The techniques that get asked about the most are shuffle tracking, and ace sequencing. Let’s start with shuffle tracking. In the 70s Las Vegas casinos started introducing more shoe games. Many of the people working in the casinos believed that no one could count a shoe. Teams quickly realized that there was much more money to be made at the shoe games because they could play with far less heat. The shuffles were as simple as you could possibly imagine. They put the discards on top and did a one pass R&R. (Riffle and Restack) Many people started realizing that these shuffles were not hard to keep track of. I joined a team that was entirely devoted to shuffle tracking. People were starting to get heat playing shoe games, but if you bet big off the top the casinos they left you alone. Ken Uston decided that it was impossible to be accurate using this technique. You might be playing a losing game, and not even know it. He threw players off the team for\u00a0attempting\u00a0it. The players on our team all supported Ken’s view in public. Don’t even try it. You will lose all your money. We were hoping to prevent competition. Not everyone fell for our story, and slowly but surely more people were doing it, and the casinos started changing their shuffles. Remember my axiom:<\/p>\n
Nothing lasts forever.<\/h3>\n
In 1994 Arnold Snyder wrote The Blackjack Shuffle Tracker’s Cookbook<\/a>, and then in 1996 George C wrote, Shuffle Tracking for Beginners<\/a>, but the end was already in site. All the\u00a0casinos\u00a0were switching to two-pass shuffles, and the casinos that were extra paranoid would bar ploppies that won, and claim they must be shuffle tracking.<\/p>\n The bottom line is I do not think shuffle tracking is worth learning for 2 reasons. One – shuffles worth playing are very few and far between. The current shuffle in Las Vegas (and most of the rest of the US) is a 2 pass step ladder followed by an R&R. If those terms confuse you they are fully explained in Arnold’s book. This shuffle is garbage for a tracker. Yes, it is possible to get a small clump at the bottom of the discard rack, or the last couple rounds before the cut card came out, but to go after this shuffle is a recipe for disaster. I would not play any 2-pass shuffle as a tracker. There are much better\u00a0opportunities\u00a0out there than this.<\/p>\n The second reason I would not pursue tracking is that is too easy to fool yourself into thinking you have an edge when you don’t. (This is the same trap many poker players fall into.) Say that you follow your clump, and are expecting a drop of -5 over one deck. You put out your big bets and at the end of the deck the count is plus 2. (This has happened to everyone who has shuffle tracked.) What happened? Did the dealer grab differently than I thought? Were there lots of extra little cards in the unknown sections that got shuffled into my clump? Did I cut in the wrong place? Did you take insurance while playing that section? Just how big was the disadvantage you were playing? If you are counting cards it is very easy for someone to watch you and objectively tell you whether you were playing with an edge. This is much harder with shuffle tracking.<\/p>\n I know what you’re saying, “Wait a minute. Isn’t this the same BS you were feeding to other players back in the day?” Yes, but this time I mean it. The big difference is the shuffles. If you find a one pass shuffle then by all means give it a shot. Arnold’s books are always worth a read. Just don’t waste your time on those 2-pass garbage shuffles. Once you do some scouting, and realize how rare one pass shuffles are I\u00a0think\u00a0you will agree that this is not worth your time.<\/p>\n What about ace sequencing? In the late 90s Al Francesco came out of\u00a0retirement. (If you don’t know he is check out – podcast<\/a>, interview<\/a>, and The Big Player<\/a>.) He formed a team specializing in ace sequencing, and I was fortunate enough to be recruited for that team. The idea is to remember “key cards” that go on top of the ace in the discard rack, and after the shuffle when you see those key cards come out together you make a large bet hoping to catch the ace. A good sequencer can memorize a dozen or more sequences per shoe. The problem for the avid student is that no good book on how to do this exists. There is one book called Blackjack Ace Prediction<\/a>, by David McDowell. When the book came out Arnold Snyder reviewed<\/a> it, and after reading the review, and talking to other sequencers who had nothing good to say about it, I just didn’t bother. \u00a0We had a good run with this team, but by 2000 the good games were gone. Since that time I have found 4 games that were worth sequencing, and one of those was not in the US.<\/p>\n Sequencing is a valuable skill to have. Unlike shuffle tracking, you can tell absolutely whether or not you have an edge, and the edge you do get is much higher than that of a shuffle tracker. The problems are: it is time consuming to learn, there are no good books on the subject, and once learned you may never get an opportunity to use this skill. If you are one of those players obsessed with questions like, “What is my edge? What is my risk of ruin? How big a bankroll do I need?” Forget it. You aren’t going to find those\u00a0answers\u00a0in print. If you do decide to take this on there is a book on memory that I liked. Check out Moonwalking With Einstein<\/a>.<\/p>\n Does that sound like it is worth your time? Only you can answer that. But here is what I don’t understand. The message boards are filled with threads about stronger counts, side counts, shuffle tracking, and ace sequencing. Why aren’t they asking about Spanish 21 or Blackjack Switch? \u00a0Those games are everywhere. If I was devoted to counting cards that is the road I would investigate.<\/p>\n Card counters spend a lot of time learning to count. They memorize basic strategy, then slowly learn to cancel the pluses and minuses. Next they learn to estimate the number of cards in the discard rack, and adjust their running count to a true count. They memorize index plays so they know when it is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[29,2,3],"tags":[34,54,56,60,85,116,168],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Facebook\"](\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/96x96\/facebook.png\" "\\"Follow")
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