Again, I disagree. The small cards are only going to come out for a few hands and your chances of winning these hands are virtually the same as when the big cards come out. If you lose these hands you're only going to lose minimal bets. I'm not sure how you'd vary your bets if you cut the small cards out of play, or do you just make max or near max bets every hand? How do you know when to stop betting big?
If you are not counting cards you won't know, sure. But hopefully you can count cards as well as shuffle track, otherwise you're wasting your time. Cutting a slug of small cards allows you to know that a neutral count is really slightly positive, slight negative is actually neutral, etc.
You are proclaiming that playing a few definite negative EV hands is no worse than playing a 5 deck shoe that has an overall player advantage, which is absurd.
Also, double downs are going to be virtually non-existent if you cut small cards out of play. You need a small card or 2 to make a 2-card 9,10 or 11, so cutting them out of play would lower the EV I would think. You're going to miss out on a lot of 5,6 5,5 4,7 3,8 hands ,etc., and get a lot more 8,7 and 9,7 hands. Hard hands of 17 and 18 will be more likely, which will also now be more likely to lose, and if you have to take a hit on a stiff hand you'll be even more likely to bust.
This is completely absurd. If I found a small card slug that was huge so as to eliminate double down opportunities, the deck cut to the back must contain nearly every small card in the whole six decks, the odds of which are likely next to zero. Also, if you had to choose between blackjacks and double downs, which one would you choose? There is only one correct answer.
Of course you'll get some 17s and 18s, you will NEVER win more hands than you lose in BJ. Your aim isn't to win more hands than you will lose, your aim is to win more than you lose with the help of splits, doubles, and ESPECIALLY blackjacks.
Lastly, I have somehow received double down hands at very high true counts, going by what you're saying this shouldn't happen. And somehow I have also been burned doubling 11s at ridiculous counts, and we ain't just talking getting the ace. Again, how should this happen? At high counts all the low cards are gone right? :laugh:
To each his own I guess. If I were playing one on one against the dealer and could easily wong out and know when to do so I might opt for your method. And cutting the small cards out of play certainly makes more sense in single and double deck games. But I think cutting the small cards to the front makes much more sense in shoe games where the penetration is good and wonging in and out isn't really plausible.Wonging is much more plausible in shoe games, generally speaking. You don't want to wong out very often at all when cutting a substantial slug of babies to the back, as it would take a much more negative count to justify wonging than in a straight counting situation. But you are right, heads up using your method would be a poor choice because you will be playing even more -EV hands