Are you good at counting? Perhaps you are an expert counter, or even make your living at blackjack. Have you ever felt like there was more to the game? Like certain card pairings and situations seemed to come up more often than statistically possible?
They do, and there is a reason.
Standard casino shuffling and shuffling machines don’t change the order of the cards significantly. Next time you are at the casino, watch the way the dealer shuffles the cards. Buy the appropriate amount of decks from the gift shop of their used cards (they are different than the ones you buy at Wal-Mart), and deal yourself a few shoes at home, with the typical 3-4 players at the table. What you will find is that a “Good Shoe,” which may seem like just a coincidence to the straight statistics-driven, pocket protector wearing blackjack player, is actually quite real. The “Bad Shoe” is quite real as well. When the cards get into such an order where a face card is followed by a small card, and then another face card followed by a small card, what happens? You bust and so does the dealer. It makes the game completely predictable in a very negative sense that the face-card showing for the dealer is potentially a bust card, but that basic strategy keeps you hitting that 13.
The opposite is true as well- “clumps” of similar cards lead to the players making hands- which will always lead to better results than constantly busting. You can’t change it as much as you might think by adding a hand or sitting out for a round either- look at the results others are seeing on their hands.
What does all this mean? Well, as a card counter I used to go to the empty table on a pitch game. Unknowingly, I was actually giving myself quite a disadvantage. All the players had left, because they were probably losing. I went to that table because I would get into a good count and want the shoe to last longer- which is never the case at a full table. But instead, I ran into a rough shuffle where the alternating small and large cards weren’t giving me pat hands and were giving me tough decisions nearly every time. And what’s more- I stand out more at a table alone and can sense heat from the pit about my adjusting the bets just as the big cards are about to come out.
Now, I know I am not the first person to experience this phenomena, but after finding other players and authors with the same theory and after several long nights testing this theory and inserting results into spreadsheets, I am convinced that these cards associating with each other through shuffles is a fact I can no longer ignore- regardless of how well the count is going, stand up and move on to the next game until the cards get replaced or the table gets “hot,” it will help you look like the average gambler which is also a positive.
“Nathan” is a professional blackjack player and coach. You can contact him at godfatherblackjack@yahoo.com
