, as I said, I bet 2 hands of 2 units. I did this more than a short time and it increased my win rate. I wouldn't have posted if it hadn't. To have a +xx count early with a -xx slug in front of the cut card isn't something that happened with a great frequency. If I had a +10 early and no information on the intervening cards to the slug I'd bet my normal spread. I've never been bothered by fluctuations other than they can attract attention.

I see two advantages to putting the big slug before the cut card.

One is that in the event that the shoe hasn't gone positive by the time the slug of bigs is reached, there is an increased probability that the big slug is contaminated by more low cards than average, and caution can and should be exercised.

The second consideration is how a late slug offers opportunities for ramping up bets slowly as the slug approaches, spreading and increasing bets slowly and not uniformly, looking if possible like a progression.

A separate consideration in selection of where to put the big slug is dependent on the shuffle. If the shuffle is consistent and one part of the deck is not shuffled as completely as another, having the bigs in the less shuffled part of the deck may make for more reliable tracking for the next shoe.

I think it's wise not to try cutting small cards out of play but rather to the top. Cutting them out of play would certainly give you a bigger playzone but a mistake would be extremely expensive. You might bet into garbage during the whole shoe.
When you cut the high cards to the last portion of the shoe you really should start your shoe with the corresponding -count as bigplayer suggested and return to the real count just before your playzone starts.
Cutting high cards to the top is justified when penetration is bad.
But also here it's wise to start with an adjusted count according to the NRS-formula. This allows you both correct betting and correct playing.

Francis Salmon

I relied on Shuffle Trak for this particular play.

Small powerful segments usually last only 1 or 2 rounds and are done, thus you don't need to re-figure your edge as you progress through them and for larger but still fairly small segments Arnold's NRS shortcut rules of thumb work quite well.

For larger segments, for example a best half, the count goes up and down as you progress through the segment and the NRS formula really helps you manage your betting as you progress through the playzone. It accounts for the fact that big cards you see coming out in the first part of your slug carry less information about the composition of the remaining playzone than does cards coming out later in the playzone.