How do you get an accurate count without even seeing the burn cards?

#1
First off hello from upstate NY.

I have been playing "basic strategy " for quite some time, and just picked up KO BJ.

How do you get to see the burn cards without being too obvious?

I mean they burn one on a new shoe, and everytime a new dealer takes over they burn too.

Offtopic:

Other then last night my last three session at Turning Stone were profitable 132.50 550.00 600, last night didn't matter what I did, I was taken behind the woodshed. -450 ouch! :( I will not return until I able to count a deck in under 60 seconds!:devil:
 

EasyRhino

Well-Known Member
#3
For the first time, few weeks ago, I saw a ploppy asking to see the burn card. (It was actually in upstate New York too! But I'm pretty sure it wasn't you, schnerg). One trick that Ian Anderson wrote in Burning the Tables in Vegas was to say that that burn card indicates the luckiness of the shoe. A 4 is bad luck, and an ace or 8 (or whatever) is auspicious. Full on asian feng shui ploppy voodoo.

Personally, it's not worth it, I don't bother. The penetration on that game effectively goes from 1.5 decks cut off to 1.5 decks + 1 card.

This also means that if you've just missed a table as it's started, backcounting might still pay off. If only one round has been dealt to two players, then only around 10 cards have been used. Not too bad, it's better than trying to find another table that has just shuffled.
 

BFC

Active Member
#4
EasyRhino said:
For the first time, few weeks ago, I saw a ploppy asking to see the burn card. (It was actually in upstate New York too! But I'm pretty sure it wasn't you, schnerg). .
Nope, not me. I was the one getting mad because some jerk kept hitting 12 vs 2.
 

Mimosine

Well-Known Member
#5
schnerg said:
Nope, not me. I was the one getting mad because some jerk kept hitting 12 vs 2.
hitting 12 v 2 is BASIC STRATEGY!!!!! he was right, you were wrong. :eek:
you should be hitting 12 v 3 as well.
 
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Mimosine

Well-Known Member
#6
EasyRhino said:
This also means that if you've just missed a table as it's started, backcounting might still pay off. If only one round has been dealt to two players, then only around 10 cards have been used. Not too bad, it's better than trying to find another table that has just shuffled.

i've been successful backcounting 6D shoes where i missed 1 deck on a few occasions. of course my bet ramp is smaller, but i've still hit plus counts, adjusted for the number of decks seen using a rough RC/TC conversion.
 

BFC

Active Member
#7
Mimosine said:
hitting 12 v 2 is BASIC STRATEGY!!!!! he was right, you were wrong. :eek:
you should be hitting 12 v 3 as well.
Either my sense of humour is really dry, or your sarcasm meter is broken.
;)

and for the record, i'm not the one from upstate NY. I'm from Bermuda.
 
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EasyRhino

Well-Known Member
#8
My bad schnerg. I was at Seneca Niagra instead of Turning Stone anyway. Which is neither turning stone, nor bermuda.

Mimo, you backcount when a whole decks out? Would that make an equivalent penetration of 2.5 decks cut? That sounds borderline pointless.
 

Xenophon

Well-Known Member
#9
EasyRhino said:
Mimo, you backcount when a whole decks out? Would that make an equivalent penetration of 2.5 decks cut? That sounds borderline pointless.
We don't go looking for shoes where we haven't seen the cards already in the discard tray, one deck or whatever. The point is that it is acceptable to treat the unseen cards as behind the cut card. If your count shows an advantage even though you haven't seen the discards, you can jump in at that point with an advantage. Yes, it is comparable to reduced penetration, but it can also make it look as if you're not a counter.

Who would jump in a shoe having not been there the whole time to count it down?

So your benefit could be camouflage, and it's just good for an AP to know this is acceptable to do. This is mentioned in Professional Blackjack and Blackjack for Blood.
 
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Mimosine

Well-Known Member
#10
Xenophon said:
but it can also make it look as if you're not a counter.

Who would jump in a shoe having not been there te whole time to count it down?
this is one reason why i do it, especially when i've been backcounting at one joint for awhile.
 

Mimosine

Well-Known Member
#11
EasyRhino said:
Mimo, you backcount when a whole decks out? Would that make an equivalent penetration of 2.5 decks cut? That sounds borderline pointless.
what about at a joint where they only cut off 1 deck? then it's 2 decks penetration. i'm not saying i do it all the time, but from what i've read (where most people do this with hi/lo or balanced counts), it can be done with an unblanaced count just as well. i mean if i see an RC that rises 10 points in one round, i don't care how many decks are gone, if it keeps going up and there are 2-3 decks left to play, i'll get in on it. i don't spread as fully as i would with full information, but i'm not going to ignore an RC jump like that, just because I've missed 15% of the cards previous.

there was a good thread on here about this very subject, backcounting when you miss one deck, i can't find it now, i bet sonny could, i remember he contributed to it - which led to my exploration of it.

basically, having missed so much, you just have to look at it like a penetration issue, there is a good chance that you missed a lot of high cards, a lot of low cards, or that the count was neutral through the missed cards. over time what is the net result?
ans: that you can just treat the situation as an issue of penetration.

or let me put it this way. what if you were at a joint that did cut 2.5 decks off of 6D, if you were backcounting from the start, and the RC rose to -8 (from IRC = -20) within 1 deck (thus TC = +1.5) would you ignore it? what about if the TC was +2 or +3 within 2 decks? with 1.5 decks to go, i would play the hell out of it.
 
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sagefr0g

Well-Known Member
#12
Mimosine said:
what about at a joint where they only cut off 1 deck? then it's 2 decks penetration. i'm not saying i do it all the time, but from what i've read (where most people do this with hi/lo or balanced counts), it can be done with an unblanaced count just as well. i mean if i see an RC that rises 10 points in one round, i don't care how many decks are gone, if it keeps going up and there are 2-3 decks left to play, i'll get in on it. i don't spread as fully as i would with full information, but i'm not going to ignore an RC jump like that, just because I've missed 15% of the cards previous.

there was a good thread on here about this very subject, backcounting when you miss one deck, i can't find it now, i bet sonny could, i remember he contributed to it - which led to my exploration of it.

basically, having missed so much, you just have to look at it like a penetration issue, there is a good chance that you missed a lot of high cards, a lot of low cards, or that the count was neutral through the missed cards. over time what is the net result?
ans: that you can just treat the situation as an issue of penetration.

or let me put it this way. what if you were at a joint that did cut 2.5 decks off of 6D, if you were backcounting from the start, and the RC rose to -8 (from IRC = -20) within 1 deck (thus TC = +1.5) would you ignore it? what about if the TC was +2 or +3 within 2 decks? with 1.5 decks to go, i would play the hell out of it.
i think the postings you refer to discussed for balanced counts jumping into a game in progress for which you hadn't seen the first few decks or so that had been dealt. the salient point was that you'd need to consider those decks that were dealt out as part of the unseen cards when determining your true count. so you'd be dividing the RC by a fairly large number and for the most part comming up with a relatively low tc, hence you'd be making small bets.
 
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