Shuffle Tracking

[1357111317]

Are there any shuffle trackers on here who have had some sucess that would be willing to share what kind of EV they have been getting by shuffle tracking?

 

[Ferretnparrot]

Are there any shuffle trackers on here who have had some sucess that would be willing to share what kind of EV they have been getting by shuffle tracking?

I think it would be very difficult to gauge the EV gained from shuffle tracking, mostly because one fatcor in how much you can gain from it depends on how sloppy the dealer is, and this is kinda unmeasurable. I view it as a way to gain extra hands played at an advantage, by starting at higher initial counts, or by knowing where valuable cards by means other than process of elemenation by basic counting.

It dont really matter what it is, if you know theres a couple extra aces in the next half deck segement, your golden, just bet on it.

 

[HockeXpert]

Very difficult to estimate EV - too many variables

The EV from shuffle tracking mainly varies with your ability to track slugs, deck estimation and cut very accurately. Some other important variables are the method of tracking used, dealer grab sizes, the locations and richness of the slugs you are tracking and how thorough a dealer shuffle is. I recently found a store that, although they had a standard LV 2 pass shuffle, the dealers did not strip the cards and only riffled once each each pass. As a result, I was able to closely track small 13 card segments and cut to them with ease because they did not get very diluted during the shuffle.

That being said, overall, shuffle tracking has a significant EV edge over counting BUT you have to be very good at shuffle tracking and it takes a ton more practice and work to do it well than counting. If counting was a 5 on a difficulty scale of 1 to 10, shuffle tracking would be a 50.

Shuffle tracking varies greatly with the method used. Simple cutoff tracking will never yield as much EV as complex segment tracking.

I have personally seen a win rate while shuffle tracking that is 2.5 times my win rate when wonging using hi-lo but I am no where near the long run after 250 hours of play.

 

[iCountNTrack]

Are there any shuffle trackers on here who have had some sucess that would be willing to share what kind of EV they have been getting by shuffle tracking?

You are asking a very general question. As people just mentioned the EV is very dependable on so many factors: Shuffles, Dealer's Precision, The number of slugs you tracked, the size of the slugs you tracked, your accuracy and precision in deck estimation, your betting strategy... Your EV over simple counting could range from 0.5%<EV<4%. More important than increasing your EV is the fact that if you are following a GOOD shuffle tracking method you will be able to identify more advantageous situations than those that would be identified by simple counting, which means your action/hour (total bet/hour) would be higher, so even in the worst case if your EV is the same your hourly average would be higher
(hourly average=action/hour*EV).

 

[rukus]

You are asking a very general question. As people just mentioned the EV is very dependable on so many factors: Shuffles, Dealer's Precision, The number of slugs you tracked, the size of the slugs you tracked, your accuracy and precision in deck estimation, your betting strategy... Your EV over simple counting could range from 0.5%<EV<4%. More important than increasing your EV is the fact that if you are following a GOOD shuffle tracking method you will be able to identify more advantageous situations that would be identified by simple counting, which means your action/hour (total bet/hour) would be higher, so even in the worst case if your EV is the same your hourly average would be higher
(hourly average=action/hour*EV).

to clarify what is being correclty pointed out here is that you will be playing positive advantages with a much a higher frequency and so you will be able to bump up your unit in $ terms for the same given risk. it is equivalent to being able to bump up your unit when using traditional counting but only playing in +2 TC or higher. you would be able to have a much larger unit size in $s than if you play down to -1 TC.

 

[1357111317]

So a rough estimate you are making in terms of risk then is that I can format my bet spread and ROR as if I was wonging? Now obviously that isn't exact but would you say its a good place to start?

 

[rukus]

So a rough estimate you are making in terms of risk then is that I can format my bet spread and ROR as if I was wonging? Now obviously that isn't exact but would you say its a good place to start?

that is how i would approach it on a rough estimate basis. maybe not as 100% wonging since there will be times you wont find a valuable enough slug to bring the TC up high enough (though i suppose you can get up in this case). also, you will be making waiting bets as you either search for slugs in the first shoe or after you play through a tracked playzone. the concept makes sense in my head at least - your frequency of seeing higher counts (or at least not negative counts) goes up, so you should be able to adjust your bets up to a certain degree without increasing risk. maybe another full time tracker can weigh in on how they size their bets since i admit i am still training myself in practice. but the theory makes sense :devil:.

 

[iCountNTrack]

that is how i would approach it on a rough estimate basis. maybe not as 100% wonging since there will be times you wont find a valuable enough slug to bring the TC up high enough (though i suppose you can get up in this case). also, you will be making waiting bets as you either search for slugs in the first shoe or after you play through a tracked playzone. the concept makes sense in my head at least - your frequency of seeing higher counts (or at least not negative counts) goes up, so you should be able to adjust your bets up to a certain degree without increasing risk. maybe another full time tracker can weigh in on how they size their bets since i admit i am still training myself in practice. but the theory makes sense :devil:.

You size your bets as a function of the TC calculated for your playzone. They are two methods to calculate the TC: The first method is basically straightforward you have tracked all the slugs that get shuffled to generate your playzone, you have tracked slug A lets say it is half a deck that had a count -9, and another slug B also half a deck that had a count of +2, the shuffle mixes slugs A and B to give you a playzone of one deck, the total count for that one deck is -7. Multiplying by -1 will give you an Initial Running Count of +7 so the TC would also be +7 because you would be dividing by the size of your playzone which is one deck in this case. You adjust your initial running count as you are goign through the playzone.

The second method is when you only have information about one of the slugs that make up your future playzone, in that case you would use the NRS formula to calculate the TC a great post by Alienated would explain it much better

(Dead link: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/blackjackcardcounterscafe/message/22118)

 

[rukus]

You size your bets as a function of the TC calculated for your playzone. They are two methods to calculate the TC: The first method is basically straightforward you have tracked all the slugs that get shuffled to generate your playzone, you have tracked slug A lets say it is half a deck that had a count -9, and another slug B also half a deck that had a count of +2, the shuffle mixes slugs A and B to give you a playzone of one deck, the total count for that one deck is -7. Multiplying by -1 will give you an Initial Running Count of +7 so the TC would also be +7 because you would be dividing by the size of your playzone which is one deck in this case. You adjust your initial running count as you are goign through the playzone.

The second method is when you only have information about one of the slugs that make up your future playzone, in that case you would use the NRS formula to calculate the TC a great post by Alienated would explain it much better

(Dead link: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/blackjackcardcounterscafe/message/22118)

i understand how to get TC for a segment, whether it be with complete information or the NRS. but given that you might now only play counts of 0 and higher, you can bet of your bankroll more per TC than you could if you were just counting and played hands down to say a TC of -1. i think that is the crux of the issue being asked here.

 

[iCountNTrack]

Hmm i have never thought about this before, i always used to the same betting strategy that I use for simple counting i.e if TC from counting or from tracking is +4 i use 15 unit bet. I am sorry but I am failing to see how you would wong and shuffle track at the same time.

 

[callipygian]

I am failing to see how you would wong and shuffle track at the same time.

Wonging is dependent on where the running count is at a specific moment. Shuffle tracking depends on the rate of change of the running count throughout the whole history of the shoe. That is, it is possible for there to be both a running count of 0 and two slugs of -5 and +5 in the same shoe - one slug when the count goes up, and another slug when the count comes back down.

 

[rukus]

Hmm i have never thought about this before, i always used to the same betting strategy that I use for simple counting i.e if TC from counting or from tracking is +4 i use 15 unit bet. I am sorry but I am failing to see how you would wong and shuffle track at the same time.

i dont mean you actually wong. i am saying you can afford to bet more per TC while shuffle tracking, just as you can afford to bet more per TC when wonging vs just playing all. ie if you might spread 1-10 while playing all, you might spread 1-6 while counting and wonging but your base unit can be bigger in $ terms. this should hold true for shuffle tracking as well - you theoretically can spread less but increase the size of your base unit without increasing risk.

so in your case if you spread 1-10 in quarters while counting and playing all, you might bet 1-10 at the same TCs in $50 increments or even $75 increments while wonging, depending on how aggressively you wong. so too, if you are shuffle tracking you might be able to bet higher base units and thus get more action on the table. so while your % advantage might not increase much in ST over counting, your win rate might because you can bump up your unit size in $s for the same risk.

 

[iCountNTrack]

Wonging is dependent on where the running count is at a specific moment. Shuffle tracking depends on the rate of change of the running count throughout the whole history of the shoe. That is, it is possible for there to be both a running count of 0 and two slugs of -5 and +5 in the same shoe - one slug when the count goes up, and another slug when the count comes back down.

You totally misunderstood me mate, perhaps i didn't explain myself, when i wong out i normally leave the table all together so you can't actually shuffle track without seeing the shuffle.

Thanks for the mini-lecture about wonging and ST but it is all known to me since 1990 .

 

[iCountNTrack]

i dont mean you actually wong. i am saying you can afford to bet more per TC while shuffle tracking, just as you can afford to bet more per TC when wonging vs just playing all. ie if you might spread 1-10 while playing all, you might spread 1-6 while counting and wonging but your base unit can be bigger in $ terms. this should hold true for shuffle tracking as well - you theoretically can spread less but increase the size of your base unit without increasing risk.

so in your case if you spread 1-10 in quarters while counting and playing all, you might bet 1-10 at the same TCs in $50 increments or even $75 increments while wonging, depending on how aggressively you wong. so too, if you are shuffle tracking you might be able to bet higher base units and thus get more action on the table. so while your % advantage might not increase much in ST over counting, your win rate might because you can bump up your unit size in $s for the same risk.

Your total action/hour will increase regardless on whether you increase your bets in the playzone or not. As we both agreed on, ST will enable you to identify more situations where you have an advantage than simple counting would.

The above simulation was for a 4 deck S17 Hi-Lo play all 1-15 bet spread. The first table with without shuffle tracking. Second is with ST using NRS (both positive and negative)

Notice how the total bets per hour went up by 30% with ST but so did the Standard Deviation for the same betting strategy, increasing your bets size would increase your risk of ruin if you are using the same bankroll. I have to run a simulation to be more sure

 

[callipygian]

when i wong out i normally leave the table all together so you can't actually shuffle track without seeing the shuffle.

You never stay to the end of the shoe if the count stays high? Those are the scenarios I'm talking about.

 

[iCountNTrack]

You never stay to the end of the shoe if the count stays high? Those are the scenarios I'm talking about.

Of course I would mate, lol this is funny. This whole discussion
started because I misread Rukus's post. My personal opinion though
is that you can't ST and wong out at the same time because it would be rather
impractical and might draw a lot of attention. For instance you ST play
through your playzone and make the big $. The count is low like the
temperature in Siberia your wonging instincts would tell you to get the hell out
but if you leave your ST is done (observing the shuffle, cut card) surely you
can linger around the table but that would draw a lot of attention to you

 

[1357111317]

Your total action/hour will increase regardless on whether you increase your bets in the playzone or not. As we both agreed on, ST will enable you to identify more situations where you have an advantage than simple counting would.

The above simulation was for a 4 deck S17 Hi-Lo play all 1-15 bet spread. The first table with without shuffle tracking. Second is with ST using NRS (both positive and negative)

Notice how the total bets per hour went up by 30% with ST but so did the Standard Deviation for the same betting strategy, increasing your bets size would increase your risk of ruin if you are using the same bankroll. I have to run a simulation to be more sure

Thanks for that sim countandtrack. Do you think you could run a 6 deck H17 sim using a 1-10 spread and compare that to similar play all without tracking? Thanks.

 

[rukus]

Your total action/hour will increase regardless on whether you increase your bets in the playzone or not. As we both agreed on, ST will enable you to identify more situations where you have an advantage than simple counting would.

The above simulation was for a 4 deck S17 Hi-Lo play all 1-15 bet spread. The first table with without shuffle tracking. Second is with ST using NRS (both positive and negative)

Notice how the total bets per hour went up by 30% with ST but so did the Standard Deviation for the same betting strategy, increasing your bets size would increase your risk of ruin if you are using the same bankroll. I have to run a simulation to be more sure

thanks for the sim. i think we are on the same page now what i meant for being able to increase bet size.

yes, i agree your standard deviation (SD) will go up, but so will your EV. the giant increase in SCORE (50% or so?) tells us that clearly the EV is outweighing the SD effects.

To further illustrate my point about being able to use bigger bets for the same risk, answer me these two questions (if you feel comfortable with this):

1. if you were to play-all, what would your unit size be in dollars?
2. if you were to wong in and out and only play at counts of TC 1 or higher, what would your unit size be in dollars?

I hope you agree that for any sized bankroll, your answer to #2 would be higher than that of #1 EVEN THOUGH your SD will go up as well. right?

now imagine that you are a good enough shuffle tracker to either cut ace/ten slugs into play or 4-5-6 card slugs out of play and somehow always achieve an off the top TC of 1 (using NRS or snyder method, shouldnt matter for off the top reasons). This is exactly the same as situation #2 above. In fact, depending on the shuffle, maybe you can achieve an average off the top TC higher than 1. In this case you would be able to put even more money on the table than you would be able to using just wonging in/out. im sure what i am saying is basic stuff, but that is all i meant by being able to increase your action at the table - you can increase your "base" unit in $ terms just same way as if you were a super aggressive wonger.

no sims needed for that, right? i like conceptual approaches before messing around with CVData to make sure i am getting what i expect out of the software :devil: