In one of the articles of Casinoz, dedicated to blackjack, we talked a little about shuffle tracking. Now we want to explain it to you a little more. It is a very complicated procedure, used by card counters. We warn that it is only suitable for playing in offline casinos. You can't use it in online casinos (even in blackjack with live dealers).
Also keep in mind that this material is expository and is unlikely to help you learn how to shuffle tracking. If you want to master this technique, we recommend reading the book The Shuffle Tracker's Cookbook by Arnold Snyder and Advantage Play by the Casino Executive Bill Zender. But we are not sure that you can find them in high-quality translation into Russian
Principles of card counting
Before explaining the principles of shuffle-tracking, let's recall who are card counters in blackjack. Using one of the many ways to count, they keep track of the concentration of large and small cards in the decks remaining in the game. The more there are high cards, the higher the probability of winning, and the higher the bet.
Of course, the counters do not start a new game with big bets, because they do not yet have the information they need. It may be that they don't want go into a big minus, and then gradually increase the level. In such a situation you don't have to raise rates.
It is no secret that in blackjack game there are several decks and not all cards are charged. One or two decks are separated in shoe by a special card. It serves as a signal for a dealer that it is time to shuffle. This is one way of preventing card counting.
If you ever counted cards in playing blackjack, you probably know a situation where at the end of the game the amount was very high. This means that there were a lot of high cards, and you can't benefit. You can be upset with this fact, but the players who do shuffle tracking, rejoice similar situation.
Principles of shuffle-tracking
Some cards, which were not used in the game, are already mixed before hand, so many dealers do not consider it necessary to make additional operations with these decks. Accordingly, there is need to track down these cards and then make the cut-off so that they are at the beginning of a shoe.
Then you can immediately make big bets, because the concentration of high cards will be high. This, incidentally, is confusing dealers and pit bosses trying to detect the counter, because such behavior is not usual for counters.
Moreover, changing the basic strategy has been developed for such situations. If a professional blackjack player knows that next there will be large decks and aces, it will be a little different to do splits and doubles, taking even money and so on. All this will allow getting even more mathematical advantage over the casino.
Response of the casino
As you see, the shuffle tracking technique seems not so difficult, but in practice it is not always possible. Casinos know about this procedure and try to counteract it. Conscientious dealers never disregard the deck, the shear cards that did not participate in the game. They divide them into smaller pieces and mix with the cards pulled from the chipper. Naturally, this reduces the likelihood of a successful shuffle tracking.
Thus, we can say that in a solid casino where every employee honestly fulfills their obligations, shuffle tracking is almost impossible. Besides, if a card counter make a mistake, trying to track the more high cards, he will start to raise rates in a disadvantageous situation for themselves, which may have very unpleasant consequences.
But, frankly, not all dealers are working good enough. The author of these lines have seen many croupiers who put in a shoe cards not participating in the game. Generally they are not mixed. While the casino croupiers are lazy, shuffle tracking still makes sense.
Conclusion:
We told you about the most frequently used technology of shuffle tracking. But it is not the only method. You can find more information about them in the books devoted to blackjack.
