Can a shoe be top loaded with tens and aces?

[Victoria]

I only get to go to Vegas about twice a year and only on Indian Casino, The Chumash, is close enough to go to on a day trip. An uncle of mine has played there several times and always says that in 20+ years of counting he has never played as many negative counts as in this place.
I went last weekend, grinded out a small win in six plus hours of wonging out of many tables and tried to keep track of my uncle's paranoia. Every time I watched a new shoe, planning to wong in, the count was bad. While playing I experienced over a dozen shoes that went over a running count of minus 20 but the highest positive running count was 14. Only once was I able to get a max bet out. They use shuffling machines and I was wondering if these machines could somehow be set up to make counting useless.
Also, since my last visit, penetration has been reduced to about 66%, while in the past you might get 75-80% from many dealers. Oh give me a basically lazy dealer who has to hand shuffle, one like that I know in Vegas gives around 90% penetration.

 

[Abraham de Moivre]

Doesn't sound unusual. With lousy 66% pen, it is going to be very rare to see an extreme count that merits a max bet.

You are going to see slightly more negative shoes than positive ones, and the negative counts are going to be slightly further from zero than the positive counts. How could it be any other way? If the counts were positive more often and/or bigger, than even a BS flat bettor would have an advantage. You have to overcome the house edge, remember?

Can a shoe be top loaded? SURE! But what would be the point? It might be possible for a shuffle machine to stack 10 value cards to the top of the shoe, (or at least the decks).

They do give you a cut card, and allow you to cut the cards before they are placed in the shoe, don't they? If you cut at a different point, you could bring the high cards to the front or put them behind the cut card. If consistently cutting in one spot seems to be producing bad shoes, cut them in a radically different spot.

 

[Shaggy18vw]

Good points,
A side note. I don't think a casino would "top load" tens and aces to fight back against counters. This idea once figured out would kill the casinos. Players would simply bet big off the top. Also ploppys who flat bet would be playing with a potential advantage. If a casino really wants to rip off counters, they would "bottom load" tens and aces. This would make the counter think the shoe was ready to pop, an never get there. But even then, once figured out, the player could cut those to the top.

 

[wong out]

First of all I would not play in a 66% game with straight counting; with a few possible exceptions (reasons) where I might play.

I think that your post was meant to inquire as to whether the chumpash was doing something or fixing the shuffle to end up with an excess negative count shoe distribution. I would be 99.99% certain that this is not the case, but I wish the hell it were! The casino would be giving up an edge if they dealt a disproportionate number of high cards. Then again most casino managers are dumb enough about their games to fix them improperly. Who knows but I would bet that your observations were the result of: A) an over-active imagination; B) possibly a rare side of the count distribution curve, and or C) a negative distribution combined with a bad shuffle and a bunch of lucky cuts; and, or D) who knows??

In any event - Vegas is close to Chumpash Country so you should consider more trips to Sin City. Weekend trips are great (specially on big weekends) since you can blend in quite well with little to no cover and then disappear.

good luck!

wong out

 

[wong out]

BTW

BTW -

I noted that the last sentence of the original post stated something about a vegas dealer who gave 90% pen. If you dont mind I would like to visit this dealer on my next trip to Vegas Town and would appreciate any info that you want to share. You can e-mail to [email protected] if you dont want to post info on here. If you dont want to share info on the dealer I understand.

In any event.. thanks!

wong out

 

[Victoria]

Did not think about the cut

My best guess since the shoes were cut everywhere was that it was just one of those frustrating things. You know, trying to get a positive shoe and just not. A load of wonging out and no wonging in.
Weekend trips to Vegas are rough because of family and job.

As far as the response that said there should be slightly more negative shoes, since I use high low, over a long period they should balance out, or am I missing something.

 

[Stealth Bomber]

You are going to see slightly more negative shoes than positive ones, and the negative counts are going to be slightly further from zero than the positive counts. How could it be any other way??

Abraham, please tell what it is that leads you to believe the above statement is true.

Iv'e played a lot of 6D at Indian casinos. I seem to have the same thing happen to me so often as has Victoria with the Stuffer Master or the Random Erection Machine (sorry but that's what my friend and I call them). I have noticed that it mostly happens when other players cut the cards. They usually cut a 6 pack somewhere between 25% and 45% in from the front. When I cut, it's either about 46 - 54 cards in or about 1 deck off the back. It seems to put the bad cards in the front portion of the pack more often. It's so rare to find a count go as high on the + side as happens on the - side. I have also seen a lot of non-skew counts that stay near 0.

I am so tired of grinding with the South Polar Bears for hours before a decent shoe shows up.

Stealth

 

[Victoria]

Gee, I also generally cut towards the front. Glad someone else shares my paranoia, will cut towards the back next time but it may be my last time at that place.

 

[Stealth Bomber]

Victoria, I think the Chumpish Indian Casino got a little worried that we were all going to storm the place soon after the Mayor got 86'ed. My posts alone probably scared them half to death. That my have to do with why the pen went in the dumper. Sorry about that.

I do hate Indian Casinos. They have the next closest thing to a license to kill without having to be accountable. They are above the law of which the general public is normally accustomed to. What would happen if an Indian casino roof somehow got inundated with rainwater and feel in and injured and killed scores of people due to faulty construction or maintenance? Who would they sue for damages?????????

Stealth

 

[Abraham de Moivre]

More Negative Shoes: The Answer.

A positive count represents a Player Advantage.
A negative count represents a House Advantage.

The House has the edge. If you flat bet and play BS, you lose.
Where does this advantage come from?

Obviously, you must play more hands with a House Advantage than you play with a Player Advantage. Therefore, there must be more negative count (House Advantage) hands then there are Positive Count (Player Advantage) hands. If it were the other way around, then the player would have the advantage.

If the number of negative count hands were equal to the number of positive count hands, then BJ would be an even money game and probably wouldn't be offered.

Check the count frequency tables in the Appendix to "Professional Blackjack" by Stanford Wong. (If you play HiLo, you should have this book!) You will see negative counts occur slightly more often, and large negative counts occur slightly more frequently than equally large positive counts. This slight negative shift in the frequency curve is the house advantage.

 

[alienated]

Some brief theoretical observations

1. If the player's cut must be at least one deck from either end, the bottom deck will always be cut into play in a 5/6 or 7/8 game.

2. With shallower penetration, the probability of the bottom deck being cut into play is still higher than the average probability for all decks.

3. To stack a shoe in the casino's favor, an excess of small cards can be shuffled into the bottom deck.

4. While it is not in the interests of the casino to stack an excess of tens and aces into the played part of the shoe, it is usually in the interests of the casino to have the high cards come out first for any given 'finishing count' (i.e. running count at shuffle point).

5. For any given finishing count, it is possible to manipulate the way in which this finishing count is reached. Take, for instance, a finishing running count of +10. This end point might be reached by the running count rising fairly constantly from 0 to +10 over the course of the shoe. Or the running count might rise to +20 then fall back towards +10. Or the running count might go negative initially before rising steeply over the remainder of the shoe. And any number of other scenarios are also possible.

6. Each unique running-count path potentially provides a different sequence of situations to the player, and some sequences are more beneficial than others.

7. Under the assumption of a 'random' shuffle, each of the potential running-count 'paths' will have an associated probability of occurrence.

8. With a non-random shuffle, the probabilities of each of these running-count paths can be manipulated by causing excess big cards to end up in certain areas of the shoe and/or excess small cards to end up in other areas of the shoe.

9. The potential for a human shuffle to manipulate a shoe's running-count path is limited, to a great extent, by the memory and proficiency of the dealer, and by the fact that the dealer's shuffle actions are visible to the observant player (eg, shuffle tracker).

10. The potential for a machine shuffle to manipulate a shoe's running-count path is, in principle, pretty much unlimited.

11. Sometimes advantage players are inclined to scoff at the regular gambler who shies away from games with machine shuffles on the grounds that they cannot see what is going on inside the machines. Such regular gamblers may have a point.

 

[Guy777]

Not sure about the bit about getting slightly more negative counts than positive. The underlying house edge (at a count of 0) has to do with the rules of the game not the distribution of the deck.

So unless they are fiddling with the deck which sounds unlikely because you're expericing hi negative counts, which means more 10's (which would reduce the edge for the house and might give a level better playing BS and advantage).

This all sounds like the God of Standard Deviation playing tricks with your mind!

Guy

PS if you're really sure that the tens are stacked to the top, bet more at the beging of the shoe!

 

[Victoria]

House advantage is in the rules of the game

Abraham

I have Mr Wong's book and this is a minor point that I disagree with. Perhaps I have little right to disagree with a true expert but my thinking is that the shoe is made up of an equal number of positive and negative cards. Accepting that almost anything can happen short run, these numbers mean to me that long run there should be an equal number of positive and negative shoes.
As far as the house advantage goes, this is where we really do not see eye to eye. The house advantage is built into the rules of blackjack. It varies by rules of course but there is one rule that gives the house a huge advantage and most other rules are designed to cut into that advantage and make the game playable.
The biggest rule in blackjack is that when the player busts he looses even if the dealer busts. Because of that rule giving the house an unbelievable advantage the game has evolved to give the player double downs, splits, doubling after split rules to cut into the orginal house edge and make the game playable.
If every shoe ran a 0 count, the perfect BS player would have the disadvantage of what we refer to as the house edge. Is not the house edge based upon a perfect BS play and a neutral count. As the count changes the BS player does nothing, no bet increases, and no indices to take advantage of the situation, so if he gains in a favorable count it is minimized. In a negative count he perhaps looses more because he fails to wong out.

At the same time, I have never experienced the same kind of negative percentage of shoes in Nevada. It may be a fluke and I can accept that without more visits, just would like some input from any other members of this board, not thrown out by the Chumash, on comparing the counts with the counts they get at other places. Of course since they killed penetration, why even bother.

 

[Victoria]

Re: Some brief theoretical observations

Alienated

Thanks, does make sense to me. I always thought the demon was in the shoe but maybe it is in the machine.

 

[Seeker]

Re: House advantage is in the rules of the game

With regard to house advantage, Victoria is right that it doesn't depend on an excess of negative counts. Consider a blackjack game not played with physical cards, but with a computer randomly selecting each card to be dealt, with each of the 52 cards having an equal chance to be selected regardless of what's already been dealt. This is infinite-deck blackjack. In any balanced system, the true count would be constantly at zero, in the sense that, at each juncture, the next card is just as likely to be high as to be low. Nevertheless, the house advantage at infinite-deck blackjack is actually greater, for a given set of rules, than with the same rules at one, two, four, six or eight decks.

On the other hand, it's not the case that a player using a balanced count can expect to see a plus count precisely as often as a minus one. The reason is the cut-card effect. In some shoes, by chance, the count will go plus. The preponderance of low cards means that the players and the dealer will have to take more hits, so there are fewer rounds before the shuffle. On the other hand, if the tens come out early, then the dealer will deal more rounds (with the count negative) before reaching the cut card. If you weight each round equally, then the average count, even using a balanced system, is slightly negative.

This cut-card effect adds slightly to the house advantage. It's much less important than the advantage conferred by the combination of rules and number of decks in play, however.

The cut-card effect arises if the shuffle occurs when a predetermined number of cards have been dealt. If, instead, the shuffle occurs when a predetermined number of hands or rounds have been dealt, then there is no cut-card effect.

 

[Shaggy18vw]

Re: More Negative Shoes: The Answer.

With a balanced count the player WILL see an equal number of + to - counts (in the long run obviously). That's why it is balanced. The thing to make note of is the player doesn't gain an advantage in 6D until a TC of about +2. That is why the house beats the BS player. The BS player will bet equally in the -5 as he does in the +5. This doesn't mean they cancel each other out, because that -5 is a much lower expectation than the +5 is positive (absolute value).

I don't have PBJ in front of me, but I don't believe that Wong states that a -2 will occur more often than a +2 (or something similar)

 

[Rob McGarvey]

You should keep track of this and calculate HOW MANY A and 10's they have REMOVED from the decks at the Chumy then report them to local authorities. They may catch them red handed with short decks.

 

[Stealth Bomber]

Who's supposed to be watching the Indian casinos anyway? If somebody is watching, I think it's like the fox who watches over the chicken coupe. Or maybe they're all in bed together.

 

[Seeker]

Indications of cheating

Rob McGarvey wrote:
"You should keep track of this and calculate HOW MANY A and 10's they have REMOVED from the decks at the Chumy then report them to local authorities. They may catch them red handed with short decks."

Casinos sometimes cheat by removing some of the high cards from a shoe. In these situations, there'll be an excess of positive counts, but few negative counts. Counters, seeing a positive count, will up their bets in expectation of high cards coming, but the high cards usually won't come. Most shoes will end with a high running count.

Victoria's report was the opposite: that there was an excess of negative counts. Among the possible explanations are:
(1) Casino personnel have a way of steering high cards toward the top and/or cutting out low cards, thus discouraging the occasional counter from betting big but at the expense of giving all the players an off-the-top advantage. I don't know which is more unlikely, that they could do this or that they would if they could.
(2) Some dimwitted and dishonest floorperson, knowing that the 5 and the 6 are the weakest dealer upcards, and hoping to deprive the players of lucrative double-down opportunities in those situations, shorted the deck by removing several 5's and 6's. This form of cheating would greatly benefit all the players. If you find it going on, please don't report it to any authority. Just email me with the details and I'll handle it.
(3) It was just fluctuation, possibly combined with selective memory. This explanation is the one I'd back.

 

[eyesfor21]

ask to see the burn cards,since you gals get away with all