Ace sequencing 6 deck

revrac

Well-Known Member
#1
Just read McDowell's "blackjack ace prediction" and I have a question on implementing it with 6 decks. It appears that not only must you key card the Ace but also use a little shuffle tracking or at least thats what the books seems to demonstrate. It goes about how to determine "weak" spots in the shuffle that clump together.

I was wondering if it was necessary to track the shuffle as well or if you could just key card several aces and not worry about where they are in the deck?

I have a couple reasons why i'm thinking it may be necessary to also track the relative position when playing 6 decks below but this wasn't discussed in the book so i'm just assuming. Any thoughts?
1. with 6 decks there are too many identical cards so knowing approximately when they come out saves you from betting on many "fake" key cards thus increasing accuracy enough to be +EV.
2. If a card does not fall into one of the "weak" shuffle zones then it is not likely to follow the average gap between the key card and the ace...so if in the weak zone with 2 riffles the ace is the 4th behind the key card but if it wasn't in the weak zone then with 2 riffles you really don't have an accurate estimate of how far it would follow the key card. Is this accurate?
 
#2
Good questions. With single-key on 6D, most shuffles do not allow for much reduction of false keys with sequencing (if the shuffle did, it would be a trackable game as opposed to a sequenceable game.) And if you are using double-key, false keys will be sufficiently few that you will also not need any zone tracking. With a single-key approach you are relying on a high volume of low advantage bets, and it has the benefit of being very hard to detect.

One useful application for zone tracking in sequencing is to always cut the shoe at such a point as to minimize the amount of last shoe's cutoff you will see in the upcoming shoe. This is very easy to remember; all you will need to remember is "Always cut the shoe here." You can probably create an ad hoc superstition to encourage the civilians to cut at that same point too.

Most dealers do not have both a consistent riffle (good for sequencing) and a consistent grab (good for tracking) so if you are sequencing you'd probably be better off concentrating on the former and not worrying about the latter.
 

revrac

Well-Known Member
#3
Automatic Monkey said:
Good questions. With single-key on 6D, most shuffles do not allow for much reduction of false keys with sequencing (if the shuffle did, it would be a trackable game as opposed to a sequenceable game.) And if you are using double-key, false keys will be sufficiently few that you will also not need any zone tracking. With a single-key approach you are relying on a high volume of low advantage bets, and it has the benefit of being very hard to detect.

One useful application for zone tracking in sequencing is to always cut the shoe at such a point as to minimize the amount of last shoe's cutoff you will see in the upcoming shoe. This is very easy to remember; all you will need to remember is "Always cut the shoe here." You can probably create an ad hoc superstition to encourage the civilians to cut at that same point too.

Most dealers do not have both a consistent riffle (good for sequencing) and a consistent grab (good for tracking) so if you are sequencing you'd probably be better off concentrating on the former and not worrying about the latter.
Thanks! I guess i'll probably just stick with the sequencing for now and maybe use 2 keys if playing a shoe as after reading a bit on tracking lately it seems to be very touchy unless a dealer does exactly the same thing each time and as you said has a very consistent grab. Even at that point tracking seems more of an art and much less concrete.
 
#4
An important thing to remember about sequencing is that your advantage goes down very quickly as the probability of getting an ace on your first card decreases.

Advantage of getting an ace is 51%, right? So if you only get an ace 1 out of 2 times, you advantage is 25.5%, right? And if you get an ace 1 out of 13 times, your advantage is 3.92%... hey wait a minute! You get an ace 1 out of 13 times just with normal play and your advantage sure isn't 3.92%. :(

You have to consider that if you get a random non-ace, your advantage is -4.2%, so if you've predicted an ace and failed to get it, you've just put a few hundred dollars on a slot machine spin. :eek:
 

Sucker

Well-Known Member
#5
Automatic Monkey said:
You have to consider that if you get a random non-ace, your advantage is -4.2%, so if you've predicted an ace and failed to get it, you've just put a few hundred dollars on a slot machine spin. :eek:
I certainly agree - it's important to take the -EV for every miss into consideration. And I don't want to detract from your point, but I don't believe that the penalty is quite THAT severe. If you miss, even though you won't get THAT ace; in a six deck game, 23 times out of 311 you'll get one of the OTHER 23 aces in the deck. So I would guess that a miss in a 6 deck game penalizes you by only slightly more than the house advantage (in theory).

But then AGAIN; depending upon the particular dealer, the house shuffle, how many players are at the table, etc., and unless you're VERY well versed in your skill; whenever you miss your ace, the DEALER will ALSO have at least a SLIGHTLY elevated chance of being the one who gets it, which is why I say that you're penalized slightly more than the house edge IN THEORY ONLY.
 
#6
Sucker said:
I certainly agree - it's important to take the -EV for every miss into consideration. And I don't want to detract from your point, but I don't believe that the penalty is quite THAT severe. If you miss, even though you won't get THAT ace; in a six deck game, 23 times out of 311 you'll get one of the OTHER 23 aces in the deck. So I would guess that a miss in a 6 deck game penalizes you by only slightly more than the house advantage (in theory).

But then AGAIN; depending upon the particular dealer, the house shuffle, how many players are at the table, etc., and unless you're VERY well versed in your skill; whenever you miss your ace, the DEALER will ALSO have at least a SLIGHTLY elevated chance of being the one who gets it, which is why I say that you're penalized slightly more than the house edge IN THEORY ONLY.
That's true- all sequencing has to account for aces "out of the blue." This includes the ones behind the cut card on the last shoe, and the ones from sequences that got broken up. But if sequencing means anything at all, and one and only one key is present, then the percentage of expected blue aces is depleted.

One nice thing about single-key on multi-deck is that you can save your big bets for hands where more than one key is present.
 
#7
Quick outside the box thought here,

time of day can affect the outcome. On a 6 deck shuffle shoe the cards don't get really randomized until 30 - 40 minutes into the day's play. Can help with your sequencing if you show up early. :)
 
Top