Hey,

I was wondering the best way to play an 8 deck shoe using the zen count. The casino I'm using puts the cutting card about halfway in the shoe (4 decks in), so half of the shoe doesn't even get used. How I plan to play, is to count to about 156 cards in (one deck away from the cutting card), and if there's a nice positive count, to play then. The only thing I'm stuck on is working out the true count, do I divide the running count by 5 (the number of decks left in the entire shoe) or 1 (the number of decks that are actually left to be played). I initially thought that I should just divide by 1, as only around another 52 cards are to be dealt, whereas now I'm thinking I should divide by the number of decks left in the whole shoe as they're a part of the whole jumble of cards.

Which method is correct to work out the true count?

Thanks,
Xagan.