What's your experience w/ 8-deck games?

If the rules were reasonable and the House Edge isn't too high, do you still give it a look?

Main reason I ask is the difficulty of keeping the count over an extended period. I can track 6 decks w/ success. 8 decks is tougher. If you lose the count, it feels like forever before the shuffle.

I like shoe games, in general. In 6/8 deck games, the edge on a given hand normally won't be extreme. But the edges last longer. Some of the best runs I've had have been vs extended +EV situations in 6-deck game.

If you can shuffle track effectively, you will beat shoes. With straight counting it's an uphill climb.

You have your pen, rules and bet spread. They combine to give you your theoretical win rate. I have beaten the 8 deck game consistently over my career the times I played them and had 3 $10K weeks back to back to back on 8 deck games. I had my biggest one shoe loss on a 4 deck game. Your win rate will be smaller on an 8 deck game, all things being equal, than lesser decks so you run your numbers and see if it's worth it to you. My personal criteria for the 8 deck game you must have excellent rules and no more than 1.25 cut off. It can't be crowded either. The game I mentioned above was Foxwoods in the good ole days, .75 cut off, LS, S17, DA2, RSA once and pretty mellow attitu8de. They were starting to watch the 6 deck games closely and were experimenting with stellar cuts on the 8 deckers. I went 1 x 10 to 2 x 250, sat out anything below -1 and jumped right back in the same shoe at +1. With complete impunity. They depended on the eye in the sky back then and the counter catchers were easy to fool. I went to play this game because of the excellent cut and rules. I don't think I would have gone if the cut was more that 1 deck. I had better opportunities elsewhere,
Cliff Notes:
8 deckers are easily beatable with excellent conditions. They're torture without.

When 4 decks were in abound I played only 1 deck cut or less. Then came 6 deck. I only played cut less then 2 decks. Those games were plentiful but started to dry up after time. When 8 decks started I gave up counting and figured out other ways to exploit the game. Now and then I do play 8 deck games but find it rather boring. It's still beatable and a cleaver way to get free cocktails.

Think of an eight deck game as a six deck game with two more decks of waiting bets. Count volatility comes from the amount of cards cutoff from the end. If you have a 1 deck cut from an eight deck game and a 1 deck cut from a six deck game you've got essentially the same game if the rules are the same (six will have only a very slighly higher win rate).

Eight deck has certain advantages...you can get some pretty wild slugs of big cards which due to the nature of the number of decks are pretty hard to shuffle away completely. When you wongout you are avoiding a lot of negative rounds and when you get a plus running count they can be pretty big and last a long time. The problem is getting through all those extra waiting bets and with the bad rules common on eight deck that's pretty costly...couple that with often bad penetration due to the casino telling dealers to cutoff 25% that makes eight deck often unplayable at any stakes. 25% cutoff from six deck might still be playable...25% cutoff from eight is horrible.

6- and 8-deck games are largely viewed as recreational by casino mgmt. "Who can count a 6-deck shoe?"

Have to be able to jump around tables, as you reference.

Good luck at the tables!

may epitomize one faction of "the BJ grind". In order to obtain consistent, decent win rates playing this option with 'standard' counting methods, players must employ a huge bet spread (minimal 1-16+ in play-all conditions), find games with a maximum 1.5 deck cutoff/penetration level (difficult to locate), locate games with moderately decent rules (most are H17 in Vegas, and many offer only 6:5 payoffs in Vegas currently), and wonging in/out is really a necessity to avoid the negative counts. Wonging in/out can potentially draw unwanted attention of varying degree depending on the store and individual player wonging skills.

The game is beatable, but it ain't easy under current conditions (OK..sorta like all the other BJ games). Schlesinger (BJA3) suggests that, statistically, 8-deck games are quite difficult to beat consistently without good wonging skills.

In your last sentence you have the amount of cutoffs reversed for six and eight decks!

Believe me, you don't need to play eight decks to receive free cocktails. I like eight decks anyway, and when you get a nice running count of between 30 and into the 40's, obviously the count lasts longer!

I'd rather get a nice early count in an eight deck shoe and have several decks to play, maybe four, rather than get a nice early count in a six deck game with only two or three decks left to play.

The eight deck counts last longer!

25% off eight deck is 2 decks cutoff, 25% off six decks is 1.5 decks. The less the better. It's all about getting the divisor for TC as low as possible...that's how you identify massive edges near the end of the shoe.

Your EV comes from balancing duration of the count and magnitude of the positive counts. The smaller the number of actual cards cutoff at the end of a shoe (regardless of the number of decks, 4,6,8) carries the most weight in getting huge edges. One 4% advantage hand with a maximum bet is worth a dozen 1% edge bets wagering a third of a max bet.

toward the end of the shoe.

GL at the tables!