Card steering

A helpful hint for helping your deck estimation skills for card steering or counting for that matter is, a chip is very close to the thickness of a 1/4 deck. So practice cutting however many cards suits your game, but chips are a good visual guideline, whether your cutting 13 or 52. Remember its just a visual training tool, you have to actually practice cutting to get the mechanics of it down. You should be right on more than 90% of the time and no more than 1 off the rest. If you can't achieve that type of accuracy don't try this with any kind of big betting as it will cripple your bankroll. It is opportunistic but there are still a few casinos in Vegas that don't cover the bottom card in their games, as well as other casinos in various other locations.
And remember cutting to the card is only half the game, getting good at steering the card to your hand or the dealers hand smoothly and naturally is a task that requires quite a bit of practice to do it correctly. It usually requires playing multiple hands and some basic strategy slip ups, all to be done to look natural, keeping in mind if you do have to play some hands incorrectly which ones to do it. Its a game with high variance, and not for the weak of heart if your going to play with big money, but also very lucrative if your good at it and get the chance to perform it often.
 
Also be aware that, for some cutting strategies, the accuracy of your cut is not nearly as important as your accuracy in estimating the cut. There will be times when you try to cut at a specific spot (perhaps 52 cards from the back) but immediately notice "Nope, that's not the spot I wanted to cut. It looks like 56 cards instead of 52." In that case you can still play the cut even though it was off because you have an accurate estimation of what the cut actually is.

In theory, you could be a terrible cutter (very inconsistent placement) with perfect estimation and still make lots of money. Conversely, a perfect cutter will go broke if he doesn't accurately estimate how many cards he is cutting.

-Sonny-
 
Sonny said:
Also be aware that, for some cutting strategies, the accuracy of your cut is not nearly as important as your accuracy in estimating the cut. There will be times when you try to cut at a specific spot (perhaps 52 cards from the back) but immediately notice "Nope, that's not the spot I wanted to cut. It looks like 56 cards instead of 52." In that case you can still play the cut even though it was off because you have an accurate estimation of what the cut actually is.

In theory, you could be a terrible cutter (very inconsistent placement) with perfect estimation and still make lots of money. Conversely, a perfect cutter will go broke if he doesn't accurately estimate how many cards he is cutting.

-Sonny-
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Sonny points out something that should definitely be noted. When you cut the cards, say your goal is to cut 52, that is just your reference point. You should know exactly what the thickness of 52 cards look like, and know if you don't cut 52, how many off that mark you are. Its okay if you never cut exactly to your chosen number as long as you are aware how far off it is. It has been my experience though if you are consistantly cutting 4 or more off your target in either direction that it will be increasingly hard to estimate an exact card count. If you are consistantly off by the same number make that your target number and estimate off that. Usually it won't be more than 1 to 3 cards. If it is, practice being more acurrate, because You'll be walking a slippery slope if you are continually erratic with your cuts. As with anything else, the less room you leave for error, the less errors there will be.
 
i'm not sure but i think the advantage of knowing you are going to land an ace in your hand is about 50%. so my question is, is there an advantage if you know that an ace is going to come out in a given round but don't know who is going to end up with it? you know that you may get the ace in that round. you know that in the long run (of similar circumstances) that you should get it as often as anyone else at the table. so again could such a circumstance be consider a long term advantage worthy of raising ones bet on?

best regards,
mr fr0g :D
 
hi folks,
I play with dealer has no hole card (uk), does anybody know the advantage of steering a 6 to the dealer as his/her 2nd card?????i.e the first card he/she takes out of the shoe after players have played there hands.

or does anybody know the card which would give the player the most advantage when steering it to dealer, i know if you steer a ten to the dealer for his/her first HIT card you have a 30% advantage but that is with hole card rule,

i suppose i could steer ten to the dealers first HIT card,i.e the 2nd card he/she would take after players have finished , if he/she didnt require that card i could bet big into next round in first base, grabbing a 13% advantage with a first card ten.Hmmmmmmmmm

Ive been loving praciting shuffle tracking, card steering and cutting, i find it even more enjoyable than when i first started counting.

any opinions would be a help
 
BJLover said:
I play with dealer has no hole card (uk), does anybody know the advantage of steering a 6 to the dealer as his/her 2nd card?????
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That would depend on what the dealer’s first card is. If their first card is a ten then you are in business. If it is a 5 then you are in trouble. Since you play a no hole card game you will be able to see the dealer’s first card before steering their second card to them. If your tracked card will help them then you should “steer around” the dealer, otherwise steer it to them.

In general, I think trying to steer a card to the dealer can be very dangerous. It will only work if you’re cutting skills are perfect. Being off by just one card could ruin the entire play, especially after misplaying your hand(s) in order to steer the card. I think it is much safer to steer the cards to yourself since your accuracy doesn’t have to be as exact. Even being off by 2-6 cards can still be profitable (although that degree of error would make it more like tracking instead of steering).

-Sonny-
 
Sonny said:
That would depend on what the dealer’s first card is. If their first card is a ten then you are in business. If it is a 5 then you are in trouble. Since you play a no hole card game you will be able to see the dealer’s first card before steering their second card to them. If your tracked card will help them then you should “steer around” the dealer, otherwise steer it to them.

In general, I think trying to steer a card to the dealer can be very dangerous. It will only work if you’re cutting skills are perfect. Being off by just one card could ruin the entire play, especially after misplaying your hand(s) in order to steer the card. I think it is much safer to steer the cards to yourself since your accuracy doesn’t have to be as exact. Even being off by 2-6 cards can still be profitable (although that degree of error would make it more like tracking instead of steering).

-Sonny-
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And if you spread to two hands you will be ever more likely to hit that steered card, which would most likely be an ace that you would be steering there...
 
ScottH said:
And if you spread to two hands you will be ever more likely to hit that steered card, which would most likely be an ace that you would be steering there...
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Right. And even if you're off by 3-6 cards there's always the chance that the steered card will be your second card, thus restoring your advantage. Just make sure the dealer doesn't get it! :cry:

-Sonny-
 
It has been my experience if you're off by more than 2 cards consistantly do not try to steer cards. Anything over that you're just guessing. There is a huge difference in being skilled enough to know that you can't be more than 2 off as opposed to you're not sure if it was 2 or 6. Again I'm not talking about the number of cards you plan to cut before, I'm talking about the number you estimate after you make the cut. When we play this game we try to play it with no other people at the table and between 3 and 5 hands per round. When the round comes up for the big bet we try to surround it with 2 bets that combined are equal to half of the big one, and than a couple of the smallest bets we can get away with to work as buffers. That way if we are off slightly we should still land the card in a descent bet. If for some reason we are further off the buffers should pick it up to keep it from the dealer. But thats just like a safety net and you don't want to habitually use that, because if you're regularly missing the target and only hitting the buffers, you're going to get wiped out quick. And there are also the times when there may be someone else sitting at the table and you are forced to play less hands, you better be damn accurate or its going to send you home quick. Yes you may get lucky being 5 or 6 cards off, but I'd like to reserve my luck to matching up the ace I steered to my expecting hand with a strong card. The other luck is for ploppies, just waiting around hoping for a good card.
 
i saw an ace....

the other night i spotted an Ace on the bottom of the pack that was to be cut. it ended up being cut to one deck down by my estimation. i was a lone wolf at a table with two other players. is there any way i could have gleaned an advantage from that situation?
 
sagefr0g said:
the other night i spotted an Ace on the bottom of the pack that was to be cut. it ended up being cut to one deck down by my estimation. i was a lone wolf at a table with two other players. is there any way i could have gleaned an advantage from that situation?
Click to expand...

Yes you could have but there many variables that determine if it was worth trying for. First would be where were you sitting. If you were right in the middle of the other players than that would be difficult because you would have to be perfect to land it directly into your hand. Entirely possible if you are confident your skills are spot on, otherwise let it go. If you were on either side and could put up some lesser but worthwhile buffer bets, your chances are much better. Two other players I don't know at the table is the max I would try this with. But what you also need to do is examine how they play so you can gauge fairly accurately what they most likely will hit, stand, double etc. That way you can figure how to play your hands to best manipulate the card to your target hand. Theres a lot to consider when trying to do this with strangers at the table, so I wouldn't try it unless you're proficient at this technique already. This is something that works very good on no mid shoe entry games. If you can land a table to yourself you know for a fact nobody will jump in to mess with your plan at hand. Playing this method is the only real time a ploppy jumping in can mess up the sacred "flow of the cards".
 
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