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Thread: Bad Shoe. Can it spell future disaster?

  1. #1
    Senior Member Aslan's Avatar
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    Bad Shoe. Can it spell future disaster?

    I put this here because it may be more voodoo than science, but science is my only intent.

    Have you ever experienced a really bad shoe? And not only that, but it seems to repeat shoe after shoe after shoe? This is what I am wondering:

    We all know that a shoe can be rigged in such a way that no matter what the players do, it will greatly favor the house, or vice versa, depending on the intent of those "stacking" the shoe. This has been documented in the case of "coolers" and even the sequence of cards has been published for either outcome (pro-house or pro-player). It stands to reason that occasionally a shoe can randomly get itself into such a configuration, or near-configuration. In such a case, the player will have no chance of winning no matter what he does (it has been shown that the outcome is basically irrespective of decisions made by the players). My question is, can this deadly configuration of cards be carried on from shoe to shoe due to the fact that dealers do not actually render a true random shuffle. They say it takes seven passes at a simple riffle shuffle to approximate a random shuffle, and we know that the majority of dealers do nothing close to seven shuffles. The reason I bring this up is that if one should experience just such a shoe, where the house wins the vast majority of hands (of course, you as an AP would wong out if the count matched the devastating result, which I'm not sure it necessarily would), should you move to another table? Moving to another table is traditionally felt to be a voodoo ploppy move of the first order. But if the cards can remain in basically the same general configuration, then it would be scientifically prohibitive to stay. Has any study been made of this possible phenomenon?

    I suppose a simulation could test this hypothesis out. First, use the Book or other source to line the cards up in the most disastrous "cooler" configuration favoring the house. Then simulate a two-pass riffle shuffle. Lastly, play the shoe out, reshuffle, and play it out again. Repeat several times. Record the hand-by-hand results and compare with normal expectations. I hope somebody gets on this, or has prior scientific knowledge of it they don't mind sharing.

    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.

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    Senior Member Gamblor's Avatar
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    Just speculation on my part, but I wouldn't be shocked if certain player decisions or types of shuffles results in a certain configuration of cards, that gets into a certain state, kind of like strange attractors in chaos theory - or in a similar vein like how for superconductive materials, if a certain condition is met, i.e., a certain temperature is reached, the material exhibits a completely different phase, essentially going from unordered to ordered.

    Offhand I can't think of a real life configuration of cards that would be consistently good or bad, no matter what happens at the table (player decisions, player cut, # of players changing, etc?)

    Also there was the article by Snyder, that for some reason, if the cards are not shuffled, and at a table with few players, for some reason even a BS player would have an advantage - the article doesn't go into why this is the case, Snyder just ran a bunch of sims supporting this.

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    Voodoo.

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    Random number herder Norm's Avatar
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    Keep in mind that the seven riffles claim is about a deck with 52 different cards. A BJ deck only has 10 different cards. Huge difference.

    You could certainly design a shuffle that would keep the cards behind the cut card relatively intact, sort of like a card shark’s false shuffle. And, it wouldn’t take any greater skill to perform. This would cause consecutive shoes to maintain their level of richness. It would be pretty stupid for a casino to use such a shuffle as it would be obvious to a tracker and they’d travel around the world to play it.
    "I don't think outside the box; I think of what I can do with the box." - Henri Matisse

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    I've considered this topic too; for the house to consistently drop 'coolers' they'd need to fully control:

    (a)how the deck is cut
    but its feasible to control the cut using a dealer who is a mechanic

    (b)how many hands the bettors will place
    unless shills fill all the other boxes I don't see how that can be done

    (c)the exact split/hit/stand sequence being played
    admittedly it could be expected in advance (not even ploppies would hit a 20) but if one draw/hit decision deviates from the 'script' the entire shoe would be 'out-of-phase' and cease to be a cooler

    (c)the effects of table-leavers and mid-shoe entrants
    the disruption can be from when bettors leave or mid-shoe entires, in shops where its permitted

    Change any of these factors and the Initial Conditions of the numerical solution can deviate wildly off-course.

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    Senior Member Aslan's Avatar
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    I think some of you need a little education and for others, some clarification of what I am saying. It has already been proven beyond any doubt that the cards can be arranged to greatly favor either the house or the player regardless of how the player plays his cards. That much is not in contention. Secondly, I was not suggesting that the house deliberately put in a cooler to cheat its customers. All I am saying is that we already know for a fact that a certain arrangement of cards will favor the house no matter how its played-- I believe this is detailed in The Book-- and I've seen it elsewhere-- and this configuration of cards or something near to it occurs occasionally quite by accident in the normal course of play. My only question is, if the cards are in an order that so favors the house, is it likely to maintain that house-favored order, or close proximity to it, for a shoe or two or three with the two-pass shuffles that we normally see? If the answer is, "No" then that answers my question. Nothing more than that. Thanks.
    Last edited by Aslan; 12-24-2011 at 11:35 PM.

    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.

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    I was told a particular ordering of the cards would result in the house winning almost every hand in a shoe regardless of play and fluctuating player numbers. I can't remember the order as this was a long time ago but I spent a lot of time trying to disprove this unbelievable claim. After many hours experimenting with play using this cooler configuration of cards, I had to come to the conclusion that the claim was true.

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    I am not a believer in this, but have been on magical shoes and slippers where the house could not win for hours and lost a small fortune.

    I believe that we must broaden our AP knowledge beyond just BJ, so much more out there. Never be afraid to get up and move, often many good reasons to do so.

    I doubt real coolers exist, and remember as Norm said, STing, even on a highly plugged 1 pass, or 2 pass, I will always try for the cut card.

    Ouchez.

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    It is wise to remember that we can ALWAYS be cheated anywhere at anytime...but there are also legitimate, happenstance anamolies and the world of 3x std deviation that may appear not on the up and up but are actually just part of the games.

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    Senior Member Coyote's Avatar
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    Sounds to me like you are describing the clumping of high cards located behind the cut card. Nothing unusual there. Now to have shoe after shoe with high cards clumping behind the cut card...not likely in a ligitimate game. After three shoes of that scenerio, you should move on to another table.
    Life is short so hit it hard!

  11. #11
    Senior Member Aslan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Coyote View Post
    Sounds to me like you are describing the clumping of high cards located behind the cut card. Nothing unusual there. Now to have shoe after shoe with high cards clumping behind the cut card...not likely in a ligitimate game. After three shoes of that scenerio, you should move on to another table.
    No, the configuration of cards I am talking about is irrespective of where the cards are cut. Check out "coolers" in The Book.
    Last edited by Aslan; 12-27-2011 at 09:51 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.

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    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.

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    Junior Member Suwon Fish's Avatar
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    I don't think coolers or clumping are necessarily as an explanation.

    A week or so ago I tried to show my wife how powerful BS was compared to just guessing with a kitchen table demonstration. She knew almost nothing about BJ. Simple plan, I gave her $5 in chips and she was going to gamble them away. Then I was going to play with $5 using only BS and she would marvel at the power of gambling math!

    Uh....

    She won and she won and she won. She started with 50 chips and an hour later we quit when she had 300 (my chips ran out).

    She made almost every bad call you can think of, standing when she should have hit, hitting when she should have stood, etc. etc.

    She actually wanted to quit. I must have looked glum as my chips (and money) dwindled. I wanted to keep playing to demonstrate that "streaks" are only in the imagination, and to get my money back...

    If I'd been watching the game I'd have sworn that the deck was rigged or she was cheating in some way.

    As the dealer I can tell you there was no cheating. Single deck, frequent double riffle shuffles, all the best rules minus surrender and insurance (I wanted to keep it simple).

    It was unbelievable, and I'm glad I saw it with my own eyes.

    Anyway, a relentless one hour winning or losing "streak" doesn't need gaffed shoes, daubed cards or prisms in ice cubes. Sh!t really does happen.

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