Estimate of remaining cards

my understanding is that most players estimate the cards remaining to be dealt by glancing to the discard tray. this remainder is obviously required to calculate the true count.

has anyone tried to actually count the number of cards dealt instead of glancing at the discard tray?

thus as well as keeping the running count, the players counts the number of cards dealt and then subtracts this number from the total number of cards in the shoe. specific key numbers are memorised to indicate milestones e.g. 26 dealt cards indicate 3.5 decks remaining in a 4D game, 52 cards mean 3 remaining decks etc.

would this method be more accurate than glancing at the discard tray (particularly if playing in multiple casinos with differences in card thickness)?
would it be too onerous to track this as well as the RC?
has anyone experienced/tried this approach?

Thanks in advance for any comments.

Too much work!
It's easier to learn 8,12, or 16 1/2 deck graduated segment sizes than remember your count plus a running 3 digit number and the corresponding number of cards per RC divisor.
You can save the brain cell for much better uses, like not splitting 5's because your brain was in overdrive and your eyes saw a pair.

BJC

it is not big diffrence tc+2 or+3 YOU GOT SAME 47%

I have tried that just to challenge myself and it is possible, but it will slow your calculation down 2x and judgment by 5x and probably gaining only 1% to 5% in terms of calculation and get fatigue very soon, not being able to spot the heat or have spare time for hot stuff :gaga:.

Sure, exact-card would be more accurate than otherwise. Just probably not enough to make that much of a difference, I'd guess.

I don't see how you could lose much by assuming, as I think I remember you do, an avg # of cards dealt per hand, to get around any card-thickness stuff.

If playing heads-up, I suppose one could refine that "avg-cards-rd" stuff since dealer will not play out his hand as often.

You got the software. Run sims at "one-more-card" pen levels using "exact-card" resolution, quarter-deck, half-deck whole-deck resolution, etc and make up your own mind how much extra effort is worth how much extra gain lol.

so i have actually been trying to do this recently, and so far it seems to work okay. practiced first with software, then on full tables, then heads-up. it is a little fatiguing, but i am getting used to it quickly.

the pivotal numbers are also easy to remember e.g. 26, 52, 78, 104 etc

so nobody else is doing this? everyone is looking at the discard tray?

being honest with myself i realise that i am not good at estimating number of decks left and that the card thickness seems to vary sufficiently between casinos to confuse me. Counting actual cards gives me objective data to work with and also allows me to calculate deck penetration very accurately. Maybe this is just a personal thing - i like to be able to have concrete numbers in front of me.

I totally agree. So I came up with another way, estimate it using the discard tray itself, not by the pile of decks. For example, if you are looking at the discard tray and it has filled to the half, you know it has little bit more than 3 decks, if it is 1/4 filled, then you know it is little bit more than 1 1/2 decks, etc. So make sure you have the real discard tray for the deck games you are playing (I have it for 4, 6 and 8 decks for the drills).

There is a gap between the discard tray's roof and whole 6 decks, so you have to take that into consideration. At the end of the shoe, the dealer will put all the card into the discard tray before shuffling, so you will have the idea about the deck thickness of that particular casino. Hope this makes sense.

I know of a store that uses 8d discard trays in some of it's 6d gameS. Don't ask me why they do it unless it's to confuse the estimation process or they got a great price on the trays.

BJC

Yes, it's true that some stores use 8 deck discard tray for everything. For example at AC Tropicana, they have done that for 4 decks too. But still, it hasn't been a problem to me because by looking into the missing gap, it's not hard to estimate the decks used on the table, setting the new imaginary marker at the top.

Are you then taking your card count, converting it to fractions of a deck (e.g. half-deck or quarter-deck), and subtracting it from the total decks? All while keeping the count straight? That's pretty sharp!

good luck

well, to be honest, it doesn't seem overly difficult.

keeping the RC is now very easy to do so no problems there, regardless of dealer speed +/- distractions.
calculating TC - i didnt realise until you pointed this out but i never subtract decks dealt from total decks - i just look at the discard tray (until now) and know that there is 2,3,4,5 decks to go rather than calculating 4 less 6, 3 less 6, 2 less 6 etc. so this step doesnt really take place when i am playing.
secondly the figure representing total cards dealt - i dont actually convert this either - let's say i am playing 4D, then once i get to 26 cards i 'just know' that there are now 3 1/2 decks to go - there is no conscious conversion as such - i 'just know' that 26 equals 3 1/2 to go, 52 means 3 to go etc.
practicing on CVBJ (and live playing) it for a few days now i am realising it's actually not as difficult as i had expected.

i guess a lot of the card counting mechanics have become quite subconscious to me, just like driving a car :grin: , sometimes i do actually dream that i am playing and i am literally keeping the count in my sleep/dream

.... i think i need to get a life!!

Hey Matt,

It's all about making it second nature at the tables, and it sounds like you've got it down. Do your thing!

good luck

ok i can confirm that's it do-able. for me its definitely significantly more accurate than estimating by looking at discard tray - but that might be a personal thing - so my index plays and betting have improved in accuracy.

Someone who PMed has referred to this idea as "double counting" LOL

at this stage, i am not yet comfortable with using this for 6D though, but comfortable for anything less than 6D.