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Thread: Following An Ace Through The Shuffle

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    Following An Ace Through The Shuffle

    So I remember reading an old Scarne book years ago, and he described a strategy professionals used where the gambler simply intently follows an ace through a shuffle visually and bet the farm when the ace was likely to appear.

    I like the transparent simplicity of this idea. The power of an ace is first card is significant. While I doubt there are too many people alive who can predict the exact location of an ace with that much accuracy even adding an ace to a deck wipes out the house edge. If you can narrow a specific ace down to a specific deck segment you can make a lot of money if you can shove down a big bet and spread to multiple hands. The important word being "can".

    However I have never heard of an AP in the modern era using this technique. There are somewhat similar techniques such as card steering and sequencing but they are not the same thing.

    Scarne was considered an authority on the physicalities of card games especially cheating methods: however he was poor on the mathematics of the game. He was also a massive narcissist and I wouldn't be surprised if he made this up. If he didn't make it up the shuffle procedures during his post-war heyday were very different from now.

    I've experimented with this a little and it does seem to work to some extent with a lot of eyeballing practice but you can never really get a statistically significant sample size so it is difficult to know whether you can get an edge. You are looking at one opportunity per shoe. And you don't know if you succeeded most of the time-one ace of spades looks much like another.

    Has any one ever tried this? The sheer absence of any information on this subject isn't encouraging but that may be due to the stoically mathematically nature of most blackjack ap's who like their randomness with a degree of certainty.

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    Senior Member Gramazeka's Avatar
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    "Don't Cast Your Pearls Before Swine" (Jesus)

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    [an ace is first card], If you are able to determine or estimate the exact location of an ace as the first card, record your success rate in correctly identifying whether it is an ace or not.

    [narrow a specific ace down to a specific deck segment], take records by an ace count, A=-12, non A=+1, too see whether the total count, sum of all the records, is positive or negative.

    If you are tracking big cards/small cards within a segment, employ the Hi-Lo method for tracking. Also use Hi-Lo to record all the cards in the round when you take action. Once you have accumulated enough records, you will be able to determine the extent of your advantage.

    By sequencing simple or bad shuffling, or by some techniques on CSMs, tracking big cards or a specific ace, or tracking cards in sequence, you can always compare the actual outcomes to your expected theoretical results.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Gramazeka View Post
    waste of time

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    Quote Originally Posted by texrex View Post
    waste of time
    I know- not, if you add Norm- CV Shufle software and brains to it.
    "Don't Cast Your Pearls Before Swine" (Jesus)

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    In the gaining scarcity few places with BJ no CSM no ASM, jumping your bets to 500USD in one hand is a very red flag

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    Quote Originally Posted by Iwantmoney View Post
    In the gaining scarcity few places with BJ no CSM no ASM, jumping your bets to 500USD in one hand is a very red flag
    No one said anything about bet jumping.

  8. #8


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    Quote Originally Posted by Archvaldor View Post
    So I remember reading an old Scarne book years ago, and he described a strategy professionals used where the gambler simply intently follows an ace through a shuffle visually and bet the farm when the ace was likely to appear.

    I like the transparent simplicity of this idea.

    However I have never heard of an AP in the modern era using this technique. There are somewhat similar techniques such as card steering and sequencing but they are not the same thing.


    I've experimented with this a little

    Has any one ever tried this? The sheer absence of any information on this subject isn't encouraging but that may be due to the stoically mathematically nature of most blackjack ap's who like their randomness with a degree of certainty.
    The OP states unambiguously he is beginner in this aspect and am looking for more information. So I merely mention the necessity of high bet jump may lead to barring that’s all.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Gramazeka View Post
    I've read Diaconis stuff a long time ago. It sounded mathematically elegant but I am unclear what the point of his writings were in terms of practical application, and no one else in the AP community seemed to have any idea either.

    Perhaps you could shed some light on this?

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    Senior Member Gramazeka's Avatar
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    As far as I have been researching this question for a long time - Diaconis materials are very interesting when researching shufle. In particular, pay attention to the number of inserts during mixing and the outgoing probabilities. This applies to working with key cards.
    Last edited by Gramazeka; 05-31-2023 at 04:55 PM.
    "Don't Cast Your Pearls Before Swine" (Jesus)

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    Senior Member Gramazeka's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Archvaldor View Post
    and no one else in the AP community seemed to have any idea either.

    Perhaps you could shed some light on this?
    You are wrong. Read the list of recommended reading at the end of this book -

    https://www.amazon.com/Blackjack-Ace.../dp/1879712105
    "Don't Cast Your Pearls Before Swine" (Jesus)

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