anyone who has spent any amount of time playing double deck has probably seen a sloppy dealer forget to cover the bottom of the two-deck pile when they pull it out of the shuffle machine. should you be fortunate enough to encounter a dealer with this weakness there is an easy method to exploit it to your advantage. here is what you do :
step #0 : note the bottom carrd
Step #1 : cut 11 cards from the bottom.
Step #2 : open two spots.
Ideally you will be playing heads up. if you are playing with another person, make sure you are at first base. play only 1 spot on the first hand but open two spots on the second, if spreading to two spots is allowed mid shoe.
Personally I just count the # of cards that are dealt while maintaining a running count as well. This is pretty difficult so you can also just sort of 'eyeball it'. In a round where no hit cards come out you have a significantly lower chance of getting the key card. In a round where many hit cards come out and the target card still has not your chance of getting it is extremely high and you can bet with a higher degree of confidence. You don't have to be exact because if you are playing heads up you get 4 of the first 5 cards in a row to your hands so as long as you are pretty close you have an excellent chance of getting this card as one of your first two cards on one of your hands.
This is really only valuable if the card is a ten or an ace. Having either a ten or an ace as your first card is a strong advantage, 13% for the ten and >50% for the ace. Even when you adjust for the increased likelihood of this card going to the dealer this is still a quite advantageous situation, especially because like I said you have a roughly 4/5 chance of getting it (not quite that simply because it should be more likely to come to the first 3 spots than the last two assuming you are doing a good job!).
Of course it is important to practice this extensively at home before putting your own money at risk.
I'm not sure exactly how much to bet in this situation assuming you expect to get a ten. Off hand something like 1% of your bankroll feels right. Maybe even .5%. Then maybe 2-4% for the ace. A lot depends on your degree of accuracy. You can also use this first card prediction technique to exploit side bets like lucky ladies or kings bounty that require two ten value cards to pay off. This is obviously a very profitable situation if you know you are getting a ten as they pay at least 4:1 and you are only roughly 2.25:1 against hitting two tens.
step #0 : note the bottom carrd
Step #1 : cut 11 cards from the bottom.
Step #2 : open two spots.
Ideally you will be playing heads up. if you are playing with another person, make sure you are at first base. play only 1 spot on the first hand but open two spots on the second, if spreading to two spots is allowed mid shoe.
Personally I just count the # of cards that are dealt while maintaining a running count as well. This is pretty difficult so you can also just sort of 'eyeball it'. In a round where no hit cards come out you have a significantly lower chance of getting the key card. In a round where many hit cards come out and the target card still has not your chance of getting it is extremely high and you can bet with a higher degree of confidence. You don't have to be exact because if you are playing heads up you get 4 of the first 5 cards in a row to your hands so as long as you are pretty close you have an excellent chance of getting this card as one of your first two cards on one of your hands.
This is really only valuable if the card is a ten or an ace. Having either a ten or an ace as your first card is a strong advantage, 13% for the ten and >50% for the ace. Even when you adjust for the increased likelihood of this card going to the dealer this is still a quite advantageous situation, especially because like I said you have a roughly 4/5 chance of getting it (not quite that simply because it should be more likely to come to the first 3 spots than the last two assuming you are doing a good job!).
Of course it is important to practice this extensively at home before putting your own money at risk.
I'm not sure exactly how much to bet in this situation assuming you expect to get a ten. Off hand something like 1% of your bankroll feels right. Maybe even .5%. Then maybe 2-4% for the ace. A lot depends on your degree of accuracy. You can also use this first card prediction technique to exploit side bets like lucky ladies or kings bounty that require two ten value cards to pay off. This is obviously a very profitable situation if you know you are getting a ten as they pay at least 4:1 and you are only roughly 2.25:1 against hitting two tens.