the stratospheres BJ machine that dont shuffle til after 2/3 of the decks dealt

[Mimosine]

With 2/3 pen' and the huge spread described, the machine is very beatable; assuming that it is honest.

Isn't that perfectly obvious ?

yeah and what's the worst the casino could do to you, back you off from playing slot machines!

:laugh::laugh:

 

[bjcounter]

I watched this game at the LV club a few trips ago. I never saw a dealer change once, nor anything that hinted at a shuffle. There were several people playing at once. I never counted the number of cards to know how far they got in the supposed "shoe" but it was definetly long enought to have been at least two full shoes.

 

[shadroch]

I'm up $1600 on these machines this weekend in Laughlin, but to be fair-I started out with just under $2,000 in free slot play.

 

[Automatic Monkey]

I'm up $1600 on these machines this weekend in Laughlin, but to be fair-I started out with just under $2,000 in free slot play.

If they comp and cashback those machines like they do slots, we can start calling them "ATM's." If you can use free slot play in them they're very useful too.

 

[shadroch]

Sadly, they don't. Harrahs Laughlin gives one point for every $30 played, a slot is 1 per $5. Trop Xpress is a little better, but still worse than on a slot, or even a Video poker machine. I can't figure out Aquarius's slot points at all, muy confusing.
Wasn't able to use free play on them in any casino, but took the results of laundered free play over to them.

 

[Automatic Monkey]

Sadly, they don't. Harrahs Laughlin gives one point for every $30 played, a slot is 1 per $5. Trop Xpress is a little better, but still worse than on a slot, or even a Video poker machine. I can't figure out Aquarius's slot points at all, muy confusing.
Wasn't able to use free play on them in any casino, but took the results of laundered free play over to them.

In that case they're probably no better for acquiring comps than slots, and possibly worse.

Now here's a thought: let's say we didn't know where the shuffle point was in the blackjack machine, but we just pretended we did? We could use a balanced running count that will always hover around zero, but deviations from the RC of zero would signify that there is probably a wealth of high or low cards left. In this manner we could possibly play the machine with a slight advantage.

I don't know about this, I'm going to think about it tonight and see how it squares with the True Count Theorem. All input appreciated.

 

[Blue Efficacy]

In that case they're probably no better for acquiring comps than slots, and possibly worse.

Now here's a thought: let's say we didn't know where the shuffle point was in the blackjack machine, but we just pretended we did? We could use a balanced running count that will always hover around zero, but deviations from the RC of zero would signify that there is probably a wealth of high or low cards left. In this manner we could possibly play the machine with a slight advantage.

I don't know about this, I'm going to think about it tonight and see how it squares with the True Count Theorem. All input appreciated.

I think its a bit risky, but certainly better than nothing! You have 4 decks worth of cards between shuffles, so you're not constantly being "affected" by the invisible shuffle point. This would be much more hazardous with fewer decks I would imagine.

 

[shadroch]

In that case they're probably no better for acquiring comps than slots, and possibly worse.

I don't know. They are about 99% EV, where most slots are in the low 90s at best. Let's say $1,000 run thru will give you back $990, while the slot gives you $920. If you have to run the $1,000 thru four times to get the same amount of points as the slot, aren't your expected losses still less than on the slot machine?
Thats my reasoning,am I incorrect?

 

[Automatic Monkey]

In that case they're probably no better for acquiring comps than slots, and possibly worse.

I don't know. They are about 99% EV, where most slots are in the low 90s at best. Let's say $1,000 run thru will give you back $990, while the slot gives you $920. If you have to run the $1,000 thru four times to get the same amount of points as the slot, aren't your expected losses still less than on the slot machine?
Thats my reasoning,am I incorrect?

The BJ machines have a HE of 0.58% and return 99.42% With the factor of 6 differential that would be equivalent to a slot that returns 96.52%. I thought the high-limit slots returned a little better than that, but you're the slot guy, not my bag.

Upon reflecting upon yesterday's idea of picking a point at random and betting based on a running count built up from that point, I don't think that's going to work well. The reason is that if you roll up to the machine at the end of a shoe, and let's say you get 10 low cards in a row then they shuffle. That offset of +10 is going to be plaguing you for your entire session.

Now let's say you had a similar system, but after every X number of hands you adjusted the RC by 1, in the direction towards zero. That would dilute the power of your existing RC, but over time it would also eliminate any bias that comes from the point where you entered the shoe. Being we're not playing this machine to make a fortune, we're only interested in erasing the HE and making it a marginally +EV way to acquire tier points, diluting the RC should be no big deal.

 

[EasyRhino]

Upon reflecting upon yesterday's idea of picking a point at random and betting based on a running count built up from that point, I don't think that's going to work well.

as a thought experiment, if the machine shuffled every hand, then ANY count information you got would be in accurate. Sometimes your count would indicate it's negative (when it's zero) and other times it would indicate positive (when it's zero). This would lead to over and under betting. But with no correlation.

My hunch would be that stretched out over longer periods between shuffles, it would also have no correlation. Thus leading to an unchanged house advantage times your average bet played.

I think we need an operator's manual for one of these.

 

[shadroch]

Pick a card, any card. When it comes up the seventh time, you will know that the shoe was shuffled.

 

[Blue Efficacy]

Pick a card, any card. When it comes up the seventh time, you will know that the shoe was shuffled.

Sometimes i really think shadroch is the smartest man on this site.

 

[shadroch]

Only sometimes?

 

[Blue Efficacy]

:grin: But in all seriousness, you don't know how many times the cards were shuffled upon seeing that card 6 times, which makes things trickier. With 2/3 pen it is certainly feasible that 2 shuffles occurred over seeing a card six times.

 

[EasyRhino]

Wizard of odds had a thing to try to determine the number of decks used in online casino games with significant observation. I wonder if a similar concept could be used to determine shuffle points?

How sure are we on the number of decks in the game?

 

[shadroch]

What we are sure of- it's six decks with the shuffle point being at the 2/3rds mark. It states so on the machine and it would violate any number of rules if it does differently.

What I have observed, but am not certain of- I believe the shuffle point is when they switch dealers. In my limited observations, the machines where I mostly play seem to switch around the 204-215 card mark. In a different observation, I pick a random card and see if seven come into play with a particular dealer. It hasn't.... yet.
Both these observations are on one machine in one casino. I feel fairly confident I can tell the shuffle point on this one machine. I have no information to suggest other machines are all programmed either the same or differently.
The first paragraph is fact. The rest is conjecture, although I feel confident it applies to the one machine I play on.

 

[Kasi]

Now here's a thought: let's say we didn't know where the shuffle point was in the blackjack machine, but we just pretended we did?

That's what I was wondering too lol.

Say the machine, for simplicity, will by rule shuffle every time after 205 cards have been dealt. By State law or something, let's say. But it will never give a physical indication of a shuffle.

Does it matter when I enter since I know "my" shuffle will occur in 205 cards? To me, have I not entered at the top of a "shoe" and will always see 205 cards before I begin at 0 again?

Makes my head spin lol.

 

[sagefr0g]

.....

Now here's a thought: let's say we didn't know where the shuffle point was in the blackjack machine, but we just pretended we did? We could use a balanced running count that will always hover around zero, but deviations from the RC of zero would signify that there is probably a wealth of high or low cards left. In this manner we could possibly play the machine with a slight advantage.

I don't know about this, I'm going to think about it tonight and see how it squares with the True Count Theorem. All input appreciated.

well, like in my fuzzy count approach stuff, i'm often enough dead wrong, i end up thinking the tc is positive when it's actually negative (i know this from viewing my practice session logs in cvbj), so but anyway i might be betting up into a negative count after a bunch of low cards have presented, only to see a bunch more low cards coming out and me i'm probably losing money on those raised bets.
thing is though, i might just lower my bets as a result of not seeing what i'm expecting to see, ie. aces & faces. conversely maybe after seeing a bunch of low cards come out, i might see that the tide is turning so to speak. maybe i don't see a snapper in a round, but i see the components of a snapper start presenting. maybe i start thinking the time is ripe, sort of thing.
so maybe you don't know when the shuffle is but you might be able to detect, pardon the expression 'the flow of the sort of cards' in a qualitative sense that is like unto that which we would be expecting were we able to put a quantitative measure on it.
so maybe if your really counting on this machine you just might detect some qualitatively meaningful situations.
lol, maybe probably this response should be in the voodoo forum.

 

[sevencard2003]

u know i was supposed to get email everytime someone posted. oh well. the machine in laughlin u play shadrach, what do u do if like often is the case in the middle of the nite here in vegas--u have the machine to myself and the count becomes negative and ur not ready to quit playing. do u sit and play 1 hand of the $3 min, or 5 hands at once to eat up the deck faster? which is best?

 

[EasyRhino]

Has anyone seen one of these machines when no one's playing, i.e. in "attract mode"? Do dealers still rotate? That would be my worry.