Recent content by Renzey

Don't forget Mentor. It's a superb count for double deck, and a fine performer for the shoe too.

Split them for cover at an extra 1% loss.

The reference there was to improve the Ace/5 Count moderately by adding just the 10-spot and the 4 to the count structure, thereby tracking two low ranks of cards and two high ranks, rather than only one of each (you still ignore the Jacks, Queens and Kings). It increases the Betting...

If you don't want to learn a full scale count, but are willing to expand the Ace/5 Count just a little bit, you could count the Aces and 10-spots (but not the pictures) as minus 1 -- and the 4's & 5's as plus 1. That'll raise the betting correlation from 54% to 70%. With a wide spread in a...

I'm speaking of games that do NOT allow surrender.

It's not that it's "contrary" to Arnold's advice, it's just that playing by the RC throughout the shoe is accurate enough -- in the range of multi-unit bets and positive index plays. Arnold's approach of either simply ignoring many index plays in the early part of the shoe, or having slightly...

Remember that if your six deck IRC is -12, then your eight deck IRC should be -16. With that, all works just about the same -- except for very early in the 8 deck shoe. There, if you get a -2 RC only two decks into it, you've got a +1.6 TC and can bet 2 or 3 units. On those rare occasions...

Yes, you would. Follow along and see why. You begin at -4. If the cards come out neutrally, the RC will rise by 2 points for each dealt deck. Let's say after the first hand or two, 13 cards have been dealt and the RC is -1. A perfectly neutral RC would be -3.5. The remaining cards...

If you know surviellance is running a skills check on someone at your table, this is the time for you to hit 12 vs. 4, or to double for way less with 12 vs. 2 or 3, or to hit 13 vs. 2, or to double 10 vs. 10, or to split 2/2 or 3/3 or 7/7 vs. 8, or to split 9/9 vs. Ace, or to Insure any hand for...

Yes, I would definitely begin my ramp at -1 RC. If it comes only 1.25 decks into the shoe (about as soon as you'll see it), the TC is +1.8. If it comes 4.5 decks into the shoe, the TC is +1.3. You'll never be far off the desired +1.5 TC. Just how fast your ramp should move up from there...

OOPS: An arithmetic error Sorry: 12vs. 6 should be <-17 for S17 games. Also, I was thinking in bed last night about Norm's betting ramp. Regarding -3 as the initial ramp up point, that still seems too early. There will be so many times you'll encounter a -3 late in the shoe where the TC...

From your previous post, I'm assuming you're referring to a 6 deck shoe and a -12 IRC. If so, yes, I believe that's too early, unless you have better than average rules. My suggested ramps are based on a basic strategy house advantage of 0.50%. A minus 3 RC will be equal to a TC of about...

Yes, they will since the card tags are so nearly the same. But if you keep the original Red 7 IRC, then lower all the KISS index numbers by 21 points. Also, it will be more productive to begin betting multiple units at -1 RC. Once you have that under your belt, you can make up for most of...

Zen, Beginning with the IRC, it is an arbitrary starting point. Arnold chose a zero running count to be his universal pivot (the point at which the RC is always equal to +2.0 TC) . That dictated that the IRC be -12 for the six deck shoe. Then, keeping things super-simple, he made that same...

Take the KISS index charts from page 155 of Blackjack Bluebook II, adjust the numbers downward by 21 points for the shoe game (due to an IRC of "9" rather than "-12") and use all 22 indices. The two counts are so similar that their indices are basically interchangeable. PS - or you may want...