Brock Windsor said:
Partner up with a Blackjack dealer and practice sequencing/tracking/steering with his/her specific shuffle. I tested this out but figured I didn't have the skills and my dealer didn't have the consistency to make it profitable in a shoe game and I worried about its legality. Maybe a pitch game would make it profitable?? Or is the shuffle in a shoe game simpler? I haven't given up on trying to incorporate these plays into my repetoire.
BW
Inside the casino, any sort of partnership with a dealer - at least on where the dealer knows about it - is illegal. That said I would still highly recommend playing minimums while practicing against a specific dealer that you think you can beat before putting the money out. That isn't illegal.
As to shuffle tracking - when we are talking about packet tracking it's more about visual ability and finding the right shuffle than consistent dealers. In fact sometimes inconsistent dealers can offer the greatest advantages.
Sequencing is about finding the right shuffle, visual skills and dealer accuracy. This is a high varience game and it only gets higher if the dealer is sloppy with the shuffle or you don't follow your packet and rely on key cards.
Neither of these techniques are illegal and i'm fairly sure - although i'd have to do some research to be 100% - that both of them have been put through court to come to that conclusion. All you are doing is using information that's freely avalible to everyone at the table.
I'm not sure about the legality of back card steering. There are several experts on the game that seem to question it. While i don't take much of my advice off of Semyon, he seems to think that it's legality could be questionable. This is backed up (or indeed qualified) by James Grosjean listing steering as "possibly illegal" in BC. What the difference is between cutting skillfully to bring a good packet into play and cutting skillfully to put a good card in a certain position i don't know, but it's certainly more sketchy.
All of these techniques can and have been used in pitch games in the past, but unfortunately a lot of these opportunities have all but gone. You might find one once in a while that is beatable. If you want to use these techniques today the shoe's you're best bet. You'll still have to look for opportunites as not every shuffle provides a worthwhile bet, but you'll find a lot more of them than in pitch games.
RJT.