negative nrs question

#1
Hey all,

starting practicing nrs tracking. To practice I put red marks on 13 cards which i mix with 13-20 other cards and do the casino i go to's shuffle. The cards with the mark are usually withing 5-15 from where I cut. Seems pretty good to me.

The shuffle:

Dealer divides the cards into 2, 4 deck stacks. Dealer picks about 3/4 of a deck from each pile and riffs them together, strips them about 2 or 3 times, then riffs them again. Dealer then builds another pile with the shuffled cards. Dealer then picks 3/4 deck from the shuffled stack and 3/4 deck from one of the non-shuffled stacks and repeats shuffle procesudre. Next time he takes from the opposite non-shuffled pile. It is a single pass shuffle and there are about 10-11 picks per shuffle.

When doing negative NRS I have to keep the good cards in play. My problem is that the good cards are always at the front of the shoe with this shuffle. They are generally mixed in one and a quarter to one and a half decks. The only option I have is to cut a deck from the back of the shoe and bring it in front of the good cards.

How would I play this if we assume the good cards value -14 in 1.25 decks? should I just bet the minimum for the first deck? Should I assume the deck cut to the front has a true count of -2 (real count of 14 over 7 other decks)? If the count in the first deck increases to +6 should I increase the value of the packett I believed was -14 to -20?

thanks!
 

moo321

Well-Known Member
#2
Cut as low as they'll let you, know EXACTLY how many cards you're cutting, and then start betting the farm when that segment is out of the way, and you're into your good cards.

Also, you'll need to be more precise than 5-15 cards.
 

southAP

Well-Known Member
#3
silky28 said:
How would I play this if we assume the good cards value -14 in 1.25 decks? should I just bet the minimum for the first deck? Should I assume the deck cut to the front has a true count of -2 (real count of 14 over 7 other decks)? If the count in the first deck increases to +6 should I increase the value of the packett I believed was -14 to -20?
If it increases to RC of plus 6 then those would be additional cards that you have seen that are not in play. So to add that to your tracked running count would theoretically be acceptable. However if your packet tracked has 40 cards in it and you know 30 are high cards, the cards in that particular packet havent changed. So for that particular section i wouldnt add it. However when you're down with the packet you would then have the exact count of whats been played to play the rest of the shoe accordingly.

I hope i got this one right. I've only been dabbling in ST.
 
#4
southAP said:
If it increases to RC of plus 6 then those would be additional cards that you have seen that are not in play. So to add that to your tracked running count would theoretically be acceptable. However if your packet tracked has 40 cards in it and you know 30 are high cards, the cards in that particular packet havent changed. So for that particular section i wouldnt add it. However when you're down with the packet you would then have the exact count of whats been played to play the rest of the shoe accordingly.

I hope i got this one right. I've only been dabbling in ST.

I think you are right, sounds about right to me.

On a somewhat brighter note positive nrs works queite well on that shuffle!
 
#5
moo321 said:
Cut as low as they'll let you, know EXACTLY how many cards you're cutting, and then start betting the farm when that segment is out of the way, and you're into your good cards.

Also, you'll need to be more precise than 5-15 cards.
I didn't mean I can't differentiate 15 cards in a cut ie. like I think I have picked 52 but I picked 67. What I mean was that when I do my tests the cards that I marked are all in the segment they should be usually no more than 5 cards from the beginning of the segment.
 
#6
I am trying to figure if there is a way to re-calculate the count of the good section based on what came out in the first 52 cards of the shoe. Say that a count of +2 was supposed to come out in the first 52 cards but it instead came out +8. Wouldn't that mean that the estimated number of small cards in the 3/4 deck segment that was mixed with the -14, 3/4 deck segment was high? ie. wouldn't there have been less small cards mixed in with my good cards?

I am trying to figure out if it would be worthwhile to come up with a formula that recalculates all of this after the first deck is played. It would seem like it would be worthwhile since you are essentially shrinking the shoe by a deck and gaining information. If the reverse happened and in that first 52 cards it came out +22 you could just abandon the NRS since you know there is going to be a whack of small cards mixed with your good cards.
 
#7
If no shuffletrackers help you, I will tell you . I don't know about ST but the calculation is not hard. I would prefer they help you in case there are subtle aspects to ST that I would miss.
 
#9
Well I used a negative NRS for the first time last night and it went well. I'm only dong the simple way of watching the first 3/4 deck of the shoe. I saw that the first half of a shoe came out -9, went to -12 by 3/4 deck and -15 in a full deck. I kept track of all 3 spots because the dealers are somewhat sloppy.

So it turned out dealer grabbed my 3/4 deck last and mixed it with 1 deeck. So I did the -12 + (7.25/12) = 2 (i know it's not 2 but I always round up for safety). So I got a count of -10 in 1 3/4 decks but I rounded it down to -9. Because that segment was at the top I challenged my buddy to cut exactly a deck from the back...dealer goes "thats more like 56 cards". So I counted down 58 cards then started playing. Worked out well. Count rose quickly and in 5 hands I won 4, had 2 blackjacks and a double down. Once 8 of the 9 cards came out I faked a cellphone call and disappeared.

note: I backcount while my buddy plays. We do not work together he just likes to play so it gives me the perfect situation to wong, shuffle track etc.
 
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