October 25th, 2010 by Carl
The theory behind tracking shuffles is actually very simple, but it is the application that is often difficult. Let us break down a four deck shoe into eight segments of half decks. As the dealer dealers the cards then the first half deck segment has a count of +5, the second +2, then 0, then -4, +9, -1, -2 and -10. These are then taken out of the shoe to be shuffled by the dealer. The average dealer shuffles in half deck segments so the eight sections will come out of the shoe in reverse order to how they went in.
So the top sections will have counts of -10, -2, -1 and +9. The dealer will split these into two sections before dealing and so the second section will have -4, 0, +2 and +5. The dealer will then take each section and shuffle them together so the -10 clump will be shuffled with the -4 clump but remember that a minus total indicates high cards and so these two clumps will be shuffled together to make a card clump of +14. The second section will show a clump of +6 and so we have a half a shoe where the count is a highly favourable +20.
If the cutting card was given to a player who knew this then they could cut the negative portion of the shoe to the back and bring the +20 half deck to the front. This would mean that a player could increase their bets from the very first hand that was dealt. This would have the added effect of making the player look like a gambler and not a card counter because no conventional card counter bets big from the top of the shoe because there has been no count information up to that stage.
Come and play casino games at bwin.
October 23rd, 2010 by Carl
Take it from me, shuffle tracking is a very difficult skill to execute. I should know because we tried as a team to do this for some considerable time. I already had nearly nine years of casino experience where I could count faster than any counter that I ever knew or heard about so there were no problems on that score. But it is very difficult to do this under casino conditions unless you are part of a team. Then it becomes feasible if you have several people doing different things.
Remember that I am not just talking about shuffle tracking here and pulling it off, that isn’t difficult. What I am talking about here is doing it for hour after hour, day after day and week after week against totally inconsistent dealers. This is what makes it tough. We used Shuffle Trak to help identify where the high card segments were going but the downside of this is that the software doesn’t know when a dealer has done something different.
This can only be detected by the naked eye and so you have no option but to get the skill yourself. The problem with having extra team members stems from having to split profits amongst more people. While this sounds good in theory, it opens up whole new complexities. It is often better to keep something simple when you are trying to make money and we eventually dropped trying to track shuffles. So it is not something that I would ever go back to again even if I had the option to do so. It is far better and just as productive to look for weak dealers instead.
December 5th, 2009 by Carl
When I wrote my first book, “Princes of Darkness : The World of High-stakes Blackjack” back in 2006, many people jumped on me for only using the basic high/low count. This is a basic level 1 counting system where you only add and subtract in units of one.
Some of the criticism amazed me and especially from so called blackjack experts who clearly had not read my reasons further into the book. These were clearly people who were stuck in what was conventional card counting blackjack train of thought.
I on the other hand was thinking beyond conventional card counting. I simply did not want (could not handle) complicated multi-level counting systems whilst trying to shuffle track at the same time. Card counting is difficult at the best of times whilst having to interact in normal ways and worry about signalling in BP’s.
On top of this you are trying to keep a score on what has been won and lost and if you have people in your team who you cannot trust, you have more than enough to think about and if any “expert” thinks that while doing all this that they can use a multi-level counting system on top then I have two words to say to that……try it!
Even IF you succeeded which would be very doubtful then you still have the rather serious problem of fatigue waiting ominously just around the corner. To do all these things whilst trying to supervise several team members at the same as well as keep an eye out for casino personnel and any potential heat is very difficult.
In fact I would have to say that had I not had all of my years in gaming where I practiced counting speed and multi-level counting systems coupled with already knowing about casino techniques and surveillance then I just don’t think that I would have been able to pull everything off. There is no doubt in my mind that I would have probably been forced to drop the shuffle tracking element.
But seeing as I didn’t see how card counting could be profitable as a stand alone way of making money from blackjack in 1998 then it is doubtful if the entire thing would have got off the ground to begin with.
see you soon and take care
Carl “The Dean” Sampson
