London Colin said:
I'd be a little more dogmatic than that. Method 1 is simply wrong.
What I tried to show with my example is that there is no need to wait for missed cards in order to employ method 1. The unseen cards that have yet to be dealt (or lie behind the cut card) are just as amenable to the assumption that the RC changes evenly throughout as any block of missed cards would be.
So if method 1 has any merit, then you should be free to swap steps 2 and 3 in your example -
After two decks have been dealt and the TC is +4, make the assumption that there is a block of 156 cards (or any size you wish) which will come after the next two rounds to be played and will have an averge RC of +4 per deck.
Therefore play the next round, having not missed any cards, using the calculations you gave in step 4. (Or some variation thereof, depending on just how large a chunk of the undealt shoe you arbitrarily decide to treat in the manner of missed cards.)
So the implication is that we are at liberty to apply any weight we choose to the removal of a card, dividing the RC by anything we like, since any number of the unseen cards can be eliminated from our calculations by assuming an even distribution.
All the above is obviously nonsense, but it is a logical consequence of accepting the validity of method 1.
What I tried to show with my example is that there is no need to wait for missed cards in order to employ method 1. The unseen cards that have yet to be dealt (or lie behind the cut card) are just as amenable to the assumption that the RC changes evenly throughout as any block of missed cards would be.
So if method 1 has any merit, then you should be free to swap steps 2 and 3 in your example -
After two decks have been dealt and the TC is +4, make the assumption that there is a block of 156 cards (or any size you wish) which will come after the next two rounds to be played and will have an averge RC of +4 per deck.
Therefore play the next round, having not missed any cards, using the calculations you gave in step 4. (Or some variation thereof, depending on just how large a chunk of the undealt shoe you arbitrarily decide to treat in the manner of missed cards.)
So the implication is that we are at liberty to apply any weight we choose to the removal of a card, dividing the RC by anything we like, since any number of the unseen cards can be eliminated from our calculations by assuming an even distribution.
All the above is obviously nonsense, but it is a logical consequence of accepting the validity of method 1.