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The GameMaster's Secrets
Really Beat the Dealer

Recently I received an e-mail from a reader who had been playing at a single-deck Blackjack game in a Las Vegas casino and, when he spread out to two hands, the dealer shuffled! He was surprised, but I wasn't, because many casinos have a policy of shuffling at such a point because they feel the player is going to two hands of play because they think the deck is now 'favorable'. Some critics of the casinos call this 'selective' or the more ominous-sounding 'preferential' shuffling and feel that it's wrong. These critics may be right, but they're looking at this from the wrong point of view because it's a great opportunity.

This happens almost exclusively at games which are hand-dealt because those are easy to shuffle, unlike a game dealt from a shoe which takes a lot more time and effort to 'break'. I first ran across this 'raise-the-bet-and-we-shuffle' mentality in Reno, but it's somewhat common in many areas. The way it happened to me was that the dealer would continue to deal if I 'parlayed' my bet (added my winnings to my original bet), but she'd shuffle if I went from, say, 1 unit to 3. Now you need to understand that my 'act' in a casino is that of just being another gambler, so I never react to or question such a move; I project the image that I think something like this is only part of the game and I roll with it. So, I raised my bet, she shuffled and I left the 'big' bet out there. That's another key to making this work, you'll have to make a few sacrificial bets, but it's worth it in the long run. After seeing that, I had to answer another question: was the dealer counting cards, also? The reality is that few, if any, dealers can run a game and keep an accurate count but she and I were playing 'heads' (one-on-one) so it's a little easier for a dealer to count under those circumstances. Just a side note here: some dealers will shuffle if they see a lot of little cards (2-6) come out, but it's my experience that they seldom get it right by doing it that way; they shuffle away as many bad decks as good ones by this "watching the 'flow' of the cards". Back to my story. To see if the dealer was counting, I waited until I got a negative count and raised my bet. She shuffled. Okey-dokey, time to make some $$$.

I'm sure you can see the 'trick' here; when the deck goes to a minus count, raise your bet enough to cause the dealer to shuffle. By doing that, you're making only a few bets when the casino has an edge (usually the first hand after the shuffle, depending upon the casino's rules) and the majority are when the deck's in your favor. But, you need to be subtle with this so that you don't draw too much attention and kill the golden goose. An automatic response of raising your bet when the first hand after a shuffle is made up of all 10s and Aces might tip off your strategy. But, of course, you now have a true count of -2 or -3 at this point and you'd love to get rid of it. I cannot give you any hard and fast rules here, but if the dealer is really watching the cards, stick it out with one more hand at the minimum bet and either the count will go back to neutral or plus or it will go even more negative. If more 10s and Aces come out, a bet raise will look like a 'gambler's' move "the big cards are coming, so I'm gonna bet it up". Boom! Shuffle.

Now you have to deal with the next problem; you have a large bet out there and the hand which is going to be dealt to it is coming 'off the top', so the casino likely has an edge. Pull it or leave it? Well, it all depends. At a table with other players, it's not that big a deal to pull it back most of the time because other will do the same. If you're alone (and that's when this whole scenario is most likely to happen), it's more problematical. If your act of being a 'gambler' is working, hunches, odd bets, weird parlays and other random acts of betting will make it fairly easy to get most of those bets back; just don't over-emphasize your move by making some lame comment: "Oh, gosh, I better take some back so I have enough for dinner tonight". ( I actually saw someone do and say that. He went on to lose what he had and bought in for more.) Smooooth is what works here. Just make it look like you bet more on some hands and less on others all the time. Try to make it look natural and remember that 'gamblers' don't think about how much to bet but they do think about how to play a hand.

If, like the reader who wrote, the dealer shuffles only when you go to two hands, first see if s/he will shuffle when you raise the bet on just a single hand. If that's the case, then do what I recommend above. But, if the spread to two hands is the only trigger, you are, for a lot of reasons, probably better off playing at a table with one or two other players. The first reason is that it's not wise to bet two hands when you're alone; that second hand, if you're betting optimally, adds 50% to the amount of $$$ on the table, but it causes you to use 50% more cards so there's no real increase in your advantage. The second reason is that dealers and supervisors consider a move to more than one hand an 'advantage' play so it might attract a lot of attention. But, at a table with other players, going to two hands can be viewed as a desire to: A) show off or B) "get the cards back into order". Have you ever been at a table where one or more of the players thinks you'll all lose if no one takes a 'hit' card against the dealer? Crazy, isn't it? But that's the way many gamblers think, so use that to your advantage. Plus, at a table with others (but just one, or two at the most) it's easy to pull back that second bet when the shuffle comes.

That's really all there is to it. I can't give you a strict set of rules to follow if you run into this situation , because it's more a case of understanding human beings and their motivations than a matter of Blackjack techniques. But, the skillful player uses all the tricks; I hope this one helps you.

See you here next time.