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Thread: Bad Shoe. Can it spell future disaster?

  1. #14


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    Quote Originally Posted by Most Interesting Man View Post
    I suppose it depends on how non-random the shuffle being used is. I did read about a certain shuffle if applied to a fresh deck would greatly increase the house advantage against anyone making playing decisions based on basic strategy (pretty much everyone). I can't remember where I read about that. If the deck were configured like so and then future shuffles were extremely weak it may open the door to just that possibility. All speculation, and no research. Someone with a shuffle simulator and knowledge of what that initial deck configuration is may be able to prove or disprove this.
    There is a shuffle called the faro shuffle. With it one can take a new deck of cards and in a couple
    of shuffles exactly seperate the reds from the blacks. In exactly 8 shuffles the deck comes back
    to its ORIGINAL condition. Can anything else be done with it? Of course.

  2. #15
    Senior Member Aslan's Avatar
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    Last night I played at a store where I knew they might be watching me, since I had had recent wins there and was playing rated. Therefore, I decided to start off flat betting two hands to establish myself as a typical decent basic strategy player. The dealer must have won every hand for about a ten deals, except a couple where I won one hand and lost the other. I was quickly down the majority of my 40 unit buy-in, when it began to change. Only flat betting, I soon amassed my own 40 unit buy-in plus an additional 70 units, before I quit. I never once bet more than 2 units on a hand (2X was required to play two hands). The only deviations I made, was once with a count of +9 I took insurance on my A/9 hand, but ignored my 8/7 hand (which I thought was the ploppy thing to do), and I doubled down on an 8 vs. 5 at a similarly high count. Boy, was I ever glad that I did not change tables due to that initial poor beginning.

    There have been times, though, where the dealer won so many hands shoe after shoe that I was glad I did more to another table. That is either pure voodoo, or some other mechanism we just don't understand. At some point, I think it is better to change tables than to dig in one's heels saying adamantly, "I refuse to leave. It just isn't scientific to change tables. I will remain come hell or high water!" I did just that once in my first year of AP play at the Trump Plaza. I lost so many shoes in a row, it was comical, although I didn't think so at the time. It was not just me; the entire table was getting crushed for hours. At one point, everyone at the table refused to play another hand until the dealer reshuffled the cards. He had to call the pit supervisor over for permission, since we had all stepped back from the table. I lost somewhere in the neighborhood of $7,000 in that friendly $15 min game playing my level 1 system strictly by the book.

    I know it's considered ploppy to change tables, but the way I look at it is just because we don't understand why something is happening, does not mean there isn't a scientific justification for leaving a table-- we just don't know what it is. Since as an AP we look at it as one continuous session, it does not change anything in the traditional way of thinking to change tables.
    Last edited by Aslan; 12-27-2011 at 10:50 AM.

    Aslan 11/1/90 - 6/15/10 Stormy 1/22/95 - 8/23/10... “Life’s most urgent question is: what are you doing for others?” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

  3. #16
    Senior Member Anton Chigurh's Avatar
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    I have been hammered severely on the simulator, which uses an RNG, for long stretches.

    I have also been hammered on multiple consecutive shoes in different casinos.

    I can't prove this, but I propose a theorem: in blackjack, empirical evidence, though often creepy, is worthless.

  4. #17


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    The way I see it, a random cut by the player, any player, would eliminate this. I'm under the impresion it is just voodoo.
    "I think, therfore I can't play blackjack."
    Arnold Snyder, Blackbelt in Blackjack pg. 229 (2005)

  5. #18
    Senior Member Aslan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Solo player View Post
    The way I see it, a random cut by the player, any player, would eliminate this. I'm under the impresion it is just voodoo.
    You don't understand the nature of a cooler. The cards are not arranged in a rigid set way in which everyone must do the right thing to keep the advantage going. No, it doesn't matter where you cut the cards or how you play your hands, the cards are arranged in such a way that they will always favor the dealer overall. Think about card counting, for instance-- if the cards do not clump, there can never be a positive count. It requires the occurrence of more small cards than large cards to achieve a decent positive count. Cutting the cards will not affect the arrangement of a shoe that has no clumping.

    Aslan 11/1/90 - 6/15/10 Stormy 1/22/95 - 8/23/10... “Life’s most urgent question is: what are you doing for others?” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

  6. #19
    Senior Member Aslan's Avatar
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    Simply putting the cards in repeating low-high order will give the dealer a very significant advantage. No matter how many times you cut the deck, the low-high order will remain. Whether the first card is high or low, does change the degree of advantage, but in either case, the advantage goes to the dealer. Cheaters have more sophisticated ways of stacking the cards. Of course, the same order can occur randomly.

    Aslan 11/1/90 - 6/15/10 Stormy 1/22/95 - 8/23/10... “Life’s most urgent question is: what are you doing for others?” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

  7. #20
    Senior Member Gamblor's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Aslan View Post
    Simply putting the cards in repeating low-high order will give the dealer a very significant advantage. No matter how many times you cut the deck, the low-high order will remain. Whether the first card is high or low, does change the degree of advantage, but in either case, the advantage goes to the dealer. Cheaters have more sophisticated ways of stacking the cards. Of course, the same order can occur randomly.
    Thanks for the clarification, initially I thought you were saying you can set up a cooler deck that will cause the players to lose EVERY hand no matter what happens at the table - which is I think impossible.

    But if your saying a deck can be configured so that its highly favorable/unfavorable to the dealer, that is in all likelihood true.

    Also here's another interesting thing from chaos theory that might be relevant. If you knead dough, and put raisins (or spices depending on who gives the examples) into in an initial non-random clump, you would think the these raisins eventually get spread out evenly and "randomly" after a repeating kneading process. But under certain conditions, it does not. Sorry I couldn't find a less cumbersome link on this topic.

    http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/page-307
    Last edited by Gamblor; 12-30-2011 at 12:59 PM.

  8. #21
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    Just thought I'd throw my hat in the suggestion ring regarding (back to) Aslan's page one 'bad shoes' contribution.

    Dealer Bust Av is 28.20%, which is a high figure when you think about it. This figure is set in stone in the big picture. So whatever you do or don't do, as a player - and however the dealer is shuffling (without cheating of course) - that 28.20% figure is there always, for you to ignore or for you to capitalize on. So how can you capitalize on it?... and how does it fit in with Aslan's 'bad shoes?'

    Nobody here (I hope) is silly enough to play one box of 7 in an 8-deck game, right? You can do much better than that... Let's say it's 6-deck, 75% pen with four or five players. That should get you 16 rounds. At 28.20% dealer busts, can you expect around 5 dealer busts this shoe? No, of course not because obviously the long-term figure is exactly that and this particular shoe is short-term. I suggest that Aslan's Series of Bad Shoes were mostly all well short of the 28.20% DB mark. If you are trying to check this idea out, it takes a view of the long-term, which is not easy to accomplish when one is so versed in the here-and-now, cut-and-thrust right now in the game.

    My (voodoo) theory is that somehow, the shoe 'knows' the dealer bust figure is 28.20% and shortly (or longly) - if you are patient - you might expect a shoe that suddenly 'corrects' and whammo! a whole series of dealer busts happens, many in succession; even when the dealer has a face or ace up. You may even see 9 or more dealer busts of the 16 rounds for that shoe. I think everyone here has seen that (rare) kind of phenomenon as well as the far-more-common Bad Shoe after Bad Shoe. Of course, if you happen to be seated in Third Base, you call the shots on whether or not to take that crucial last card. If you are canny (and experienced) enough, you may be able to break from basic strategy at times, when ... experience and... canniness... tells you; and 'engineer' yet another dealer bust. Good luck.

  9. #22
    Random number herder Norm's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kat View Post
    Dealer Bust Av is 28.20%, which is a high figure when you think about it. This figure is set in stone in the big picture.
    Sorry, the part above is incorrect in real play and the latter part is gambler's fallacy.

    For the first part, see Dealer Bust Rate.

    For the latter, see Gambler's Fallacy.
    Last edited by Norm; 03-05-2012 at 04:09 AM.
    "I don't think outside the box; I think of what I can do with the box." - Henri Matisse

  10. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Norm View Post
    Sorry, the part above is incorrect and the latter part is gambler's fallacy.

    For the first part, see Dealer Bust Rate.

    For the latter, see Gambler's Fallacy.
    Well, thank you for this conclusion... "What it comes down to is that dealer bust rate is useless information."

    How about this: One player (no other players at his table) is playing an average of 4.5 hands per round. Does your conclusion still apply?

  11. #24
    Random number herder Norm's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kat View Post
    Well, thank you for this conclusion... "What it comes down to is that dealer bust rate is useless information."

    How about this: One player (no other players at his table) is playing an average of 4.5 hands per round. Does your conclusion still apply?
    As you said, the dealer bust rate is affected by how you play. In fact, you can force the dealer bust rate to go up. But, your EV will go down if you do this even though the dealer busts more often. It really is a useless statistic based on the number of players, how they play, the rules, and luck -- with luck being the major factor.
    "I don't think outside the box; I think of what I can do with the box." - Henri Matisse

  12. #25
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    How do you now that the unusual bust rate is not a correction for imbalance in the past? Then you are waiting for a past correction. The truth is the idea of correction is wrong. You only have the average and the probability of deviation from the average. If you understood Norms statements in his book you would understand you are playing a semantic game. Heads up meant 1 hand v the dealer, not 1 player against the dealer. You can't predict the dealer bust rate on a shoe any more than you can predict which of the next two cards are the dealer's bust card. If we could we would all be rich. An unseen card is an unseen card. They are all the same until you see them. An undealt shoe is an undealt shoe they are all the same until they are played.

  13. #26


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    Quote Originally Posted by Tthree View Post
    ....... You can't predict the dealer bust rate on a shoe any more than you can predict which of the next two cards are the dealer's bust card. If we could we would all be rich. An unseen card is an unseen card. They are all the same until you see them. An undealt shoe is an undealt shoe they are all the same until they are played.
    seeing them engenders a sense of respect for the dealer bust rate such as it is. but even knowing your going to see them, one still doesn't know the dealer is gonna bust or not, till it happens or not, lol.

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