I searched and didn't find any discussion on this topic before so I thought I would ask what everyone thinks about the various card shuffling machines. I personally prefer to play from a six deck shoe since it seems to me that I can often find shoes that run hot occasionally after several shuffles. The table I hate to play at is one that has a continuous shuffle machine like those at the Bellagio. There the only cards not in play are those that the dealer leaves in the discard tray for a few hands, and those cards only stay out for a short period of time once they are put back into the shuffle machine. I had one dealer who would leave several hands out in the discard tray, but the relief dealer would come in and put every hand straight back into the shuffle machine. There didn't seem to be any consistency on what they did. I also have observed that a lot of times if you play a table where six decks are used and the dealer manually shuffles the cards, the way they shuffle the cards often will result in cards continuing to be bunched together in the next shoe. For instance, if you play a shoe where a lot of face cards all come out together the first time through the shoe, often the next shoe will still have the face cards bunched together. I don't know if that holds all the time, but sometimes there do appear to be patterns in how the cards come out. Is it better to play a single or double deck table? I haven't played those as often because the minimum bet limits are usually $25 per hand or up and my bankroll is usually not large enough to absorb the swings over a period of time at those rates. Any thoughts?
Continous Shuffling There is no need to learn how or to count cards when one of these single deck machines is being used. That is exactly what they are trying to accomplish. You will find a lot of them in Eurepe. Concerning the six deck machines, you will find a lot of dealers complain about them because they do not get a break from the constant dealing, counting, & cashing the customers. I would like to know how many casinos do not now use a standard house shuffle. Most I have experienced have very strict disciplines that prevent the shuffle tracking. I have a shuffle tracking software program that I use to analyze most casino shuffles, & find that most are hardly trackable. If someone has better information, I would certainly like to know about it.
I ran across a book on this subject, Jerry Patterson's Blackjack A Winner's Handbook where he devots a whole chapter (#9) on shuffle tracking. He says one of the problems with playing high low and betting is that when you have clumping it can destroy you without you realizing what has happened. He admits that most casinos now have house shuffles that eliminate shuffle tracking, but he says occasionally you run into places where they don't shuffle enough and you can use shuffle tracking methods to figure out where the clumps are in subsequent shoes. I'm not sure you could use his method of tracking without getting caught or raising flags (his method involves arranging your chips to track the play), but it is interesting.
