Counting a shoe with no visable discards?

[Cardcounter]

Is it possible to count down a shoe where all the discards are hidden. They do not go back into the shoe as in a continous shuffler but they are sucked down into the bottom of the table so you can not see them. I think that this feature would making counting down this particular shoe a lot more difficult. On top of that the shoe is covered so you can not see how deep the shoe has gone. Is it possible to get a true count when you can have no idea how far the deck has gone? Could you just you a running count and get good results on a shoe game?

[QFIT]

Two choices: Use an unbalanced count or learn to estimate deck depth by hands played. The second is easy for single deck but a royal pain in shoes. I added the ability to hide the tray and/or shoe in CVBJ because of these tables.

[Mimosine]

Originally Posted by QFIT

Two choices: Use an unbalanced count or learn to estimate deck depth by hands played. The second is easy for single deck but a royal pain in shoes. I added the ability to hide the tray and/or shoe in CVBJ because of these tables.

the second is complicated by the fact that the number of cards per round is dependent on the number of people that are at the table, which quite often changes throughout the course of a shoe, or someone plays 2 hands at a time everynow and then, etc... i'd say an unbalanced count is easier...

[EasyRhino]

I guess this is also an issue with the "digital blackjack" games that folks have been talking about recently. I assume there's still an indication of when a shuffle happens.

[sagefr0g]

as i recall John May in Get the Edge at Blackjack indicated you could estimate the discards by figuring 2.7 cards per player. i think thats where i read that.

[QFIT]

Originally Posted by sagefr0g

as i recall John May in Get the Edge at Blackjack indicated you could estimate the discards by figuring 2.7 cards per player. i think thats where i read that.

That number is in at least 8 books, most probably more Funny thing is that the developers of both SC and OPP thought they discovered it. Actually the number varies by number of players at the table. And the number also varies by the count; which means that with a high or low count you will mis-estimate in a consistent manner. Much like the mis-estimation with unbalanced counts. But, 2.7 is good enough.

[EasyRhino]

I wonder if assuming 2.7 cards per spot and using a balance count would be a worse approximation than just using an unbalanced one?

[Kaiser]

I would think using a good unbalanced count like KISS III would be better than keeping track of 2.7 cards per hand.