I know that Don and Parker will get pissed at me for posting this question, and I can probably answer it myself, but I'll do it anyway just for the fun of it.
Anyone who has been playing blackjack for any considerable length of time has run into what I call "the shoe from hell", or what Norm Wattenburger the creator of Casino Verite, calls "Counter's nightmare". In fact in Casino Verite, you can program it to play "counter's Nightmare". What do I mean by this? The six deck shoe that starts off with a small positive count and as the count increases you continually lose every bet you make. Of course, since we all follow the discipline, we are increasing our bets as the count gets higher, hoping for the blackjack or double down that will get us back some of our money, but it never comes.
How do the pundits of blackjack suggest we guard ourselves against this horrible experience? Now, I know the answer will probably be, "stick to the discipline!", because, and I have seen this too, eventually you will run into "the shoe from heaven", where the count starts off slightly positive and continues to increase and you win everything. Blackjacks and double downs near the end of the deck with your maximum number of units win every time. So "the shoe from heaven" makes up for "the shoe from hell".
Moreover, most shoes and double decks and single decks, are nowhere like the two shoes I described above. Most are middle of the road and give you a standard win-loss-push percentage, and sticking to the discipline will give you the expected value you want. The only reason I'm asking the pundits to comment on this is that the experience of "the shoe from hell" is so emotionally gut-wrenching, and I have experienced it too many times, that there must be some way to ameliorate the emotional pain as it is happening, rather than just believing, as I do, that eventually the game will come back to you.
What do you guys think?
