When I signal the dealer to take a hit, he offers me the deck to cut the cards, so my hit card comes randomly from the middle of the pack, instead of the very next card off the top.
Seems to me this is like a whole herd of 'bad' players to my right, taking hits when they shouldn't, and giving me some other card rather then the very next one off the top.
Where should I cut the cards to best improve my chances?
LOL. ;>)
But I do wish Old Coot would post some of his source codes. He may have stumbled onto some things about how like cards clump together, and how this effects player position, but the problem is he was looking for confirming this myth. It is sort of like Columbus landing in the Carribean, and supposing he had secretly determined he was nowhere near China, and deciding to secretly bury all record of his exploration.
A true story about such actually happened in Nevada, in the 1880s. Most people are familiar how much of the problem mineral residue in early gold mines on the Comstock turned out to be silver. But it is also true that most of the brownish blue flakes that used to tearup mining grinding equipment, in both gold and silver mining operations, turned out to be Platinum and Tungsten.
If a player for some stupid reason were inclined to hit 16s, and even 17s, but stand on 12s and 13s, there would be no difference in expected value. It would actually be the same as the average with DD's variety of bad players. But there might be if some stupid player were to always split 3s, or other low cards: the discards would have less clumping. If some stupid player refused to split aces and 8s: the discards would have more clumped aces and 8s (hint to people playing at Frank's table ;-). A mix of accurate basic strategy players and pair splitting philics and phobics, with various sequences would prove interesting.
But alas to investigate that we would have to advise Old Coot on current Platinum prices --if you know what I mean?
but it was one of THE hardest concepts for me to grasp!
Have to dig up an old document I have about 'In Search of Clumping' where the effect of splitting and not splitting was explored.
But in the meantime, what I want to know is:
How did Ken Uston make all that money? Didn't he realize that a counter had a 1% disadvantage against that Atlantic City stutter shuffle?
LOL. ;>)
Probably the effects of splitting and not spliting was the only part of clumping that was tagged as meriting further investigation but not much overall profit could be expected in that pair hands, except for X,X are relatively rare.
(OK I cheated on that search, but I will let you have fun verifying it.)
But I also doubt that whatever study was made ever included the refusal to split aces and 8s, or the existance of the JP and Frank followers. Or what positions next to such followers were best to play?
We know Old Coot will not find the gold he seeks, but the possibility of abandoned platinum is still present.
Instead of wasting your time coming up with absurd attempts at riducule, go to the tables and observe this observable phenomenon for yourself.
>How did Ken Uston make all that money? Didn't he realize that a counter had a 1% disadvantage against that Atlantic City stutter shuffle?<
The stutter shuffle wasn't introduced until *after* Uston won his court case. IMHO, it was a "countermeasure."
At the time Uston won all that $$, the tables at Resorts (the only game in town at the time) opened each shift with a wash of 6 new decks, then used normal shuffling methods. IOW, they shuffled much as a single deck dealer in Vegas would; only 6 times.
I was there, sonny, you weren't.
And I made a *hell* of a lot of money out of an almost unbelieveably favorable playing situation before that loudmouth Uston called his @#$%*& press conferences and poisoned the well for the rest of us.
If you'll recall, Uston called *another* of his @#$%& press conferences after the introduction of the stutter shuffle, and accused the casinos (by then there were two -- Resorts & Caesars), of "cheating."
Immediately after that, he went to France, figuring that was the only place he could still get an honest game.
