Question on Penetration..

[thedon]

Ok so I was at my local casino the other night, i was walking around watching some tables.. most of them were full hardly any seats out of like 15 tables..

anyways i come across this one table, im casually standing there counting, after two or three hands the count is up to 11+ with about 3 decks left

so I sit down, bet 3x the min, lose, the count went down to 9+, i bet 2x min, lose, count didn't move at all... then i bet 4x the min... lose

my question is , the game started with 8 decks, I started counting with about 3 decks left and found a really nice count, however how do i know the actual count from the beginning of the deck wasnt something like -10 before i started watching?

[RJT]

You don't, but that doesn't matter. What does matter is that in general you are playing a very bad game. If 3 decks have been played before you started counting the shoe all you have to do is thing of those 3 decks as being behind the cut card. This means that for all betting purposes and TC convesions 3 less decks have come out than physically have. It also means that penetration has been reduced by 3 decks. So in a game with 1.5 decks cut off, if you start counting after 3 decks have been dealt out, you could consider this a game with 4.5 decks cut off - a game which no counter would consider playing.

RJT.

[thedon]

hmm... i somewhat understand what you are saying.. are you saying that I should walk around until i see a fresh shuffle and all 8 decks in play and start the count from the first card that comes out,

also to not join in games that half or more of the decks have been dealt?

[Sonny]

Originally Posted by thedon

hmm... i somewhat understand what you are saying.. are you saying that I should walk around until i see a fresh shuffle and all 8 decks in play and start the count from the first card that comes out,

also to not join in games that half or more of the decks have been dealt?

Yeah. As soon as you start your running count you should think of that point as being “off the top” of the shoe. If you start counting with 3 decks left then pretend that it is the top of the shoe and not five decks into it because that’s where you started your RC at 0 (or your IRC if you use an unbalanced system).

It’s always best to start counting from a freshly shuffled shoe. Every deck that you miss is another deck you lose in penetration. With only 3 decks left you are playing an 8-deck game with only about 1.5 deck penetration. That’s less than 20% pen. Anything under 75% is not worth backcounting IMHO.

-Sonny-

[sagefr0g]

Originally Posted by thedon

Ok so I was at my local casino the other night, i was walking around watching some tables.. most of them were full hardly any seats out of like 15 tables..

anyways i come across this one table, im casually standing there counting, after two or three hands the count is up to 11+ with about 3 decks left

so I sit down, bet 3x the min, lose, the count went down to 9+, i bet 2x min, lose, count didn't move at all... then i bet 4x the min... lose

my question is , the game started with 8 decks, I started counting with about 3 decks left and found a really nice count, however how do i know the actual count from the beginning of the deck wasnt something like -10 before i started watching?

from your description it sounds like the +11 was the RC or running count. if that is the case then the actual TC or true count was only TC= +1 or TC=11/8 . when the count fell to +9 then your true count was TC=9/8 or possibly TC=9/7 depending on how many decks you had seen at that point but the true count was probably still only TC=+1 . in such a case you probably just want to bet one unit or maybe nothing.
but anyway when you jump into a shoe in progress like that you want to divide the running count that you establish by the number of decks you have not seen.