Tracking the cutoff

[Blue Efficacy]

My problem with AM's method is if you knowingly leave low cards in play to give you a high count, the cards that do end up behind the cut card are more likely to be high cards.

On the other hand, if you put the low cards in the back, if you do in fact get a high count you can be more confident it is for real, and not one of those times you see the cut card come out with a huge running count!

 

[farmdoggy]

Abso-****ing-lutely.

I haven't yet had the priviledge of a (regularly) hand shuffled game, but I will have to concur. Almost any advantage should negate the S17/H17 difference...

For example, I have 2 games available near me. 6D S17 DA2 DAS RSA and 6D H17 DA2 DAS RSA LS. The LS difference swings the advantage more towards my favor in higher counts in the H17 game when I would be betting more. If the penetrations were the same (and decent), I would consider these 2 games to be equal. But since the S17 game has an 80% pen and the H17 has 90%, my winrate at the H17 game is about twice as much.

In the other case though, a hand shuffled game would also slow the game down, but it's still gotta be worth it IMHO.

 

[Dopple]

First my apologies to AM for the previous primate address, I was out of line.

Since we like the numbers could you put a number on the loss due to less cards dealt in a hand shuffled game?

I suppose if you saw 6 shoes with an ASM vs. 5 hand held you would cut your EV by 5/6? I seem to remember shoes running about 12 minutes if I remember right.

 

[Automatic Monkey]

First my apologies to AM for the previous primate address, I was out of line.

Since we like the numbers could you put a number on the loss due to less cards dealt in a hand shuffled game?

I suppose if you saw 6 shoes with an ASM vs. 5 hand held you would cut your EV by 5/6? I seem to remember shoes running about 12 minutes if I remember right.

Dude I'm not just an AP, I'm an APE. Monkey's no problem at all!:laugh:

It's all a matter of the numbers specific to each shuffle. With the stuff I have to play, you need a computer if you expect to track anything better than just getting a few extra RC's. I like using it just to put me on the right side of the variance curve. I am sure there are better shuffles someplace that will allow more.

 

[zengrifter]

First my apologies to AM for the previous primate address, I was out of line.

Not at all >>

Chimps Beat Humans on Memory Tasks​

 

[Blue Efficacy]

First my apologies to AM for the previous primate address, I was out of line.

Since we like the numbers could you put a number on the loss due to less cards dealt in a hand shuffled game?

I suppose if you saw 6 shoes with an ASM vs. 5 hand held you would cut your EV by 5/6? I seem to remember shoes running about 12 minutes if I remember right.

ASM's certainly don't speed up the game THAT much, unless you're talking a multi-pass shuffle with stepladder that is worthless anyway.

If they did there wouldn't be a single table without an ASM. Several years ago a store I like yanked out all of their ASM's in favor of implementing their one pass shuffle at all tables. That coupled with increased penetration did wonders for their bottom line...

...and mine :grin:

 

[blackchipjim]

Following the cut?

There are certain shuffles that when conditions allow can be very profitable. I cut high to the front and watch the table either clear out or we kick butt. I do end up leaving alot of times when the rally is done because the results after can be devastating. I have a hard time staying even when winning and the count is going negative due to the influx of high cards being dealt. I still refining my points to leave after this type of action occurs. I know I have overstayed my welcome a few times but got out before the hammer fell.

 

[Blue Efficacy]

There are certain shuffles that when conditions allow can be very profitable. I cut high to the front and watch the table either clear out or we kick butt. I do end up leaving alot of times when the rally is done because the results after can be devastating. I have a hard time staying even when winning and the count is going negative due to the influx of high cards being dealt. I still refining my points to leave after this type of action occurs. I know I have overstayed my welcome a few times but got out before the hammer fell.

Oh the results can be devastating. Once after winning a few hundred after the first couple of decks, I stuck around to see what happened, out of curiosity. I lost just about every hand! At least I was betting $5! :laugh:

Perhaps it was foolish of me to not leave. But on the other hand I gathered information that helped me the next shoe.

 

[Dopple]

Delightful link

I think the chimp link was poser-tively delightful!!

 

[silky28]

Oh the results can be devastating. Once after winning a few hundred after the first couple of decks, I stuck around to see what happened, out of curiosity. I lost just about every hand! At least I was betting $5! :laugh:

Perhaps it was foolish of me to not leave. But on the other hand I gathered information that helped me the next shoe.

it also made you look just like a regular old player that got lucky and then lost a bit!

 

[silky28]

I have a game with a simple shuffle that I think could really be taken by cutoff tracking. It's an 8 deck game with a single pass shuffle. The cutoff's go on top of discards. The stack is split in half and the dealer takes 3/4 picks from each pile. Those are rifled, stripped, riffled then half of them are mixed with another 3/4 from one side or the other.

Essentially it is a 1 pass shuffle where the segment of cutoff cards should end up at the very bottom of the freshly shuffled stack. Therefore, it should be fairly simple to cut a good segment to the front. Is this correct?

 

[zengrifter]

I have a game with a simple shuffle that I think could really be taken by cutoff tracking. It's an 8 deck game with a single pass shuffle. The cutoff's go on top of discards. The stack is split in half and the dealer takes 3/4 picks from each pile. Those are rifled, stripped, riffled then half of them are mixed with another 3/4 from one side or the other.

Essentially it is a 1 pass shuffle where the segment of cutoff cards should end up at the very bottom of the freshly shuffled stack. Therefore, it should be fairly simple to cut a good segment to the front. Is this correct?

Yes. It sounds like you found a perfect COT game. zg

 

[silky28]

Having a problem in practice. So I marked one suit of a deck ie 13 cards with a marker. I think put that into a 1.5 deck segment and did the shuffle. While most of the cards end up where I want them...ie the very bottom of the freshly shuffled shoe....i always get 1 or 2 cards that make it almost to the front of the shoe.

This is obviously a side effect of the shuffle.

they split 8 decks into 2 piles, riffle together the first 39 cards of each stack. they then strip them 2 or 3 times and riffle them again. Half of the shuffled section goes to the finished side, the other half gets re-shuffled with 39 cards from one of the big stacks. Essentially cards shuffled in the first grab can end up al the way in the last grab.

is there any way to combat this?

 

[zengrifter]

Having a problem in practice. So I marked one suit of a deck ie 13 cards with a marker. I think put that into a 1.5 deck segment and did the shuffle. While most of the cards end up where I want them...ie the very bottom of the freshly shuffled shoe....i always get 1 or 2 cards that make it almost to the front of the shoe.

This is obviously a side effect of the shuffle.

they split 8 decks into 2 piles, riffle together the first 39 cards of each stack. they then strip them 2 or 3 times and riffle them again. Half of the shuffled section goes to the finished side, the other half gets re-shuffled with 39 cards from one of the big stacks. Essentially cards shuffled in the first grab can end up al the way in the last grab.

is there any way to combat this?

Don't worry about the few that got away, silly gosling. zg

 

[silky28]

should I make a correction for this. say I am cutting 15 cards out of play should I say it's 13 instead?

 

[zengrifter]

should I make a correction for this. say I am cutting 15 cards out of play should I say it's 13 instead?

I would say no. Not unless I had enough empirical experience for complete confidence.

Run down your method one more time to us, including how you calc the starting count (with big cards forward). BTW, I didn't fully disagree with putting the money cards further back... I often cut them a half to one and a half decks back.

I use the pure limited COT quite well on occasion. Its the I-18 equivalent for ST.
But I'm not adroit with the more byzantine considerations and observations involved in full fledged advanced ST. zg

 

[silky28]

thanks Zen, I appreciate the assistance!

I havn't actually tried this yet. I am still working on perfecting it at home.

I am thinking with the particular shuffle I get that it would be best to cut the good cards into play. Here is what I would do. So say the cutoff is -16 and the cutoff is 2 decks. That 2 decks gets mixed with say 2.5 decks so the whole segment is 4.5 decks. So I take -16 + (16/6 remaining decks)=3 rounding up. So the true count for the remaining decks is 3. Since 2.5 decks were added I subract say 8 from the -16. So that 4.5 deck section has a theoretical count of -8. Now since this segment is the first part shuffled it ends up at the bottom of a fresly shuffled shoe. So I cut 3.5 decks from the front and should start with a TC of ~1.8.

Seems to me like with this shuffle it would be much easier and more profitable to do a +/-nrs on the first 3/4 decks played than it is to play the cutoff.

 

[Rael]

"So say the cutoff is -16 and the cutoff is 2 decks. That 2 decks gets mixed with say 2.5 decks so the whole segment is 4.5..."

Unequal grabs? Is it possible to get the count for the 2 or 2.5 decks that get married to the cut off?

 

[Rael]

My mistake

Sorry Silky. I have noticed you mentioned dealer grabs are 39 cards. Still with minor adjustment you could get the actual count for the whole 4.5 decks.

 

[silky28]

"So say the cutoff is -16 and the cutoff is 2 decks. That 2 decks gets mixed with say 2.5 decks so the whole segment is 4.5..."

Unequal grabs? Is it possible to get the count for the 2 or 2.5 decks that get married to the cut off?

Ya I went through that. the answer is -8 over 2.5 decks.

1) 2 deck cutoff = -16
2) 6 remaining decks=+16
3) divide the remaining count by number of decks left 16/6=2.66 (round to 3 for safety)
4) Therefore for every deck remaining there are 3 extra small cards. Since there are 2.5 decks added we would multiply 2.5x3=7.5 (round to 8 for safety)
5)now we simply take what we know about the cutoff and subtract from that what we know about the 2.5 decks added to it. Ie. cutoff=-16, 2.5 decks added =8.0. So theoretically that 4.5 deck segment has a count of -8 or almost a TC of 2.

I hope this is the right way of doing it and if so hope it helps!