A different kind of shuffle tracking...

I have been working on a method but I can see some obvious errors with it and just want to know if anyone else thinks its worth my time.

I watch the dealer shuffle from third base and I can tell in the riff where a lot of faces or small cards are from the one side of the shuffle. I then cut the cards accordingly. I have been having decent results as far as betting a little higher off the top and the problem lies from not being able to see the other half of the riffle.

Yes I call that "looking up her dress" and sometimes you can see a dealer showing all the cards from sitting directly in front.

What you're looking for is a high density of paint and theoretically this is a valid approach but I'm not sure how practicable it is. One dirty trick I've employed is when coming back from a Wongout during a shuffle, flicking my lammer back to the dealer and getting it entangled in a riffle. Makes you look like a real oaf but you'll probably get a laugh and a good peek at a few cards.

That is a 'dirty' method, but valid. The problem you have is assessing any advantage you might gain from this, as you could gain more than you think. Small packets can carry more power.
What your target with this should be however is to find a dealer like the one that you were talking about - ie a little over aggressive with their riffles - and who doesn't neaten up the stack too proficiently before they offer for the cut. Rare i know, but they are out there. At this point if you can see the top card of a grab and it's a 10 or A and you can find the break between the grabs in the finished stacks, you can cut at the break and have a 10/A land on 1st base. That's a really nice advantage on the first round and offers far more than a little cover.

RJT.

Actually i forgot to mention that you have to take account of any burn cards that the casino you play in use. For the most part in the UK i've found that not many dealers do burn even one card, but you come across a dealer once in a while who will.

RJT.

I'll do anything to take a peek at cards- accidentally hitting the back of the shoe, fiddling about with the cut card, blowing. It helps to be drunk. Another thing I'll do is put out a huge bet when I realize a relief dealer is forgetting to burn a card, and demand to pull my bet back if I don't like my hand.

As a chimpanzee, humans expect me to be oafish and comical in my behavior thus my borderline cheat moves look natural. Doing everything with a smile helps. And there's a difference between being drunk and appearing drunk.

A real cheat knows a lot more tricks. Did you know that simply hearing or reading the word "green" when looking at a red object will sometimes cause humans to see it as green?

Is it bad that I had to look up what lammer meant?

All in all I know it's not a technique to fully depend on, but I have noticed my sessions where I did this my results were a little above average.

there is a problem with shuffle tracking, cutting, and betting large off the top, and that is how do you know your overcoming the house edge and then some? your going backwards by betting on the first hand, and then your going forwards by cutting out the tens, but where are you left at? i guess most of you play all anyways, so you dont care, but as for betting purposes then, how do you know? can you honestly memorize the ratio of picture to non picture (as i imagine you cant distinguish anything else it goes to fast) as all the cards go fluttering by in the riffle accurately enuf to know that you should place a large bet out? i dont know, i see this as something similar to fuzzy counting..

i looked in the dictionary and in wikipedia and couldnt find a definition for lammer.. i was thinking "laminated card" as in the cut card, but then i remembered the cut card is plastic, and also, why would you have it in your hand after you come back from wonging, and while he is shuffling, but you think of weird things when you dont know what something means

im curious as to what the quote was

Actually did Maz not post on this thread? I'm sure he did. What happened to his posts? I at least thought they were fairly interesting and very valid. I believe the missing quote was from one of Maz's posts.
Bob, in most average games 1 extra high card in a deck is enough to overcome the house edge, so if you see a density of them in quick succession through the riffle then that's worth at least looking at. You are right though, the major problem is in assessing the advantage you gain from doing it and the simple impossiblity of gaining and accurate assessment would make me shy away from this - obviously depending on the circumstances.
A lammer is the plastic token give to you to save your seat while you go to the toilet or whatever.

RJT.

Yep, he really made had some good points. BTW, I also miss the "More eye in the sky" thread by aslan (when I remember right). You made some really interessting (critical) comments about the betting scheme Snyder suggests in his Cookbook in this thread. Is here a conspiracy in progress??

I hadn't even noticed that the 'more eye in the sky' thread was missing.
Yeh, the betting scheme Snyder suggests flat out doesn't work.

RJT.

I hope to achieve this point one day to discover it myself . But thanks for pushing us in the right direction! Your opinion is always very appricated!