Likely stupid question

[Bigdaddy]

Bigdaddy, actually the question that Karkas asked was a very good one for someone just starting out, indicated by his first sentence.


"I'm a new counter (still only training myself) and spending a lot of time thinking about the theory of blackjack."


Karkas, you are on the right track.

No disrespect intended. I agree that it was a thoughtful question. I was simply trying to drive home the point that the previous rounds played have no relevance to betting on the next round. You just have to go by the current count.

[bjarg]

I was simply trying to drive home the point that the previous rounds played have no relevance to betting on the next round. You just have to go by the current count.

No.
He is just starting out and he intuitively already realized that previous rounds played do matter and that you not always have to go by the count.
This guy is going to learn fast and go very far.
Great job.

[Masterhoudini]

No.
He is just starting out and he intuitively already realized that previous rounds played do matter and that you not always have to go by the count.
This guy is going to learn fast and go very far.
Great job.

As a follow up- I am curious to know what is considered "doable" for shuffles. I notice many of the hand shuffles come with multiple strips these days.

I was lucky enough to come across a 2 pass stepladder, riffle and restack on a 6 decker at an Indian casino where they were counter measuring me with half shoe, but only put two plugs/or even some lazy dealers tossed the undealt half on top. Practiced quite a bit and took full advantage winning- 32k in one half a shoe. Seems like these types of situations are few and far between though.

[bjarg]

As a follow up- I am curious to know what is considered "doable" for shuffles. I notice many of the hand shuffles come with multiple strips these days.

Its all about dilution (shuffle complexity) and skill.
The less dilution, the less skill required to play against it (you could track big slugs with mapping only).
More dilution means tracking smaller slugs, not being able to map and relying a lot on visual skills to map the end result.
Of course the more dilution a shuffle generates the less advantage one can get from it.
All hand shuffles are trackable (to different degrees) because there is no casino thats going to shuffle in the way that would require to generate complete randomness (for this they usually do another thing).