Composition of the Shoe

[Staska]

Hey all,

The game I'm referring to is:
6 Decks 75% penetration
Stand soft 17
double any (including after split)
split unlimited amount of times (apparently) (can only split KK ; JJ ; 10's but not KJ ; QJ etc.)
Split aces any amount of times (one card only)
BJ pays 3 to 2
European no hole
No surrender
Hi-Lo


I'm comparatively new to blackjack. My main question at the moment is about the composition of the shoe:

Is there a way to tell if the count is just going to keep on rising? Or is it going to be like a roller coaster? or is it just going to keep going down?
I imagine shuffle tracking is one way after looking through the first shoe game, but that set of skills are beyond my reach at the moment, because my counting is not the best yet. (counting a deck in 42 secs (no rush to keep it perfect every time))

I mainly ask this because i played around at home to see how counting works and at the same time consolidating perfect basic strategy.
What I have realized is: if 2 people play you get around 30 games before a shuffle - if 7 people play you get around 12 games. (everyone plays perfect basic strategy)
The true counts rarely go beyond +2 and -2.

It is a bit hard to explain, but if the count quickly drops and keeps on dropping, isn't it worth to bet more, because high cards keep flopping out?
The opposite for constantly rising counts.(doesn't feel like its good to keep on betting big if the count is constantly rising) And when its a roller coaster it feels like that's the best shoe composition to apply your count to, especially when its more volatile (going up to a very high count and then dropping very fast). And is there a way of figuring the deck composition out and in what ways (Feels like there is none and I just need to rely on the true count).

One solution to this is to wait until the count gets very high, and start betting big when it starts to climb down, but then again it might go up 5 times go down once and then keep on going up...

and what betting spread do you suggest for this type of game keeping it conservative so that I minimize the fluctuations?

I've been to casino only a handful of times with 100 pounds each time, 5 pound minimum table, flat betting and using basic strategy, lost 2 times won 100 pounds once, but I played for like 6-7 hours each time going up and down up and down..which means i experienced a lot of luck??

Sorry for my mumbling, I'm all over the place because I just started.

Other than that I feel like I'm on the right track in wasting my free time and money with gambling.

[Three]

One solution to this is to wait until the count gets very high, and start betting big when it starts to climb down, but then again it might go up 5 times go down once and then keep on going up...

You can't predict what the count will do. The True Count Theorem says you can expect the True Count to say the same. Of course it can do anything. If it does stay the same the cards coming out each round will be representative of the remaining cards not a neutral deck. In other words the running count decrease in a plus count will be perfectly offset by the decrease in divisor (number of unseen cards) when calculating the TC. Your thinking is actually a bit backwards. You are trying to bet when the big cards come out not after. Low cards coming out increase expectation for the remaining rounds and vice versa for high cards coming out. You bet according to the expectation for the next round based on the composition of the unseen cards.

As for TC remaining between plus and minus 2. The frequency of outlier TC's is proportional to the remaining cards to be played. In single and double deck games the frequency of outliers is much higher and when the cards are dealt out further into the shoe leaving fewer cards unplayed at the shuffle the same effect is seen.