Shuffle Tracking Gift

[jay28]

6D, S17, DAS, D9-11, NOS, No Peek, 1st base

I had a nice little touch last night. I tracked a nice clump of cards about 3/4 of a deck with 5 Aces in and 16 tens, I watched this get shuffled in to another slug which I think had an even count although I couldn't be sure, these are the first cards shuffled so are at the bottom of the deck. I grab the card from in front of the girl sitting next to me and bring the slug to the top of the shoe.

Ok, so I'm now treating the first deck and half to be played with a TC of 14, I place a four unit bet - I realise this is small, however I always do this, to use my first bet as verification that I've tracked and cut correctly, I don't want to lose to much if I'm wrong.

Now for the casinos gift to me. As the dealer picks up the cards to place in the shoe, she drops the top card for all to see, It's one of those A's, I love it when this happens.

I pull back my bet and say table max, the dealer checks and tells me...its 20 units. I place table max, as the dealer turns over my card she says "oooh an ace" lol, however two other A's are dealt to other player (there 3 others) and my second card is another A. I split and and won one hand and lost the other, of course it doesn't[really matter because I made 51% - I love that fact.

So I carry on playing betting according as the TC drops from 13, wong out after the first deck & half is played and come back just in time for the new shuffle.

Anyway, my questions:-

Am I playing the correctly?
Was I right to count the TC as +14 from the start if I wong out at the right time, even though I'm not 100% sure of the composition of the other slug?
Was I right to bet table max and draw attention?
Would any one else have played this differently?

 

[cardcounter0]

3/4 of a deck with 5 Aces in and 16 tens.

So you had 25% more aces, normal amount of tens (since it was 3/4 deck, that means you had 25% more of those too). Not too exciting.

With a 3/4 deck deck slug you have a TC of +6. Mixed with an assumed clump of zero, you now have a TC of +3. You were way overbetting.

Also, where is it not standard procedure to burn the first card after putting them in the shoe, are you sure this dropped ace thing really happened?

 

[Bojack1]

Hey jay, to know how to play that track I would think you would need some more info. You say in 3/4 deck you had 5 aces and 16 tens. Okay that leaves 18 more cards in your track that are not counted.

First off are you actually counting the aces and 10's? Most can't do that and keep an accurate count at the same time.

One of the best things about tracking cards is that, when you get to use it next shoe, theoretically you know what cards are going to be dealt. So the best way to track a packet accurately is to know the actual original strength of it. Meaning what is the total count of the 3/4 deck not just how many tens and aces are in it. Using the hi lo count if there were say 10 low cards and 8 neutrals then your packet had a count of -11, which would be good in 1/4 deck not so hot in 3/4. What this means based on randomness is that you will have about 2 more low cards per deck in this shoe. Now depending on the shuffle, say a basic 2 pass step ladder, that 3/4 deck is going to get shuffled into about another 2.25 to 2.5 decks. Once you account for the random cards shuffled in, your packet is really not worthwhile. Say now your 3/4 packet has been shuffled into 3 decks. With a starting count of 11 deduct the extra low cards per deck that weren't originally counted which would be say 5 total, and you now have a TC of 2. This is all based on your 3/4 packet staying together, which I doubt happened. So in truth you most likely had no advantage to a disadvantage if your 3/4 packet had been picked apart during the shuffle

I will agree that you were severely overbetting.

3/4 of a deck is usually way too big of a packet to track in the way you were trying to do it. If you had some of those aces and or tens clumped together then it may have been nice for a possible sequence track instead. I would be careful learning how to track using real money in real casino play, that can get pretty expensive.

 

[callipygian]

Also, where is it not standard procedure to burn the first card after putting them in the shoe, are you sure this dropped ace thing really happened?

^
|
This.

 

[jay28]

More shuffle details

OK, I don't think i gave you guys enough info, this particular casino has a VERY weak shuffle and they NEVER burn cards, infact I haven't seen many casinos in the UK burning cards, has anyone else? I'm very sure this did happen and if you read some of my previous posts, you'll see it's not the first time I talked about dealers droping the top card of a newly shuffled shoe. Anyway, forget the error as this happens very rarely and instead I'll tell you guys more about the shuffle procedure, tracking and play.

The shuffle has 1 rife and 1 pass only, this is how it works:-

The unplayed cards are taken from the shoe and are all placed at the top of the cards in the discard tray. The 6 decks are then split into 2 equal sized piles (3 decks each) I'll call these A (the bottom cards from discard tray) and B cards (from the top of the discard tray and unused)

Each pile is then cut to four equal piles (8 in total or approx 3/4 of a deck) we'll call these 1 2 3 & 4 with 1 being the top of the split piles and 4 being the bottom. A4 is Rifed with B4, A3 is Rifed with B3 then placed on top of AB4. A2with is rifed with B2 and place in top of AB43 and finally A1 is rifed with B1 and placed on top of AB432 to give the completed shuffle of:-

Top
AB1
AB2
AB3
AB4
Bottom

As I said before it's very weak - and this is their standard house shuffle.

Ok, now a bit more info, I don't keep any side counts and use Hi/Lo. However, I do watch out for large clumps of 10's and A's and keep a mental note of their location in the discard tray. The reason I know there were 16 tens is because they all came out at the beginning of the previous shoe and the reason I know there were 5 aces is because they were all dealt in the same round of hands at the end of the clump of tens, so hard to forget. Ok at this point I had a RC of -21 so I wonged out. These cards are at the bottom of the discard tray so in the shuffle they are located in B4. Ok, now I back count, the RC remains close to the -20 mark until after a deck of cards has been played, I don't do any TC converstions here because I already know its crap. Lots of little cards come during the second deck of cards and by 3 decks the RC/TC is back to the zero mark. The rest of the shoe, the count stayed fairly neutral throughout. I wong back in a couple of hands before the end ready for the next shoe.

Ok, so as the shuffle takes place, we know B4 has a neutral count but not sure of the full composition and we know A4 has negitive count of minus 21 (or 21 extra high cards). We know these card are the last 1.5 decks at the bottom of the pile, we also know that the next 1.5 decks above contains as many extra low cards, as this is when the count was balanced.

I cut a deck and a half from the bottom of the 6 decks, bringing the high cards to the start of the shoe and the low cards (which balanced the count) are left behind the cut card and out of play.

From here I consider this no longer be a 6 deck game, In my mind, I am now playing a 1.5 deck game with 100% Pen. In this situation, once i have played these cards my game ends, I will need to either wong out for the rest of the shoe or treat it as a new shoe in a 4.5 deck game with very bad pen - no thanks!!

The 1.5 decks I'm now about to play contain 21 additional high cards, 5 of which being A's. So I have a starting TC of 21/1.5 = 14.

If anybody has any comments on how this shuffle can be expolited further, I love to hear them?

By the way, Cardcounter, there's only 3 A's in 3/4 of a deck, so 5 would be 66% extra and of course there's only 12 tens.

 

[callipygian]

there's only 3 A's in 3/4 of a deck, so 5 would be 66% extra and of course there's only 12 tens.

Assuming you have a normal number of low cards, then, the RC for that 3/4 deck is +6, not +21. After the shuffle, assuming the section it was shuffled with had a neutral portion, your TC would be +4, not +14.

Knowing you're going to get an ace is worth a lot more than a TC of +4, though. Knowing that you get an ace at a TC of +4 is worth:

Soft hands: +0.0099 (frequency: 0.0976)
Blackjack: +0.0269 (frequency: 0.0573)
EV: +0.24

 

[cardcounter0]

You are right, you were unclear on how you were accounting for the "extra" high cards.

However, after 4 aces come out on the first round (no mention of how many 10s with them) probably half your advantage went right there.

Drop down to a +3 or +4 TC level bet, and play out the rest of the 1 1/4 deck segment and wong. (maybe keeping an eye on where those 4 aces first round end up on the next shoe).

If you aren't going to bet table max when you know your first card is an ace you should go home.

Sounds like you did it right.

 

[Automatic Monkey]

OK, I don't think i gave you guys enough info, this particular casino has a VERY weak shuffle and they NEVER burn cards...

Do you realize you destroy opportunities for yourself and all other AP's when you write things such as this in a public place? Never discuss specific shuffles.