I Get 16; She Has 20

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I Get 16; She Has 20

There is an entire culture of blackjack 'experts' who write about the game from the point of view that the game of today isn't like the game of 20 or 30 years ago, primarily because the casinos shuffle the cards differently now. As a result of that shuffle, they contend, all the work which has been done by computer in the analysis of the game over the last 30 years is invalid. They attack computer analysis because a computer can shuffle a deck in such a way as to insure the deck deals the cards in a truly random fashion. What that means is that when a computer deals cards from a deck, each card has the same chance of appearing as any other. For example, if four cards have been dealt, the odds of getting any remaining card is 1 in 48, because there are 48 cards left. This 'new age' crowd says that no deck in a casino can be shuffled in a completely random manner (probably true) and, even more importantly, steps the casinos take assures that the deck will never be random. Here's where they and I part company.

Yes, I agree that a deck may not be absolutely random, but I totally disagree that casinos are influencing the deck through their method of shuffle. The 'new agers' point to the elaborate shuffle routines which casinos now use, but they aren't 'stacking the deck' against the player by that; they are combatting shuffle-trackers who identify 'slugs' of high or low cards and use the cut-card to move those slugs to the top (or bottom) of the deck. That very action alone is an attempt to 'randomize' the cards, but the new agers want it both ways: the shuffle defeats shuffle-trackers, but creates a non-random deck which is better for the casino than the player. If you've seen any posts from the proponents of this theory on a bulletin board or in a news group, you know how passionate they are about arguing their point and, sooner or later, their rhetoric turns into personal attacks on those who espouse a 'traditional' view of card-counting. Pointing out that guys like Stanford Wong and Arnold Snyder ('traditionalists') have authored books on the topic and therefore cannot be unbiased, any and all work done by them is immediately discarded. Well, I don't have a book to sell and you're reading this at no cost, so my motivation is to get to the truth. Wong and Snyder aren't wrong; card-counting does work and I know that's true, because I've made $$$ doing it for almost 20 years. Oh, by the way, most of the 'new agers' have a system to sell which, they say, teaches you how to play the 'new' Blackjack. One of their favorite selling points is to ask: "How often have you had a big bet out, the count is sky-high and you get a 16 against a dealer's 10?" It happens. I've been down that road myself many times and this brings me to the point of my article.

Note: If you're a counter, you'll understand what I'm going to say here, but you might not understand it if you're not a counter. Go back and read my lessons on money management if you have difficulty with this.

We counters place larger bets as our edge over the casino increases; that edge is calculated by the 'true' count. At a 'true' of 6, for example, I may have an edge over the casino of 2.5% or more. Yet, I may lose three, four, five or more hands in a row as the count remains at that level, or even increases. The 'new-agers' say this is due to the fact that the shuffle isn't random, yet my data is based on computer-simulated data where the shuffle is random. And that's where they stop. But let's examine this situation more closely and perhaps you'll go away with a real understanding of why this happens.

If I'm at a game where six decks are used and the casino's rules give them an edge 'off the top' of .5% ( a very common game), with a true count of 6, I'll have an edge on the next hand of about 2.5%. That's a good edge; it's almost twice the edge a casino has on a pass line bet at craps and the casino makes a fortune at craps, right? Very true, but the casino has an edge at craps on every bet made. I don't have a 2.5% edge all the time at a Blackjack game, in fact out of every 100 hands I play at this game, I'll average less than 4 hands at that edge or higher! I'll say it again: just 4% of the time, my edge will be 2.5% or more. And what is a 2.5% edge anyway? A 2% edge means I'll win 51 hands out of a hundred and lose 49 hands out of a hundred. So, a 2.5% edge is 51.25% win and 48.75% lose. Are you with me on this? Out of an average play of 100 hands, I'll see a true count of 6 or more only 4 times. And when I do, I'll win just over half of them! Is it surprising, then, that I'll lose 3, 4, or 5 of them in a row? Flip a coin 5 times and you might get 5 heads in a row. But will heads continue to come up? Of course not. And neither will I continue to lose those high-count hands. It's just that they are a somewhat rare event and our human nature seems to cause us to remember when something doesn't work more easily than when it does work.

It's tough to continue placing 'big' bets out there after losing the previous ones, but that's how the game must be played, if you want to make any $$$. I bet just a small portion of my bankroll on any one hand and can never say for sure whether I'll win or lose. But I know that as long as I'm keeping an accurate count, am betting properly and am not allowing emotion into my game, I'll eventually get the $$$.

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