Hi, I have been reading for a while and playing as a beginning counter (hi-low) and I have started getting into some shuffle tracking.
I recently spent time watching 4 tables of DD BJ in a Vegas (locals) casino. At this particular casino, all of the DD games had huge amounts of card clumping (it is my opinion that they never change the cards from dawn till dusk).
For example, I saw one game that off the top of a brand new shuffle dealt 6 aces (DD mind you) out of the first 12 cards (3 players plus the dealer) - the other 6 cards were 3,5,2,4,6,7. This example is extreme (and I know is a good sign to run away - no aces left and no tens to match up with even if a player was shuffle tracking).
But I did notice quite a few decks that never showed an ace for about half the shuffles. One DD deck was TC of +15 when the dealer shuffled at .5 decks remaining (I lost quite a bit on this one - ramped my bets at the good count, but got slammed by always having garbage and the dealer never busting).
What is everyone's opinion on playing games with huge amounts of clumping?
Is it worth the time to:
a) try and shuffle track the deck, or
b) give up because the clumps cause the count to have huge amounts of variance that gain almost no advantage in determining deck composition?
Please let me know what you all think - when I first thought about this question it seemed academic, now that I saw these crazy decks, I am scared :)
Thanks.
