Hi, I am new to this forum and very excited to come across this wealth of knowledge. I have two questions regarding automatic shufflers, but first I will share a little bit of my history. I started playing casino blackjack about two years ago and absolutely fell in love with the game. I do my best to play a strict basic strategy. I was a cruise not too long ago and spent a lot of time in the casino. All of the blackjack tables had automatic shufflers, which I have never seen before. Every time the table was done with a hand the dealer just threw the cards back in the machine. Do these machines have any effect on the basic strategy? I played my worst blackjack ever on the ship, but honestly I don't think it is because of the shufflers. Also are automatic shufflers a very coming thing? I want to learn how to count, but I am not sure I want to put forth the effort if all casinos will have automatic shufflers.
automatic shufflers
- Thread starter mcaquatic
- Start date
EasyRhino
Well-Known Member
It sounds like what you had was continuous shufflers (CSM), where every hand or two has the cards recycled.
There's no real effect on the house advantage. It's kind of like dealing with a freshly-shuffled deck, every hand. However, the speed of play is usually quicker, so you probably lose faster.
Biggest bummers of CSMs is that you can't count counts against them.
Contrast with an automatic shuffler (ASM), where the game is dealt out of the usual 6 or 8 decks shoe, but there is also a device that shuffles the next shoe while you're playing the first one through. These also speed up the pace of the game substantially.
There's no real effect on the house advantage. It's kind of like dealing with a freshly-shuffled deck, every hand. However, the speed of play is usually quicker, so you probably lose faster.
Biggest bummers of CSMs is that you can't count counts against them.
Contrast with an automatic shuffler (ASM), where the game is dealt out of the usual 6 or 8 decks shoe, but there is also a device that shuffles the next shoe while you're playing the first one through. These also speed up the pace of the game substantially.