Quote Originally Posted by BJGenius007 View Post
Is casino using hand shuffle or ASM? I have been playing in a casino that seems don't care if AP are counting at their BJ tables. It is like Counters' Table resurrected. When TC jumps to +5, +10 or even +20 I saw people using up to 50 to 1 spread and the pit boss still smiling. And the shoes are always clumped with 7, 8 and ace. Particularly aces which are always clumped with 5. I remember one recent hand which happens more often than it should be statistically:

Dealer has up card ace. Player 1 has 5,5. Player 2 has ace, 5. Player 3 also has five and ace. Player 1 hit, got an ace and stopped at 21. Player 2, got three aces in a roll and stopped at soft 19. Player 3 hit, got an 5 and stopped at 21. Everybody was happy until we saw dealer down card is 5, then next card he drew is also 5. Two pushes at 21 and player 2 lost his hand.

First, almost every shoe has a sequence of 20 cards that contains 8 to 12 aces with small cards (5 most likely). Theoretically it adds 0.8% or 1.2% to the house edge because these 8 to 12 cards can't lead to a Blackjack. I had 3 hours of playing time without one single BJ. Then spending 3 more hours to get only 2 BJ. It is almost statically impossible. And it happened more often at this place. The good news is that the dealer also seldom got BJ.

The typical composition of a shoe is that it has the neutral 1.5 decks on top, then 1 decks of cards rich and concentrating on 2,3,4 to set up high positive RC, then 1 or 1.5 decks of cards that are neutral but have a few 7/8 clumps. (Remember at this point, TC is high and player begin to bump up bets.) The next 1.5 decks should be juicy one with a lot of faces, but often it is alternating on 12 straight faces that dealer and every player except one all got 20 and push, or face-small-face-small-face-small-face-small-face-small-face-small that is very hard to play. Half of the time you surrender. Half of the time you watch dealer make a hand often because lack of 7/8/9. And in the bottom of the shoe is the neutral cards with the famous ace/five clump. I think no matter where you cut it, this shoe is hard to beat.

If you suspect the casino is programming the ASM to sequence a shoe, counting how many Blackjacks the table including the dealer are getting. If the number is very low, there is something suspicious going on. Another indication is if the shoe always has 12 or more face cards in a roll and other clumps especially 7/8/9 and aces.
When the TC jumps to +5 or +10? +20?!! Only time I remember seeing a count close to +20 was in a deeeeply dealt DD game using a level 2 count.