BJ rules at Cascades in Langley

[Alan]

I could drive down the street to the Cascades casino here in Langley, BC, but I thought I'd post first to see if someone knew the blackjack rules here. Do they use CSMs there? And how bad are CSMs? Does it just make counting harder or does it increase the house edge over basic strategy too?

[gobbledygeek]

5 Decks
Dealer Hits On Soft 17
Can Double Down After Split
Can Split Any Pair
Late Surrender
Lose Original Bets Only On Dealer Blackjack

They use CSMs and most dealers only deal around 1 deck before feeding it back in to the CSM. From what I've seen so far I doubt you could obtain much advantage from counting because higher counts happen so infrequently.

[Mikeaber]

Originally Posted by Alan

I could drive down the street to the Cascades casino here in Langley, BC, but I thought I'd post first to see if someone knew the blackjack rules here. Do they use CSMs there? And how bad are CSMs? Does it just make counting harder or does it increase the house edge over basic strategy too?

Alan,
There is an article on CSMs on www.wizardofodds.com website. To a basic strategy player who just flat bets (no counting), there is little difference whether you do or do not play CSMs. Keep in mind though, with CSMs, you will be playing more hands per hour which will increase your loss rate since you are playing at a disadvantage.

With handshuffled and shoes shuffled by Shuffle Master, we look for a pen of 75%+. Therefore, unless you could find a dealer who was dealing out 75% of the cards before loading up the CSM, then you cannot count effectively.

[Alan]

Thanks! Now I can feed that into the strategy trainer and practise up before spending my real money at Cascades

I suppose that if they use CSMs, it's a little pressure off my mind. Otherwise I'll start to think that if I learn counting, I can increase my odds.