The effect of CSMs for BS players?

I've been trying to gather my thoughts to explain to others why even for those players who play simple BS, and don't apply any AP techniques, CSMs should be avoided like the plague. I've put them down in the attachment (about 2000 words). I'm sorry but I'm afraid I don't agree that for a recreational BS player who is prepared to lose some money, there is no difference between playing a shoe game and one serviced by a CSM.

If anyone disagrees with my hypothesis on the loss of player advantageous shoe compositions, or if any of the numbers look wrong, please shout.

And apologies to anyone who thinks it state's the obvious - it's not written
for experienced APs who have done the sums.

Thanks.

Hi Newb,

I'm curious to what you're planning to do with this essay, is it for a college course or something similar, or are you going to distribute this information somehow?

Csm

Here are my thoughts. Fred Renzy says that after the shuffle, the odds favor the house 101/100. This is as close to an even bet as a NON CARD COUNTER, can expect to get. The reason is: Even though the deck may get more favorable, the NON CARD COUNTER, will not be aware of the change.
It is my feeling that a person playing basic strategy should only raise his bet on a new shuffle, as he has a 'coin flip' chance of winning. It makes no sense for him to raise his bet any other time, as he will be unaware of the count.
Now it seems to me that if Renzy is correct (Odds 101/100) and you are a NON CARD COUNTER, you should only play on a CSM. One thing to remember is that a CSM deals more hands per hour, so play slow, take some breaks and play on a FULL table, to limit the hands.

CSMs give you the chance to play more hands per hour. If the house has the edge on every hand, this is a bad thing. I'd guess that frequent trips to the restrooms would negate that. Limit yourself to 45-50 hands an hour and you'll be okay. Play every hand for hours on end and you'll be ground to death.

CSM's and Non-counters

I also brought up this subject recently and thought it was covered fairly well by various posters. See "Advanced Strategies", "Experts Only" thread.

I have had sessions before where, after getting beat up really bad on 6D shoes and 2D pitch games, moved over to play on a CSM, and got some money back. I guess that was just a strange day in the life of a recreational BJ player.

I've wondered the effects of penetration on basic strategy myself. Let's say you're playing a 6 deck shoe game with deep penetration. With 2 decks remaining are you effectively playing on average a 2 deck version of the same game? If so should the basic strategy player switch to the 2 deck strategy and receive a lower house edge?

newb99 said:

I'm sorry but I'm afraid I don't agree that for a recreational BS player who is prepared to lose some money, there is no difference between playing a shoe game and one serviced by a CSM.

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Nice essay Newb - thanks for sharing it.

I'm just going to assume a CSM that actually does reshuffle after every round.

Anyway, a flat-betting BS player will enjoy a reduced HA than if he plays a shoe with a cut-card.

Also, should he be unlucky enough to perhaps experience a back-counter while playing that shoe, his HA goes up again, maybe up to 10% worse.

If there happen to be card-eating counters, spreading in good counts, at his table, he also gets royally screwed, perhaps playing to HA 25% worse than otherwise.

Comp-dependent BS departures would be more reliable and have less variance with a CSM. Maybe anyway? lol.

The BS player would experience less swings of variance never having to play the higher variances in -counts or the lower variances in +counts or the crazy stuff that can happen in extreme counts.

If it's a full CSM table and your choice is a 5 person shoe game, you may still be better off despite more hands per hour.

If you were going to play a shoe for six hours anyway, leave an hour later or sooner lol.

Take 10 seconds to make your play decision instead of none.

Table limits could be lower.

If voodooing it, what with the more hands per hour you will achieve your "session" goal sooner and with less variance.

The dealer will be tired and irritable because he never gets a shuffling break and makes more mistakes. That's my CSM AP move lmao.

Guynoire said:

I've wondered the effects of penetration on basic strategy myself. Let's say you're playing a 6 deck shoe game with deep penetration. With 2 decks remaining are you effectively playing on average a 2 deck version of the same game? If so should the basic strategy player switch to the 2 deck strategy and receive a lower house edge?

Click to expand...

I don't think a BS player should switch to a 2D BS at that point. I mean how often would those 104 cards be the same as only decks?

I'd guess you might be playing at a HA of a 2D game? Like a TC of 0 is worth more advantage then than it was at the top of the shoe?

Just guessing lol.

Guynoire said:

I've wondered the effects of penetration on basic strategy myself. Let's say you're playing a 6 deck shoe game with deep penetration. With 2 decks remaining are you effectively playing on average a 2 deck version of the same game? If so should the basic strategy player switch to the 2 deck strategy and receive a lower house edge?

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i dunno, your questions bring to mind the cut card effect.
http://www.blackjackincolor.com/blackjackeffects1.htm

Kasi said:

I'm just going to assume a CSM that actually does reshuffle after every round.

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The jury's out on that one. I've only played a CSM dealt game for a very short time, but it did seem to me that there was a delay in the cards going back in and the mechanics inside bursting into life and reshuffling them. Perhaps we should ask those nice people at Shufflemaster Inc for guidance on this matter ? We could do an equivalent of a class action and all sign the request with our respective forum handles?

Kasi said:

Anyway, a flat-betting BS player will enjoy a reduced HA than if he plays a shoe with a cut-card.

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Hmmm . . . that's really the point of my hypothosis. Over the long term , or over an infinite number of decks, you are of course correct and the floating HE will average out to be marginally advantageous for the player, due to no cards being cut out of play. But in the short term, that won't necessarily be the case. You could end up playing a shoe with a 2% player advantage and not even know it - purely due to the way the cards have ended up after a shuffle. With a weak shuffle, and the cut card going back into the right place, it could be possible to play several like that on the trot. Of course, things can, and at some stage will, work the other way.

I disagree with the poster above - I think BS players should avoid CSMs where they have a choice (as there'll be no possibility of a swing in their favour of any significance at anytime) if they have any expectation of winning. If not, it doesn't matter - it then becomes a simple matter of paid for entertainment. But I think most people play BJ with some degree of hope that it'll be their night.

Believe it or not, this all started with someone asking me " . . . so what's the difference then?"

Kasi said:

I don't think a BS player should switch to a 2D BS at that point. I mean how often would those 104 cards be the same as only decks?

I'd guess you might be playing at a HA of a 2D game? Like a TC of 0 is worth more advantage then than it was at the top of the shoe?

Just guessing lol.

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floating advantage, see blackjack attack 3rd edition. those 104 cards remaining will have an average TC of 0 but the HA will be lower.

newb99 said:

Hmmm . . . that's really the point of my hypothosis. Over the long term , or over an infinite number of decks, you are of course correct and the floating HE will average out to be marginally advantageous for the player, due to no cards being cut out of play. But in the short term, that won't necessarily be the case.

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If it's true over a billion billion rounds, it's true over one round.

You think the BS HE changes whether you play 1 round or a billion?

The cut-card adv has little to do with the floating advantage.

The cut-card advantage arises from the fact that a BS player will play more rounds in a shoe when the count is neg and a cut-card is in use. So he suffers from playing more -EV rounds.

If he plays the same fixed number of rounds per shoe, he will be uneffected.

The published HE, with whatever assumptions it was calculated under, assumes BS and no cut-card. Playing with a cut-card will result in an edge higher than that.

And if he plays a billion rounds with a CCing stalker always entering at +2, or, worse, a 2 man team with one guy eating the -EV rounds by spreading, he will play even more -EV rounds and be way way worse off HE-wise.

I'm not saying one is better than the other per hour but I am saying CSM is better per round played, even without alot of the neg stuff that could possibly negatively effect a BS player without him even knowing it.

So, do what you want, take all the factors you are aware of into consideration and go from there.

It's doubtful you'll ever notice the difference anyway. In real life :grin:

rukus said:

floating advantage, see blackjack attack 3rd edition. those 104 cards remaining will have an average TC of 0 but the HA will be lower.

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I agree, but I don't think it warrants a change of BS fro 8D to a BS of 2D.

In effect, at a TC of 0, the HA will be what it is as if the game was a 2D game. Which is what I think what you are saying.

+TC's of the same number will be worth more than they were at the same +TC than say with 7 decks remaining.

But, I don't really know lol.

Would you change to a 2D BS after 6D dealt in an 8D shoe when you have no idea what the TC may be?

Would you revert to a 4D BS after 4D dealt in an 8D game?

EV effect on a shoe with no cut card.

I think this is a bit of an academic point really, as I don't think anywhere offers a shoe game where no cards are cut out of play? A CSM doesn't cut any cards out of play (assuming of course that cards are re-inserted back into the deck at random), although the deck composition will constantly change as this is done - it's the fact that the deck composition changes every hand that, I believe, wipes out the possibility of positive swings in favour of the player (although it also wipes out the swings that are over an above the average -EV for the house - although they're less likely to result in anyone walking away a winner).

Probably late in the day, I stumbled upon some past threads discussing the effects of CSMs on the game. The only conclusive point to come out of these is that they should be avoided by APs, although the debate on the effect for BS players seemed to have been left hanging. Same points made about the average HE not changing by much as a result of the cut card effect.

Let's take a scenario where you had a relative who had learned BS and could apply it perfectly, and you hit a casino one evening for a couple of hours of play. There were two tables next to each other - one with a 6 deck, hand shuffled shoe, and one with a CSM. Which would you recommend he/she play and why?

Newb99

(PS - it's not a question taken from a past exam paper from the University of Blackjack ! ! ! )

newb99 said:

I think this is a bit of an academic point really, as I don't think anywhere offers a shoe game where no cards are cut out of play? A CSM doesn't cut any cards out of play (assuming of course that cards are re-inserted back into the deck at random), although the deck composition will constantly change as this is done - it's the fact that the deck composition changes every hand that, I believe, wipes out the possibility of positive swings in favour of the player (although it also wipes out the swings that are over an above the average -EV for the house - although they're less likely to result in anyone walking away a winner).

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It is very academic lol.

The internet is the classic, purest, case of re-shuffling after every round.
When a computer re-shuffles, it truly is random and shuffle-tracking just doesn't exist. The gaps between cards of the previous shoe and the current shoe are just as one would expect in a truly random shuffle. Absolutely not so in the real world. Ain't no way the gaps between cards is "random" after most shuffles.

Heck, some of them re-shuffled after every card Making it an infinite deck game.

It is because in real life no/few games are really shuffled after every round that offers a BS player the chance to play at a reduced HA if he chooses to ignore the cut-card.

Any BS player, with same rules, etc would be better off ignoring the cut-card and only play the same number of rounds per shoe, always stopping before the cut-card. He will always be slightly better off per round played.

newb99 said:

Let's take a scenario where you had a relative who had learned BS and could apply it perfectly, and you hit a casino one evening for a couple of hours of play. There were two tables next to each other - one with a 6 deck, hand shuffled shoe, and one with a CSM. Which would you recommend he/she play and why?

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On a per-round basis, unquestionably, the CSM. (Again assuming re-shuffle every round).

On a per-hour basis, it would depend.

Even if the CSM re-shuffles every third or thirtieth round, as long as the cut-card was placed shallowly enough that I would occasionally have to play beyond that cut-card, I wouldn't play that.

I have to play a fixed number of rounds per shoe (ideally 1) always avoiding the cut-card to play at the published HA.

Would you rather play a shoe game if the cut-card was always placed at the second card and only 1 card was dealt each shoe before a re-shuffle or a CSM game where there was no cut-card but a re-shuffle only occurred after each round?

Assuming a 75%ish penetration on the shoe, I think I would go the other way - play the shoe and keep fingers crossed that the variance fairies had stacked a high percentage of small cards behind the cut card. If I was really in their good books I might get several of these. I might not of course, but as BS is a losing game anyway, the issue would then become one of the degree of loss and how quickly that happens. I'd rather play a game where there's a chance the odds will favour me winning, than one where the odds are consistent that I will lose.

As a sideline note, in the majority of the reading I have done, the emphasis is nearly always placed on the long term averages for HE - this despite the fact that, disregarding a small percentage of hardcore players, the majority will simply never play enough hands for the pos and neg to average out. I suspect that the only people who can safely say they play a sufficient number of hands to hang their hat on average HE figures are the beancounters who beaver away in the back offices of the houses offering the games. The majority have almost as much chance of playing on the right side of the bell curve as the wrong side. Playing a CSM seems to be permanently voting for the wrong side?

newb99 said:

Assuming a 75%ish penetration on the shoe, I think I would go the other way - play the shoe and keep fingers crossed that the variance fairies had stacked a high percentage of small cards behind the cut card. If I was really in their good books I might get several of these. I might not of course, but as BS is a losing game anyway, the issue would then become one of the degree of loss and how quickly that happens. I'd rather play a game where there's a chance the odds will favour me winning, than one where the odds are consistent that I will lose.

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What more can I say?

If a flat-betting BS player always plays with a cut card he will be playing to a higher HE than if he doesn't, per round.

Yes, whether playing to a cut-card or not, a flat-betting BS player is playing a losing game.

Yes, the issue can or could be, even should be, degree of gain by playing CSM vs how quickly that may happen in an hour compared to a playing to a higher loss per round with a cut-card and what that extra loss means per hour.

No different than an AP choosing to play at a less EV per round but solo vs the dealer than choosing to play a higher EV per round but at a full table.

Maybe where you are has a CSM machine but a half-hour away is a cut-card shoe game. Whatcha u gonna do? Drive or not?

If you happen to be a flat-betting BS player who actually may be able to recognize when being stalked by a back-counting card-counting guy, you probably know would know enough to get the heck out of that shoe or to continue to play that shoe.

Without worrying about all that stalking stuff, it doesn't matter much on a per-round basis. Maybe in SD it could mean a little more, I think lol. Maybe even a little more than a little lol.

Kasi,

Thanks for your input. I've tagged on a poll to the thread to try and guage the consensus, if indeed there is any. It's a 30 day-er.

Newb99