Question about shuffle tracking and poker.

[DeTalores]

So i've recently been playing a lot of 1/2$ limit poker at my local casino, and due to blackjack I'm always able to catch glimpes at players cards when they hold them wrong. I'm not trying to cheat them or anything, it just seems its instinct, also their fault for handling their cards incorrectly.

Anyway this got me to thinking, if one can shuffle track multiple decks, could you shuffle track a single deck during poker? Seems like it would help you with calculating your outs, pot odds, and putting your opponent on a range of hands when you know there are certain cards that are not out in play and will not come by the river.

 

[Deathclutch]

I don't know about in a casino, but this becomes very valuable in a home game with a lot of the ways people shuffle. Especially if no one cuts.

 

[DeTalores]

Although I don't have a significant amount of experience with shuffle tracking, some of the poker dealers at the casino just mixed the cards on the table to shuffle, while some did not and seemed to have an exploitable shuffle. I was able to keep track of where a few of the aces were, while the dealer stayed at our table. The first hand I remember, I was just trying to follow the Ace of diamonds by the way the dealer shuffled, sure enough it goes to a preflop raiser who goes to showdown with the Ace of diamonds.

I was just curious as to whether anyone employs this at all, and whether it would be worth it to invest time into honing the skill.
As we know every piece of information in NL is important!

 

[Sucker]

There is a universal poker rule in casinos, and it's almost always posted somewhere in the room: "Players are responsible for protecting their hand at all times". If a player is careless enough to expose his cards, it is NOT cheating to use the information; as long as you don't lean over to spook his hand, or do something in order to cause it.

One very important tell in poker is when your opponents hands begin to tremble. Does this mean that I'm not allowed to look for this tell? If he happens to be careless with his cards, do I have a duty to look away? I THINK NOT!

As far as wondering whether or not people are tracking cards, the answer is yes. Some dealers are so sloppy that you can even predict one or more cards on the flop! However, most people believe that this is unethical, including many of the ones who do it. It's one thing to take advantage of a players mistakes, but taking advantage of a dealers' mistake is considered by many to be crossing the line. They believe that you have an ethical obligation to correct the dealer, even if it means announcing to the entire table something like: "The player in seat 2 has the ace of diamonds, I saw it".