Shuffle Tracking Counts

How does shuffle tracking affect the count?

Using the same Shuffle Tracking procedure as in the previous pages, this chart gives a glimpse at the effect on the count. Normally the true count and running count will average zero throughout the shoe in Hi-Lo. But if you force a good slug into the second deck in the shoe, and use NRS, then the counts will be adjusted to take into account the purposeful movement of good cards into a specific area of the shoe. This chart displays the average true counts (green) and running counts (red) in the play zone when you have cut good cards in. As you can see, the RC starts substantially above zero at the start of the play zone and decreases as you move through the zone using up the good cards. The TC is above the average of zero and maintains its value as would be expected. Once a TC hits a certain level, on average it will maintain that level.

Remember, only a shuffle tracker using these specific zones will see these virtual counts. A card counter, and more importantly, the casino, will not. Thus the counter will raise bets where a casino card counter catcher will see no advantage.

What about cutting bad cards out?

When you cut a bad slug out, the entire remaining portion of the shoe becomes the play zone. Since bad cards have been removed, you can start with a positive running count according to NRS and the count of the removed cards. Here we see an increase in average RC for the entire playable portion of the shoe with a smaller increase in TC averages.

Again there is an automatic gain in camouflage. The tracker will raise bets at the start of the shoe and often maintain those increased bets even though the casino will see no advantage. Therefore, the tracker will not appear to be playing with much of an advantage.

Sim details

• Six decks, 4.5/6 penetration, S17, DAS, 2 players, Hi-Lo, Catch 20 indexes, Spread 1-15
• Two hundred million rounds each
• Simple one pass rifle & restack with four grabs from each stack.