Have to agree. My best shuffle tracking was on 4 deck shoes in the day and I was reasonably good at it. I do have some theories on tracking ASM and hand dealt shuffles in 6 deckers - the simple fact is that - I experiment, albeit lightly on those theories - to high a probability of getting hammered.

Dalmatian - regarding card thickness - at end of shoe dealer puts remaining cards from shoe into discard tray. Visualize the full discard tray using a mental felt marker drawing a line. Should help.