Recent content by bigbjfan

A few years ago, I studied the particular CSM in detail that was used in the casino closest to me and observed some interesting things. First, I noticed that those devices don't actually shuffle very well at all. Second, counting didn't show any advantage but card tracking through the device...

Oh man, thanks for the laugh!! That is too funny.

Yeah, I think they can have any rules they want and enforce them however they want.

I've been watching this place close for the past few years and this doesn't surprise me. In fact it all makes better sense now. Horrible place to play.

I'll comment a little on CSM's. My experience has been that the CSM does a rather bad job of shuffling. I've observed many times a table that just opens up for play. The shuffling of the new decks done by the dealer before inserting into the CSM has been, in my observation, pretty poor...

I have 650 chips and that has worked out fine so far.

I'm not exactly sure how this will play out. Hopefully, the games won't get any worse. Seems like the last couple times I was in Vegas or Reno, finding a good game took too long for me and last time some of those few good games had disappeared.

I also liked it. This story made a great book but only a good movie. I thought it followed the book story pretty close until the end. Not sure if an average movie attender would enjoy it though.

Very unfortunate. I enjoyed playing there as the games were very good. I hope they can build themselves back up.

Elhombre, The casino that I have been observing uses the Shuffle King CSM and from what you describe, we are seeing the same things. Let me also say that these devices are not very efficient at what they do.:)

I rarely play against the CSM's but the closest casino to me (which is only a couple miles away) uses the CSM exclusively. A few years ago, when learning my BS, I played against them a lot because I hadn't learned to count so it really didn't matter. Once I had that down, I quit playing them...

I've done a lot of research on these CSM's. It is very hard to get an advantage with them. I can track clumps of cards through the CSM's but it is very difficult to tell exactly where they will appear. Being off by a couple of hands can really be bad. I either have good days or bad days when...

I've got Blackbelt, blackjack blueprint, Knockout. Probably one more but I cannot recall right now.

When I was first learning to play blackjack, I purchased his 1st book, which had pretty good info for a newbie. I made some $$$ using his techniques while learning basic strategy. His second book is very confusing to me and don't think his strategy would work any better than a good counting...

I found a lot of the casinos on the vegas strip allowed late surrender. I liked having that option. The other people at my table had no clue what I was doing when I would surrender. It is usually unadvertised so I would ask the dealer if it was offered.