New West Virginia Blackjack Games

i noticed, in wv, that the dealer will not pay out immediately for blackjack if he has the potential for blackjack (a push)....am i mistaken or does atlantic city pay out right away when the player has blackjack?

Most places in AC pay immediately, but there's at least one I can recall that waits until the rest of the payouts are made.

You may have it confused with when some casinos pay a blackjack...if the dealer does NOT have a BJ, some will pay you and collect your cards prior to dealing to other players; others will pay you as the dealer progresses through each of the players.

Pretty sure that US casinos always check for a dealer BJ when a 10-value or Ace is up prior to paying any player BJs. Of course, I haven't been to every casinos either

good luck

Wheeling Island

Hi!

I'm new here, and was wondering if anybody had played the shoes at Wheeling Island (in Wheeling, WV). They originally had 6D shoes but have since, apparently, switched to 8D. I notice they also closed down the entire shoe pit on Thurs. evening, forcing everyone to play the damned CSM tables (even though there were plenty of people wanting to play the shoes). Does anybody know what might be going on there? Seems a bit weird to me. Maybe they're getting taken to the cleaners?

P.S. Love the forum. Lots of good stuff.

The Prevalence of Casino Cheating?

Hey, Guys:

Over the last 24 hrs. I took the worst beating of my life at the tables. I mean I got absolutely SLAUGHTERED (and so did everyone else, w/out exception). And before you ask: yes, I played and counted correctly; and no, there were virtually no even halfway decent counts. The dealers simply WOULD NOT (repeat: WOULD NOT!!!) bust to save a man's g**damn life (pardon my language, but I'm deeply upset at the moment). They pulled 20's & 21's w/ 5 & 6 upcards ON A REGULAR BASIS. Every time I double-downed I got a 3 (interestingly, I got the three of clubs three times in a row - shouldn't that pay something?). I had previously taken over a grand from this place in less than 24 hrs. of play. Now I'm almost a grand in the hole. Un-be-frigging-lievable.
So, what I'm wondering is: how many of you believe casinos that use under-the-table automatic shufflers somehow or another engage in preferential shuffling? Every single shoe - and I mean EVERY shoe - seemed to be "layered," such that the players got hands stiffer than a fourteen-year-old boy on Viagra and there was exactly one small or big card left over for the dealer, depending entirely on what he happened to need to wipe out the whole table. And please don't think I'm just some paranoid wacko loon - I'm telling you this happened over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and OVER and - yes, one more time - over. One of the dealers actually began to blush as she pulled her endless stream of 19's, 20's, & 21's, the table was such unfathomable s*it.
OK, I'm done ranting now. And I think my days of counting cards are now officially over, almost as soon as they'd begun. *sigh*

Deeply Disheartened.

P.S. How the hell do you start a new thread on here? I can't figure it out for the life of me (although having been up for 24 hrs. straight sure doesn't help).

From the main forum index, click on any forum. That forum index page will have buttons at the top and bottom, on the left, that say New Thread. Get some sleep before you post again.

Welcome to the world of blackjack. If you are going to continue playing get used to this stuff happening. Playing blackjack is a wild roller coaster ride and if you can't get used to this then you really shouldn't play it. This is why it is really important to be properly capitalized and to use an optimal betting strategy to ride through the down cycles. I've had these cycles last 3 months, that really tests your will. On the other side you will have sessions where you keep getting lousy hands and but the dealers keep busting their 10 up cards. I and many others on here understand your frustration, we've all been through it. Search these forums going way back and you will find other posts like yours. Think of it this way, there is a positive side to your frustration because if this game was really easy than everybody would be doing it and the game would get killed off.

Shufflemaster MD2?? Are you talking about this machine?

(Dead link: http://www.shufflemaster.com/02_eu_products/utility_products/shufflers/shufflers_mdb/md_2.asp)

You mention 'preferential shuffle'. Please, before you become disheartened, read a lot of the past posts all over. And think just a bit...

If a machine was shuffling to the benefit of one player (the dealer) than HOW is th machine taking into account the variables? Such as: how many people are at the table, how they are playing any given hand, are they playing perfect BS, splitting properly, etc. etc.? Not to mention indice changes with count-even in negative counts there are some strategy changes that can be made. All of which would throw a machine off, as the machine would have to analyze each given play BEFORE it happens, and know exactly how each player will play any given hand.

A more reasonable way of looking at it (if you aren't willing to consider just a run of bad EV and the reality of the game) then you almost have to consider a dealer who is using a marked deck and is an expert at side-steals, double lifts and second dealings. And in a shoe game, the marked deck would be useless because the dealer wouldn't be able to control the amount of cards they would need to with multiple players. And again-even a CSM-to control the game-would have to know before hand how EVERY hand will be played.

So, if you're ever in that situation where you're just in a bad run of EV, and just won't accept that , split to two hands for one round, and see if the person at 1st base ends up getting the great hands while the dealer busts, And if so, keep playing multiple hands until the cycle gets around to you and them wipe out the table!:grin:

Don't overlook the obvious!

Not to mention the cut.

First off I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with his machine stacking theory. However most of the MD2 shufflers I have seen (assuming this is the machine in question) have the shufflemaster table tracking system also in play and often RFID chips so this would allow the computer to know how many spots are being played. Obviously implementing some sort of cheat move with this knowledge is harder then just gathering the info.

There are ways to stack cards in a deck where it is possible to cheat one player or multiple players with the same stack. I know some examples are in Bill Zender's Casino Cheating book and there are many other places to find them. I think one of them was called the Kentucky step up.

Another easy (albeit extreme) example is if all the 10-Kings were together and the rest of the shoe was random. During the time you played thru the paint every single hand would be a push and you would win nothing. It would also be impossible to get any BJ's. When it came to the rest of the deck you would often be standing stiff and the dealer would draw out hands more often then random. None of your doubles would receive 10's! This would be really devastating if all the high cards were towards the back of the shoe. The count would continue to rise and rise and you would keep standing on stiffs and betting max bets while the dealer kept outdrawing you. If the clump was at the front you would never see any high counts to raise your bets. And if the clump was in the middle it wouldn't help you either. Obviously it will never be this extreme but its an example.

Last but not least a simple high low stacking of all the cards would probably be enough to crush any advantage you gain by counting.

I'm not saying these things are done I'm simply stating that there may be possible ways to cheat when using a computer controlled shuffle. Also shufflemaster now has a shoe that reads the rank and suit of the cards as they are dealt out. The MD2's literature used to state the same thing but it no longer does. I would have to think if they can put this in a shoe they could put it in a shuffler.


Someone please explain to me how this shoe is not a cheating device. It sure sounds like one to me.

(Dead link: http://www.shufflemaster.com/02_eu_products/utility_products/its/iShoe.asp)

Forte shows how to deal seconds with an honest shoe. All you need is a way of knowing if the first card is good or bad for the player and then dealing seconds accordingly.

Once again I'm not saying this is happening but its naive to not consider these moves as possible.

Prevalence of Cheating: Part Deux

I appreciate the feedback.

I have read (e.g., in Ken Uston's book, MILLION DOLLAR BLACKJACK) about something called "high-lowing" (or "high-low stacking") a deck, where the dealer selectively collects the discards in such a way that there's a fairly consistent sequence of high (10's & A's) and low (2's-6's) cards. I didn't really understand this, because, at least where *I* play, after every round a black, mechanical box containing a new 6 or 8 decks of cards (presumably having been shuffled by some kind of automatic shuffler) rises up from behind the table and the discards are simply removed from the discard tray and set into the other side of the box, which then disappears under the table. However, if that new 6-or-8D shoe had been pre-sorted into a similar sequence of high & low cards, wouldn't that spell serious trouble for the player?

The machine wouldn't need to know how many players there were or even predict their plays with any extraordinary accuracy. If one player chose to stand on his 15 against the dealer's 10, the next guy would surely hit (and bust); and if the next guy chose to hit, he'd either bust out on small cards or wind up with a 17 or 18. Then the dealer would stand a good chance of beating him with her 19's, 20's, & 21's. This would basically have the same effect as stripping the shoe of many (say, 1/3 to 1/2) of its high cards, wouldn't it?

For that matter, I wouldn't be surprised if the shoes at this particular joint HADN'T been stripped of most of their high cards, although I didn't actually perceive any such deficiency. That's a much more efficient way for a casino to cheat, and in particular to thwart us dirty counters.

Still Frustrated But Better Rested,
wvbjplayer

Yes! That looks exactly like the sort they use.

Ev?

Oh, btw: I've figured out most of the other acronyms on here, but what does "EV" mean? Earnings variance?

WVbjplayer

I posted a link to shufflemasters webpage and a pic of their MD2 shuffler. Can you confirm if this is the shuffler you are referring to?

edit I see you confirmed its an MD2


I'm curious because I've witnessed some unusual events on these machines and I know some other seasoned pros who are questioning them as well.

EV is expected value. Wong's site has a good glossary for new players. Heres a link

http://bj21.com/glossary/main.html

The simplest way to accomplish this using the equipment you described would be for the shuffler to clump the low cards towards the front of the newly-shuffled shoe, which would then be cut to the back of the shoe by the players' cut card. This machine could probably be altered to accomplish this task, since one of its advertised functions is card scanning to determine that all cards are present and that there are neither missing nor added cards.

However, I seriously doubt that this machine is designed to do this, or that these casinos are doing this so soon after they opened.

More likely, you just got into a bad patch of luck, you have undisclosed holes in your play, or you are overbetting.

"When you hear hoofbeats look for horses, not zebras."

Maybe. But let's analyze the merits of the cheating shoe claim. It's not a vague "I got cheated 'cause I lost" sob story.

MD2 shufflers & my cheating theory

Really? What sort of unusual events? Anything like what I've described, i.e., high-low stacking?

Incidentally, tonight, at home, I high-low stacked six decks of cards (throwing in a few neutrals here and there, just as cover) and dealt them from the shoe I recently bought. The results were remarkable: even allowing for occasional deviations from basic strategy (namely, the most common errors committed by so-called "ploppies"), and regardless of the number of imaginary players (I tried it with 1-4), the players pretty consistently lost. I think the total ratio of losing to winning hands was something like 3:1 (about 75 out of 100). Counting would have been useless, as the count seldom strayed far from 0 in either direction. Moreover, players doubling-down would have gotten reamed, just as I did last night.

Obviously this is just a theory I've no way to prove; it may well be, as another poster suggested, that I simply ran up against a "patch of bad luck." That was precisely what I told myself as I returned twice to the ATM, convinced my "luck" would change any second. But, looking back on it now that I've had a chance to rest and am clear-headed again, that seems difficult to believe. There was just TOO much bad luck for too long, experienced by every single player I spoke to. We were ALL getting (repeatedly and collectively) murdered. And since there are so few tables at this particular casino, this otherwise anecdotal evidence is actually quite reliable as a general indicator of "mass misfortune."

More specifically, too many people were getting slaughtered, time and time again, on their splits and double-downs (exactly how counters normally exploit their edge to its fullest). At one point a guy sat down next to me, cashed in for $300 in greens, and, having made 2 or 3 perfectly sensible DD's & splits, was broke literally w/in 15 mins. I think he may have won 1 out of his 13 or 14 hands. The guy to my right ran through close to $1,000 in less than an hour. The players, needless to say, were uniformly appalled. There was only one table, out of the three I played on, where the players (including me) experienced a substantial "winning steak." (It later quickly nosedived and I was back to almost a grand-in-the-hole by sunup.) Tellingly, when I began to voice my suspicions, only half-jokingly, that the decks were "layered," i.e., high-low stacked, two of the dealers grinned bashfully and said, "It's been like this all night."

Okay, so we all know that even extreme variance in the game of blackjack, attributable purely to chance, is far from uncommon. However, what I encountered at this casino seemed to defy, not only statistical LIKELIHOOD, but outright statistical POSSIBILITY. How else could a fairly well-practiced counter, achieving consistently favorable results when playing at home or on CVBJ, win over $1,000 in 24 hrs. and then lose $1,700 in 16 hrs? Are there any math whizzes on here who could compute for me the statistical probability of that? The standard deviation would be off the charts, surely.

Of even more interest to me, are there any other members of the forum who have had, or know of others who have had, similar experiences at this particular casino?

wvbjplayer

In my last (very successful) trip to Vegas, I lost $1000 bucks in 20 minutes of hell at a Strip casino, another $500 in a half hour in another one, and $750 in one hand on a hugely positive count at a third. (IIRC the running count was like +10 in a DD game, I spread out to three $150 hands, splitting one and doubling another against a dealer 6 - the dealer uncovered a 5, hit with another 5 and made 21 with his third 5 in a row :flame: ).

What you describe doesn't sound anything out of the ordinary to me - I'm no math whiz but since you describe going on a winning streak and then losing your rear end, it hardly follows that the house is "stacking the deck." Indeed, the reports about WV games that I've read so far suggest that it's a pretty amateur operation because of inexperience, and people engaging in the level of cheating you suspect would have to be pretty slick.

If losing a thousand bucks bothers you so much, it's probably time for a break and to focus on another pastime for a while. Pitchers and catchers report in 10 days!