Electronic shoe shuffler, can it be beat?

[J10]

The reason I ask this is because one of the Casinos I went to had one of these electric shoes. Basically after every two hands. The discard pile was then feeded back into the shoe, which shuffles the cards before going back to the top of the deck. The topic title is just a rhetorical question, I do believe its beatable, but it does have several big drawbacks compared to normal shoes where cards are manually shuffled and a player selects where to cut the deck.

The problem is that play is continous and effectively never ending which is a great advantage to the casino because more hand gets played every hour meaning the non-counting and non-BS players are at a disadvantage because they lose their BR more quickly. This also brings in another problem because I never get a breather from counting and My head starts whizzing because of the fact I have to apply the count, BS and take into account there is 6 decks while trying to keep my cool in front of pit bosses and dealers.

However I do believe there is significant advantages. Firstly all the cards are in play and the count can help when it comes to judging whether the deck has gone through a cycle and if you play for a long time, it is possible to recognize patterns in the deck much like if you were to continously play a single deck without shuffling and the entire deck is never shuffled at any point.
I was just wondering what other people thoughts tips and theories are?

 

[Richard Pugh]

The reason I ask this is because one of the Casinos I went to had one of these electric shoes. Basically after every two hands. The discard pile was then feeded back into the shoe, which shuffles the cards before going back to the top of the deck. The topic title is just a rhetorical question, I do believe its beatable, but it does have several big drawbacks compared to normal shoes where cards are manually shuffled and a player selects where to cut the deck.

The problem is that play is continous and effectively never ending which is a great advantage to the casino because more hand gets played every hour meaning the non-counting and non-BS players are at a disadvantage because they lose their BR more quickly. This also brings in another problem because I never get a breather from counting and My head starts whizzing because of the fact I have to apply the count, BS and take into account there is 6 decks while trying to keep my cool in front of pit bosses and dealers.

However I do believe there is significant advantages. Firstly all the cards are in play and the count can help when it comes to judging whether the deck has gone through a cycle and if you play for a long time, it is possible to recognize patterns in the deck much like if you were to continously play a single deck without shuffling and the entire deck is never shuffled at any point.
I was just wondering what other people thoughts tips and theories are?

I think you'll find that if the machine is shuffling properly every 2 hands then there's no way you can establish a useful count unless you're using an unbalanced composition dependant count and making decsions based on the cards that are exposed during a 'round'.

The only way to improve the edge would be to use this system in last seat at a full table and therefore you get to see the most number of cards before making your decisions?

 

[EasyRhino]

You cannot beat a continuous shuffler with counting.

Sitting at third base and maybe playing two rounds until the discards are reinserted won't even make a significant dent in the house advantage, because there's commonly around 5 decks in the CSM.

 

[Sonny]

Read through the Frequently Asked Questions thread for more info.

-Sonny-

 

[moo321]

unless you're marking cards or something, it can't be beaten.

 

[J10]

So basically the only chance I have is to wait for a new table to open up and only play through the deck when its been played through one cycle?

So after that the deck becomes to unreliable. Remember the entire deck is never shuffled after any one hand only the discard pile.

 

[jay28]

So basically the only chance I have is to wait for a new table to open up and only play through the deck when its been played through one cycle?

So after that the deck becomes to unreliable. Remember the entire deck is never shuffled after any one hand only the discard pile.

You can't beat these machines, there is no such thing as one cycle. You obviously don't understand how these work, so I'll try to explain:-

Basically CSM's have a wheel inside with 20 or so compartments attached. As the wheel turns returned cards are shuffled randomly into any compartment, they are then also dealt from any random compartment.

so in otherwords, the cards being returned are being shuffled randomly in to the six decks (or however many they use). If the cards are returned every 'X' amount of rounds then you could see the same cards every 'X' amount of rounds dealt again. This makes it impossible to count except for the cards sitting in the discard tray which you will have a worthless pen with.

If you want a better understanding of the above, go to the casino when if first opens and play the first game of bj that day using a CSM. You will see the CSM being checked over, the cover open, exposing the wheel and various compartments.

My advice would be to check if the casino offers other games that don't use CSM's and if they don't then find another casino.

 

[moo321]

So basically the only chance I have is to wait for a new table to open up and only play through the deck when its been played through one cycle?

So after that the deck becomes to unreliable. Remember the entire deck is never shuffled after any one hand only the discard pile.

The only chance you have is to play at another casino that deals from a shoe. Or head to the poker room.

 

[standard toaster]

The reason I ask this is because one of the Casinos I went to had one of these electric shoes. Basically after every two hands. The discard pile was then feeded back into the shoe, which shuffles the cards before going back to the top of the deck. The topic title is just a rhetorical question, I do believe its beatable, but it does have several big drawbacks compared to normal shoes where cards are manually shuffled and a player selects where to cut the deck.

The problem is that play is continous and effectively never ending which is a great advantage to the casino because more hand gets played every hour meaning the non-counting and non-BS players are at a disadvantage because they lose their BR more quickly. This also brings in another problem because I never get a breather from counting and My head starts whizzing because of the fact I have to apply the count, BS and take into account there is 6 decks while trying to keep my cool in front of pit bosses and dealers.

However I do believe there is significant advantages. Firstly all the cards are in play and the count can help when it comes to judging whether the deck has gone through a cycle and if you play for a long time, it is possible to recognize patterns in the deck much like if you were to continously play a single deck without shuffling and the entire deck is never shuffled at any point.
I was just wondering what other people thoughts tips and theories are?

a csm gives no advatage to a counter in any way shape or form. It cant be beaten. The fact that you sit there and your head is wizzing from nonstop counting was sadly nothing but practice :-\ counting them is a waste of time.
there is also no such thing as a cycle or all cards being in play. In fact its safe to say about 50 are in play being generous. Since it is completely re shuffled every 2 hands

 

[J10]

Decided to go to another one instead which has a 6 deck shoe. I lost a lot at the start because the shoe was very bad, and the dealer was drawing 5-6 cards and getting 21 which is dishearting when you split then double both and make 20. The next 3-4 went very well and I made all my money back plus a little profit on the end. The only difficulty I found was the table/dealer/pit conversation was putting me off at times so I was unsure what the count was at times. I guess I need to learn to cope with distractions a bit better.

One thing I did notice was at the end of each shoe was that the decks were split into 6 and the two decks were riffled together and then 3 decks were combined before someone had to cut the deck.

Is there any way to take advantage of this?

 

[jay28]

One thing I did notice was at the end of each shoe was that the decks were split into 6 and the two decks were riffled together and then 3 decks were combined before someone had to cut the deck.

Is there any way to take advantage of this?

This is a weak shuffle which can be taken advantage of using shuffle tracking methods.

With this shuffle, I usually keep an eye out for a large of amount of ten's and/or A's in play at the start of a shoe. Because they the first cards in the discard tray so I'm not going to misjudge or forget their location later when the shoe has finished. I then keep by eye on the high cards through the shuffle, try to get hold of the cut card and bring the them to the beginning of the shoe. Then of course raise my bet until they are all been dealt.

This properly isn't the best way to take advantage of this shuffle but its easy and works for me.

 

[Blue Efficacy]

This is a weak shuffle which can be taken advantage of using shuffle tracking methods.

With this shuffle, I usually keep an eye out for a large of amount of ten's and/or A's in play at the start of a shoe. Because they the first cards in the discard tray so I'm not going to misjudge or forget their location later when the shoe has finished. I then keep by eye on the high cards through the shuffle, try to get hold of the cut card and bring the them to the beginning of the shoe. Then of course raise my bet until they are all been dealt.

This properly isn't the best way to take advantage of this shuffle but its easy and works for me.

If I am at a full table and I see several aces on the table in one round, that's what I usually watch for. I know a couple stores with weak shuffles that make this easy money. Once I saw a guy respilt aces 3 times for four 21's, you can bet I eyed that slug and cut it to the top! But I will admit I am pretty good at following cards through a shuffle, even when they shove a ton of excess cards in the discard tray after the mediocre penetration...