Inside The Edge Blackjack
2021年11月13日Register here: http://gg.gg/wv2vm
Inside the the Edge is a very recent documentary that follows a professional blackjack player as he travels the country in an RV playing at every casino with the game along the way. Along the way, experts, including yours truly.ahem. explain the math, terminology, and legal issues in greater depth. Here is the trailer. Chris Buddy’s documentary Inside the Edge: A Professional Blackjack Adventure follows the “Advantage Player” known as KC, who is a marked card counter. He is one of the best, and what makes him the best is that he works alone. Inside The Edge (KC) If this is your first visit to the Blackjack Forum, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You will have to r e g i s t e r (free) before you can post: click the r e g i s t e r link to proceed. Inside The Edge: A Professional Blackjack Adventure This full-length movie is available on YouTube.What is your opinion of the continuous shuffle machines now being used at the blackjack tables in Las Vegas? Do these machines give the house more of and edge even when a person is using basic strategy?
For those who don’t understand what you’re asking, there are new machines that take the blackjack discards and place them randomly back in the deck after each hand. If you are using basic strategy, then the shufflers actually lower the house edge slightly, due to the omission of the cut card effect. It is my understanding that they do provide an honest random shuffle. However, the shuffling machine allows the dealer to waste less time shuffling and spend more time dealing. This means you will spend more time playing, and thus more hands for the house edge to grind you down.
For more information on the mathematical effect of continuous shufflers, please see my blackjack appendix 10.When playing online blackjack, how do you tell when the deck is shuffled? I play Microgaming casinos (which you report as using 1 deck), but I do not know if each time I play if it is a new deck, and there are no signs of knowing when the deck is shuffled.
Most online casinos shuffle after every hand. Others shuffle at random times but do not indicate exactly when to the player. I have noticed Microgaming casinos flash the word ’shuffling’ about one hand in four.
However, if you track the cards between these announcements you will sometimes see the same card twice, which is impossible in a single-deck game, assuming you believe them about when they shuffle. As far as I know, they actually shuffle after every hand, but for reasons I do not understand, only indicate a shuffle occasionally. If I remember correctly, Cryptologic casinos do indeed indicate when they are shuffling their eight-deck shoe.What do you know about the randomization process that online casinos use to simulate shuffling? How closely does it approximate the actual manual shuffling of cards in a casino? And finally the obvious: wouldn’t it be fairly simple to write a randomization (shuffling) program that would give the house a bigger edge -- sort of stack the deck? Enjoy your site. Thanks.
I know that one software company randomly picks two cards in the deck and reverses them, and repeats this numerous times. Since learning of this technique, that is also how I shuffle in my random simulation programs. As long as any method of shuffling is done enough times the deck should be properly randomized.
Manual shuffling is more vulnerable to a biased shuffle and consequently some players try to exploit this by shuffle tracking and card clumping. There are numerous ways an online casino might cheat, but a bad shuffle I don’t think is one of them.I was wondering if you thought continuous shufflers have an effect on basic strategy? I know they speed up the number of hands per hour which is usually bad for the player, but is basic strategy still effective in this instance? Doesn’t basic strategy slightly change depending on the number of decks?
I first addressed this topic in my December 1, 2000, newsletter. For those who missed it I just added blackjack appendix 10 to my site, which explains the effect on the house edge under both a cut card and continuous shuffler game. To answer your question, no, the basic strategy does not change. Basic strategy is always developed based on a freshly shuffled shoe, which is always the case when playing against a continuous shuffler.I’ve noticed that the CSM (Continuous Shuffler Machine) at the blackjack table does not shuffle ALL of the cards at the end of each hand. There are a few cards left in the shoe part of the machine (anywhere from 1 to 20 or so) that are not shuffled. Is there any way this can be used to advantage? For example, I was thinking that there is a lower (but still not zero) probability of having a card repeated two hands in a row. Sit out if there were a lot of high cards last hand . . . bet higher if there are a lot of low cards last hand. The CSM I saw used four decks so, on a full table, there are actually quite a few cards played each hand and you could potentially get a true value of plus/minus one if you made the simplifying assumption that none of those would repeat. Maybe enough to skew the odds?
You’re right, the discards are not mixed among all the cards but can not be placed close to the top of the shoe. I don’t know the exact size of this buffer but it is about 10-20 cards I think. As a card counter it would probably be safe to use a true count from just the last hand played and off the top of a shoe. When converting to the true count you will rarely get anything far from +/-1. If you’re any kind of counter at all I would forget about playing against a CSM, it isn’t worth the bother.On a CSM blackjack game, 5 deck, what would be the effect of the dealer not putting discards back into the machine every hand if 24 of 52 cards in the discard rack were face cards? What about 48 of 102? What would be the effect if 44 of 52 cards were non-face cards? Can the odds be heavily skewed? I have a feeling that the odds skyrocket in the casino’s favor if the dealer leaves face cards in the discard.
The exact numbers would be difficult to calculate and I won’t get into that. However your speculation is right that the odds favor the dealer if he leaves a lot of high cards in the discard rack yet will put back into play a lot of small cards. This would be the same kind of thing as preferential shuffling, in which the dealer of a hand held game shuffles when the count is good but deals another round on a bad count. Preferential shuffling is something that definitely does happen here in Las Vegas so what you describe would not surprise me either.I was just wondering if Las Vegas Video Blackjack reshuffles after every hand or after all the decks are played. I know the tables in Las Vegas do it after all the decks are played because if they did it after every hand no one would play. Are the odds that you’ll win worse if there is a shuffle after every hand? Is this even legal or necessary?
I don’t know when they shuffle but I would speculate after every hand. From my blackjack appendix 10 you will learn that the player’s odds improve slightly if the dealer plays exactly n hands between shuffles (including one) rather than playing to cut card, finishing the hand, and then shuffling.First, thank you for the great site. I went to Las Vegas for this first time this past summer and I played double-deck blackjack at the Orleans. I noticed that after a dealer shuffled both decks, the dealer asked the player to cut the deck. Most players refused. I did not mind, so I cut the deck. Is there a blackjack cut superstition that I am not aware of, or is there a better reason why?
I would say about 1/3 to 1/2 of players would at least initially decline to cut. However if everyone initially declines somebody has to rise to the occasion and do it. Sometimes when players who refuse to cut will say something like ’I don’t want the blame for a bad shoe’ or ’I’m unlucky.’ I’ve never seen it put into words but there does seem to be a superstition that the cut is critical to the flow of the shoe, and thus the act should only be done by a competent cutter. Of course this is nonsense. For recreational play it doesn’t make any difference whom cuts or where they cut.Playing blackjack on a continuous shuffling 5-deck system, are the odds of winning different than playing the dealer with 1 deck or 2 decks?
For the beneit of other readers, my blackjack appendix 10 explains, the house edge in a five-deck game is 0.028% less if a continuous shuffler is used, as opposed to a hand shuffle. The difference between five decks and two decks, all other rules being equal, is 0.18%. So the two-deck game without a shuffler would be much better. Let’s compare a 5-deck continuous shuffler game to a 4-deck hand shuffled game. As my blackjack calculator show difference in house edge between four decks and five decks is 0.0329%. So the benefit of a continuous shuffler is worth less than removing a single deck.While playing blackjack at a locals casino in Las Vegas, a dealer from another locals casino sat at my table. While making small talk, she told me that she could wipe out any player using what she called the ’house shuffle.’ The lady dealing to us, who claimed to have been a dealer for 25 years agreed with her telling me that it’s ’all about the shuffle.’ They were both referring to games dealt by hand as opposed to from a shoe. Is there a way to shuffle that lowers the players chances of winning, and if so wouldn’t this be a form of cheating? Have you ever heard of anything called the house shuffle?
I don’t believe it. Dealers are not the most skeptical group, often believing all the usual gambling myths. Usually the term ’house shuffle’ refers to the way the dealers are supposed to shuffle. For example, shuffle twice, riffle, and shuffle again. In this context, she seems to be saying she could alter the shuffle to the player’s disadvantage, which I doubt.I absolutely love your site. I enjoy the strategies and probability discussions as much as, or more than, the actual gambling! I was playing six-deck Blackjack in a St. Louis casino recently. After playing a shoe, the cards were returned to the auto shuffler, which indicated a card was missing. The dealer proceeded to deal the next shoe while the floor person inspected the returned set of cards. Upon completion of this shoe, the missing card from the previous shoe (a king) was found in the un-dealt portion of the second shoe.
Assuming this King was the bottom card and was left in the shuffler, it would have been in play in this first shoe (the cut was in rear portion of the deck). How much of an additional advantage did the house gain on me with this mistake?
Thank you for the kind words. I’m going to assume the dealer hits a soft 17, and double after a split is allowed. According to table D17 in Blackjack Attack by Don Schlesinger, removing one ten per deck increases the house edge by 0.5512%. Dividing that by six, for the six-deck game, the effect is an increase in house edge of 0.09%.For recreational blackjack players, who use basic strategy, and don’t count, does the house advantage increase as the penetration increases? I believe it does because the deeper you get into the shoe, the greater the absolute value of the count will tend to get, which should trigger count-based strategy changes. Since the non-counter wouldn’t know when and how to make such changes, he would be making more mistakes as the count gets further away from zero. Thus, wouldn’t a non-counter be better off at a table with shallow penetration?
In a non-cut-card game, the house advantage is always the same for the non-counter. Clumps of high or low cards are just as likely to appear at the beginning of the shoe, as the middle, as the end. Just because the count is zero at the top of the shoe doesn’t mean you’ll have an exact balance of high and low cards. You seem to be suggesting that the cards are more clumpy at the end of the deck. However, if that were true, then the odds would change if the dealer dealt the cards in reverse order. Surely that is a ridiculous notion.
Let’s say the basic strategy player has 16 against a 10 late in the shoe, and hits. If the count were high, standing would be the right play, resulting in what would look like an error to a counter who was watching. However, if the count were negative then hitting would be all the better. In the end, it averages out, for the basic strategy player.
For reasons I explain in my blackjack appendix 10, the basic strategy player should prefer a game with a continuous shuffler, if his goal is to minimize the house edge. Aside from that, the house edge is not affected by penetration. I should add that with a shallower penetration there will be more time spent shuffling, and thus a lower expected loss on an hourly basis.
Card counting has been around the since the 1950s. It first hit casinos in the 1950s when a group of army veterans known as the “Four Horsemen” began using it.
But these weren’t exactly the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, because they weren’t even winning money. Casinos didn’t begin fearing card counters until the mid-1960s.
It wasn’t until Ed Thorp refined card counting and presented his system in Beat the Dealer that casinos started sweating. The gambling industry can thank Thorp, though, because they used his book to understand how blackjack can be exploited.Inside The Edge Blackjack Kc
Casinos have only gained a better understanding of card counting and thwarted numerous advantage players in the process. Some consider counting cards to be largely dead as a result.Inside The Edge Blackjack Where To Watch
However, a new documentary shows that this thought is far from the case. Inside the Edge: A Professional Blackjack Adventure reveals that card counting is still quite profitable.
More importantly, Inside the Edge takes a gritty look at the lifestyle of a blackjack pro and the struggles they deal with.
If you’re looking for a documentary that embodies the spirit of the hit film 21, then you’re looking in the wrong place. However, if you’d appreciate a realistic take on professional card counting, then you’ll definitely want to find out more about this riveting documentary.
Cross Country Blackjack Adventure That Results in Big Wins
Inside the Edge revolves around “KC,” a blackjack pro who visits casinos from Atlantic City to Northern California. He frequently changes locations to take advantage of different casinos and finds new targets after getting thrown out of old ones.
KC started playing blackjack as a young man and was immediately hooked. He dreamed of beating casinos for profits and read numerous books on the subject.
Eventually, KC became good enough to win and made regular trips from his California-based college to Las Vegas. He did so well that he decided to play as a full-time professional.
One good aspect to Inside the Edge is that it doesn’t present card counting as a guaranteed path towards riches every night. However, it does show how profits can roll in during a hot night.
For example, KC makes $30,000 in a three-day span during the Northern California leg of his trip. He also has plenty of other lucrative nights thanks to his skills, experience, and huge bankroll.Tricks of the Trade
Inside the Edge: A Professional Blackjack Adventure features some of the interesting tricks that advantage gamblers can pick up. For example, KC found a way to game casinos using the very RFID chips they use to track gamblers’ betting patterns.As you may know, card counters need to spread their bets from low (when the house has an edge) to high (when the counter gains an edge).
Too large of a spread tips casinos off to when somebody is counting cards. The RFID chips give gambling venues an easy way to detect wide bet spreads.
KC figured out that he could still register chips as being wagered even if he held them under the table. He used this discovery to his advantage by strapping chips near his knees and putting them underneath the betting circle area.
This trick made it appear as if he was always betting between $2,000 and $3,000 per hand. In actuality, he was risking much less than this when the count wasn’t in his favor.
Furthermore, KC also learned how to add shuffle tracking on top of card counting. Shuffle tracking helps him gain an even bigger edge and makes it harder for casinos to figure out if he’s an advantage player.Card Counting Isn’t an Easy Living
Casinos don’t make it easy on KC and other professional counters. They use other technology beyond the RFID chips to catch counters and ban them.
For example, they have facial recognition technology that can identify card counters who’ve been entered into certain databases. KC uses a variety of different looks and disguises to get around this tech and avoid being recognized.
Nevertheless, he’s frequently backed off or even kicked out of casinos during the documentary. He has a particularly tough run of getting kicked out of Vegas casinos.
“I’m not welcome in this city,” says KC. “I’m finding myself playing in poor casinos and off-shifts at low limits […] Now I’m a known entity and can’t play in Vegas anymore. I’ve come to crossroads in my blackjack career.”
“I need to determine if I want to go down this road further. I’m going to have to leave Las Vegas, travel around the country, and hit other casinos.”
KC chooses to continue playing blackjack for a living. However, he’s forced to embark on the aforementioned cross-country journey to make it happen.Beatdowns From Security Are Still a Threat
Casinos once had a reputation for taking advantage gamblers in backrooms and beating the crap out of them. Of course, this reputation was largely earned when the mob ran Las Vegas from the 1930s to ‘70s.
These days, the corporate-owned gambling establishments aren’t known for using such heavy handed tactics. But some of the card-counting legends appearing in Inside the Edge note that this is still a distinct possibility.
Max Rubin, a gambling expert who holds the secretive “Blackjack Ball” every year, has had some really bad experiences with casinos.
“In the past, I have been drug in the back, I’ve been punched,” said Rubin. “Friends of mine have been burned with cigarettes, friends of mine have had their jaws broken, friends of mine have been threatened to be murdered.”
Luckily, KC doesn’t encounter any physical altercations or serious threats during the filming. But a Mississippi casino trespasses him without letting him cash in his chips. KC has to contact a Mississippi gaming agent just so he can reenter the casino legally and exchange his chips.Downswings Are a Reality
Even the most successful card counters don’t have huge advantages over casinos. They can suffer major downswings as a result.
KC experiences this firsthand as he regularly loses thousands of dollars in certain spots. For example, he has a really tough time in Connecticut and drops his limits some to “regain confidence.”
Ove
https://diarynote.indered.space
Inside the the Edge is a very recent documentary that follows a professional blackjack player as he travels the country in an RV playing at every casino with the game along the way. Along the way, experts, including yours truly.ahem. explain the math, terminology, and legal issues in greater depth. Here is the trailer. Chris Buddy’s documentary Inside the Edge: A Professional Blackjack Adventure follows the “Advantage Player” known as KC, who is a marked card counter. He is one of the best, and what makes him the best is that he works alone. Inside The Edge (KC) If this is your first visit to the Blackjack Forum, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You will have to r e g i s t e r (free) before you can post: click the r e g i s t e r link to proceed. Inside The Edge: A Professional Blackjack Adventure This full-length movie is available on YouTube.What is your opinion of the continuous shuffle machines now being used at the blackjack tables in Las Vegas? Do these machines give the house more of and edge even when a person is using basic strategy?
For those who don’t understand what you’re asking, there are new machines that take the blackjack discards and place them randomly back in the deck after each hand. If you are using basic strategy, then the shufflers actually lower the house edge slightly, due to the omission of the cut card effect. It is my understanding that they do provide an honest random shuffle. However, the shuffling machine allows the dealer to waste less time shuffling and spend more time dealing. This means you will spend more time playing, and thus more hands for the house edge to grind you down.
For more information on the mathematical effect of continuous shufflers, please see my blackjack appendix 10.When playing online blackjack, how do you tell when the deck is shuffled? I play Microgaming casinos (which you report as using 1 deck), but I do not know if each time I play if it is a new deck, and there are no signs of knowing when the deck is shuffled.
Most online casinos shuffle after every hand. Others shuffle at random times but do not indicate exactly when to the player. I have noticed Microgaming casinos flash the word ’shuffling’ about one hand in four.
However, if you track the cards between these announcements you will sometimes see the same card twice, which is impossible in a single-deck game, assuming you believe them about when they shuffle. As far as I know, they actually shuffle after every hand, but for reasons I do not understand, only indicate a shuffle occasionally. If I remember correctly, Cryptologic casinos do indeed indicate when they are shuffling their eight-deck shoe.What do you know about the randomization process that online casinos use to simulate shuffling? How closely does it approximate the actual manual shuffling of cards in a casino? And finally the obvious: wouldn’t it be fairly simple to write a randomization (shuffling) program that would give the house a bigger edge -- sort of stack the deck? Enjoy your site. Thanks.
I know that one software company randomly picks two cards in the deck and reverses them, and repeats this numerous times. Since learning of this technique, that is also how I shuffle in my random simulation programs. As long as any method of shuffling is done enough times the deck should be properly randomized.
Manual shuffling is more vulnerable to a biased shuffle and consequently some players try to exploit this by shuffle tracking and card clumping. There are numerous ways an online casino might cheat, but a bad shuffle I don’t think is one of them.I was wondering if you thought continuous shufflers have an effect on basic strategy? I know they speed up the number of hands per hour which is usually bad for the player, but is basic strategy still effective in this instance? Doesn’t basic strategy slightly change depending on the number of decks?
I first addressed this topic in my December 1, 2000, newsletter. For those who missed it I just added blackjack appendix 10 to my site, which explains the effect on the house edge under both a cut card and continuous shuffler game. To answer your question, no, the basic strategy does not change. Basic strategy is always developed based on a freshly shuffled shoe, which is always the case when playing against a continuous shuffler.I’ve noticed that the CSM (Continuous Shuffler Machine) at the blackjack table does not shuffle ALL of the cards at the end of each hand. There are a few cards left in the shoe part of the machine (anywhere from 1 to 20 or so) that are not shuffled. Is there any way this can be used to advantage? For example, I was thinking that there is a lower (but still not zero) probability of having a card repeated two hands in a row. Sit out if there were a lot of high cards last hand . . . bet higher if there are a lot of low cards last hand. The CSM I saw used four decks so, on a full table, there are actually quite a few cards played each hand and you could potentially get a true value of plus/minus one if you made the simplifying assumption that none of those would repeat. Maybe enough to skew the odds?
You’re right, the discards are not mixed among all the cards but can not be placed close to the top of the shoe. I don’t know the exact size of this buffer but it is about 10-20 cards I think. As a card counter it would probably be safe to use a true count from just the last hand played and off the top of a shoe. When converting to the true count you will rarely get anything far from +/-1. If you’re any kind of counter at all I would forget about playing against a CSM, it isn’t worth the bother.On a CSM blackjack game, 5 deck, what would be the effect of the dealer not putting discards back into the machine every hand if 24 of 52 cards in the discard rack were face cards? What about 48 of 102? What would be the effect if 44 of 52 cards were non-face cards? Can the odds be heavily skewed? I have a feeling that the odds skyrocket in the casino’s favor if the dealer leaves face cards in the discard.
The exact numbers would be difficult to calculate and I won’t get into that. However your speculation is right that the odds favor the dealer if he leaves a lot of high cards in the discard rack yet will put back into play a lot of small cards. This would be the same kind of thing as preferential shuffling, in which the dealer of a hand held game shuffles when the count is good but deals another round on a bad count. Preferential shuffling is something that definitely does happen here in Las Vegas so what you describe would not surprise me either.I was just wondering if Las Vegas Video Blackjack reshuffles after every hand or after all the decks are played. I know the tables in Las Vegas do it after all the decks are played because if they did it after every hand no one would play. Are the odds that you’ll win worse if there is a shuffle after every hand? Is this even legal or necessary?
I don’t know when they shuffle but I would speculate after every hand. From my blackjack appendix 10 you will learn that the player’s odds improve slightly if the dealer plays exactly n hands between shuffles (including one) rather than playing to cut card, finishing the hand, and then shuffling.First, thank you for the great site. I went to Las Vegas for this first time this past summer and I played double-deck blackjack at the Orleans. I noticed that after a dealer shuffled both decks, the dealer asked the player to cut the deck. Most players refused. I did not mind, so I cut the deck. Is there a blackjack cut superstition that I am not aware of, or is there a better reason why?
I would say about 1/3 to 1/2 of players would at least initially decline to cut. However if everyone initially declines somebody has to rise to the occasion and do it. Sometimes when players who refuse to cut will say something like ’I don’t want the blame for a bad shoe’ or ’I’m unlucky.’ I’ve never seen it put into words but there does seem to be a superstition that the cut is critical to the flow of the shoe, and thus the act should only be done by a competent cutter. Of course this is nonsense. For recreational play it doesn’t make any difference whom cuts or where they cut.Playing blackjack on a continuous shuffling 5-deck system, are the odds of winning different than playing the dealer with 1 deck or 2 decks?
For the beneit of other readers, my blackjack appendix 10 explains, the house edge in a five-deck game is 0.028% less if a continuous shuffler is used, as opposed to a hand shuffle. The difference between five decks and two decks, all other rules being equal, is 0.18%. So the two-deck game without a shuffler would be much better. Let’s compare a 5-deck continuous shuffler game to a 4-deck hand shuffled game. As my blackjack calculator show difference in house edge between four decks and five decks is 0.0329%. So the benefit of a continuous shuffler is worth less than removing a single deck.While playing blackjack at a locals casino in Las Vegas, a dealer from another locals casino sat at my table. While making small talk, she told me that she could wipe out any player using what she called the ’house shuffle.’ The lady dealing to us, who claimed to have been a dealer for 25 years agreed with her telling me that it’s ’all about the shuffle.’ They were both referring to games dealt by hand as opposed to from a shoe. Is there a way to shuffle that lowers the players chances of winning, and if so wouldn’t this be a form of cheating? Have you ever heard of anything called the house shuffle?
I don’t believe it. Dealers are not the most skeptical group, often believing all the usual gambling myths. Usually the term ’house shuffle’ refers to the way the dealers are supposed to shuffle. For example, shuffle twice, riffle, and shuffle again. In this context, she seems to be saying she could alter the shuffle to the player’s disadvantage, which I doubt.I absolutely love your site. I enjoy the strategies and probability discussions as much as, or more than, the actual gambling! I was playing six-deck Blackjack in a St. Louis casino recently. After playing a shoe, the cards were returned to the auto shuffler, which indicated a card was missing. The dealer proceeded to deal the next shoe while the floor person inspected the returned set of cards. Upon completion of this shoe, the missing card from the previous shoe (a king) was found in the un-dealt portion of the second shoe.
Assuming this King was the bottom card and was left in the shuffler, it would have been in play in this first shoe (the cut was in rear portion of the deck). How much of an additional advantage did the house gain on me with this mistake?
Thank you for the kind words. I’m going to assume the dealer hits a soft 17, and double after a split is allowed. According to table D17 in Blackjack Attack by Don Schlesinger, removing one ten per deck increases the house edge by 0.5512%. Dividing that by six, for the six-deck game, the effect is an increase in house edge of 0.09%.For recreational blackjack players, who use basic strategy, and don’t count, does the house advantage increase as the penetration increases? I believe it does because the deeper you get into the shoe, the greater the absolute value of the count will tend to get, which should trigger count-based strategy changes. Since the non-counter wouldn’t know when and how to make such changes, he would be making more mistakes as the count gets further away from zero. Thus, wouldn’t a non-counter be better off at a table with shallow penetration?
In a non-cut-card game, the house advantage is always the same for the non-counter. Clumps of high or low cards are just as likely to appear at the beginning of the shoe, as the middle, as the end. Just because the count is zero at the top of the shoe doesn’t mean you’ll have an exact balance of high and low cards. You seem to be suggesting that the cards are more clumpy at the end of the deck. However, if that were true, then the odds would change if the dealer dealt the cards in reverse order. Surely that is a ridiculous notion.
Let’s say the basic strategy player has 16 against a 10 late in the shoe, and hits. If the count were high, standing would be the right play, resulting in what would look like an error to a counter who was watching. However, if the count were negative then hitting would be all the better. In the end, it averages out, for the basic strategy player.
For reasons I explain in my blackjack appendix 10, the basic strategy player should prefer a game with a continuous shuffler, if his goal is to minimize the house edge. Aside from that, the house edge is not affected by penetration. I should add that with a shallower penetration there will be more time spent shuffling, and thus a lower expected loss on an hourly basis.
Card counting has been around the since the 1950s. It first hit casinos in the 1950s when a group of army veterans known as the “Four Horsemen” began using it.
But these weren’t exactly the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, because they weren’t even winning money. Casinos didn’t begin fearing card counters until the mid-1960s.
It wasn’t until Ed Thorp refined card counting and presented his system in Beat the Dealer that casinos started sweating. The gambling industry can thank Thorp, though, because they used his book to understand how blackjack can be exploited.Inside The Edge Blackjack Kc
Casinos have only gained a better understanding of card counting and thwarted numerous advantage players in the process. Some consider counting cards to be largely dead as a result.Inside The Edge Blackjack Where To Watch
However, a new documentary shows that this thought is far from the case. Inside the Edge: A Professional Blackjack Adventure reveals that card counting is still quite profitable.
More importantly, Inside the Edge takes a gritty look at the lifestyle of a blackjack pro and the struggles they deal with.
If you’re looking for a documentary that embodies the spirit of the hit film 21, then you’re looking in the wrong place. However, if you’d appreciate a realistic take on professional card counting, then you’ll definitely want to find out more about this riveting documentary.
Cross Country Blackjack Adventure That Results in Big Wins
Inside the Edge revolves around “KC,” a blackjack pro who visits casinos from Atlantic City to Northern California. He frequently changes locations to take advantage of different casinos and finds new targets after getting thrown out of old ones.
KC started playing blackjack as a young man and was immediately hooked. He dreamed of beating casinos for profits and read numerous books on the subject.
Eventually, KC became good enough to win and made regular trips from his California-based college to Las Vegas. He did so well that he decided to play as a full-time professional.
One good aspect to Inside the Edge is that it doesn’t present card counting as a guaranteed path towards riches every night. However, it does show how profits can roll in during a hot night.
For example, KC makes $30,000 in a three-day span during the Northern California leg of his trip. He also has plenty of other lucrative nights thanks to his skills, experience, and huge bankroll.Tricks of the Trade
Inside the Edge: A Professional Blackjack Adventure features some of the interesting tricks that advantage gamblers can pick up. For example, KC found a way to game casinos using the very RFID chips they use to track gamblers’ betting patterns.As you may know, card counters need to spread their bets from low (when the house has an edge) to high (when the counter gains an edge).
Too large of a spread tips casinos off to when somebody is counting cards. The RFID chips give gambling venues an easy way to detect wide bet spreads.
KC figured out that he could still register chips as being wagered even if he held them under the table. He used this discovery to his advantage by strapping chips near his knees and putting them underneath the betting circle area.
This trick made it appear as if he was always betting between $2,000 and $3,000 per hand. In actuality, he was risking much less than this when the count wasn’t in his favor.
Furthermore, KC also learned how to add shuffle tracking on top of card counting. Shuffle tracking helps him gain an even bigger edge and makes it harder for casinos to figure out if he’s an advantage player.Card Counting Isn’t an Easy Living
Casinos don’t make it easy on KC and other professional counters. They use other technology beyond the RFID chips to catch counters and ban them.
For example, they have facial recognition technology that can identify card counters who’ve been entered into certain databases. KC uses a variety of different looks and disguises to get around this tech and avoid being recognized.
Nevertheless, he’s frequently backed off or even kicked out of casinos during the documentary. He has a particularly tough run of getting kicked out of Vegas casinos.
“I’m not welcome in this city,” says KC. “I’m finding myself playing in poor casinos and off-shifts at low limits […] Now I’m a known entity and can’t play in Vegas anymore. I’ve come to crossroads in my blackjack career.”
“I need to determine if I want to go down this road further. I’m going to have to leave Las Vegas, travel around the country, and hit other casinos.”
KC chooses to continue playing blackjack for a living. However, he’s forced to embark on the aforementioned cross-country journey to make it happen.Beatdowns From Security Are Still a Threat
Casinos once had a reputation for taking advantage gamblers in backrooms and beating the crap out of them. Of course, this reputation was largely earned when the mob ran Las Vegas from the 1930s to ‘70s.
These days, the corporate-owned gambling establishments aren’t known for using such heavy handed tactics. But some of the card-counting legends appearing in Inside the Edge note that this is still a distinct possibility.
Max Rubin, a gambling expert who holds the secretive “Blackjack Ball” every year, has had some really bad experiences with casinos.
“In the past, I have been drug in the back, I’ve been punched,” said Rubin. “Friends of mine have been burned with cigarettes, friends of mine have had their jaws broken, friends of mine have been threatened to be murdered.”
Luckily, KC doesn’t encounter any physical altercations or serious threats during the filming. But a Mississippi casino trespasses him without letting him cash in his chips. KC has to contact a Mississippi gaming agent just so he can reenter the casino legally and exchange his chips.Downswings Are a Reality
Even the most successful card counters don’t have huge advantages over casinos. They can suffer major downswings as a result.
KC experiences this firsthand as he regularly loses thousands of dollars in certain spots. For example, he has a really tough time in Connecticut and drops his limits some to “regain confidence.”
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