Poor First Shuffle: How does it change counting?

[Username]

Hello,

I play at a casino that is not open 24 hours. They use new decks (6 deck shoe) at the beginning of each day. They verify the decks, laying out all decks face up in order from 2-A by suit, then shuffle.

The thing is that the shuffle is not very good. It does an OK job, but I have noticed that the first few shoes after the new decks are opened often produce some very strange counts/results. Often, the shoes will finish with monster counts both negative and positive. I have seen more than once, a TC of +6 last for the entire shoe. I have seen a table (15 cards) with only 2s, 3s, and 4s.

This usually takes a couple of shoes and subsequent shuffles to filter out into a normal run.

Question: What is the implication of this for a card counter? Does it even matter? Is it a good thing or should it be avoided?

Many Thanks.

 

[iCountNTrack]

Hello,

I play at a casino that is not open 24 hours. They use new decks (6 deck shoe) at the beginning of each day. They verify the decks, laying out all decks face up in order from 2-A by suit, then shuffle.

The thing is that the shuffle is not very good. It does an OK job, but I have noticed that the first few shoes after the new decks are opened often produce some very strange counts/results. Often, the shoes will finish with monster counts both negative and positive. I have seen more than once, a TC of +6 last for the entire shoe. I have seen a table (15 cards) with only 2s, 3s, and 4s.

This usually takes a couple of shoes and subsequent shuffles to filter out into a normal run.

Question: What is the implication of this for a card counter? Does it even matter? Is it a good thing or should it be avoided?

Many Thanks.

From a card counter point of view, it doesn't matter what type of shuffle is used. Because for a card counter each shoe is the start of a new counting round. But if you were a shuffle tracker you could exploit the shuffle to get some information about the next shoe.

 

[itakeyourmoney]

From a card counter point of view, it doesn't matter what type of shuffle is used. Because for a card counter each shoe is the start of a new counting round. But if you were a shuffle tracker you could exploit the shuffle to get some information about the next shoe.

Exactly, each shoe is treated independently. As for shuffle tracking this, you may want to try to mimick it at home and see if you could find a pattern for a specific dealer, that way you might be able to track groups of cards. But I'll let someone with more shuffle tracking experience give you the more specifics.