On the other hand, if we have a Play Zone that has a negative count, we want to play these cards. If we cut at point B (one-deck from the end), we end up with the Play Zone starting one deck into the shoe. We cannot cut it to the front in this case since it is already there and a cut must be made. We now know that there is a zone that is rich in tens one deck from the start of the shoe.

Note: There are advantages and disadvantages to cutting good cards to the front versus farther into the shoe. If the cards are at the front, betting is much easier. In addition, you can start with a high bet, which makes you look less like a counter. On the other hand, you can gain a greater advantage if the Play Zone is deeper since you will have additional information (the cards preceding the PZ) when you hit the PZ, and can bet and play more accurately.

Zone Purity

We have discussed the fact that dealers do not shuffle perfectly, and an image of a sample realistic shuffle has been included showing that a few spurious cards are mixed in. But that was just one example of a dealer performing this shuffle. Every time a dealer shuffles, there will be slight differences in the number of spurious cards mixed in. Below is a shuffle analysis showing where cards come from and where they end up on average after 4,000 shuffles are performed. The shoe has been divided into eight 39-card segments. If we look at the second column in the first row, we see the numbers “0,0,6,44,0,0,6,44.” This tells us the origination of the cards that end up in the first segment of the post-shuffle stack. In this case, 6% come from segment 3, 44% from segment 4, 6% from segment 7 and 44% from segment 8. If we look at the top two segments, we see that 45% of cards at the top of the post-shuffle stack come from the bottom of the pre-shuffle stack. If the dealer shuffled perfectly, that number would be 50%. So, we see that an

 © 2009 Norman Wattenberger