Shufflemaster

I don't like people like heatmap, kewlJ who come up with theory about "well this COULD happen." Get to the tables, play, and talk to me then.

As well, heatmap feels the need to say "so and so must be smarter than you" etc. That sort of nonsense comes from...where? I believe you posted recently about posts you make when you are inebriated? If so, no offense taken. 😂

This isn't the first time I've gotten into it with people who quote something off the internet or spout theory versus real world experience. Not worth the time to present further on the issue. Get to the casinos. They didn't just LET me win pushing eighty large on my most recent session, I won it straight up. Nor did they push the button to change things up when I started clocking them and they were bleeding profusely. Casinos routinely lose multi millions to players in sessions, it's all in a day's work.

Quote: coachbelly

Quote: MDawg

This is the way it works at different casinos:

Thank you for your prompt response.

The sequence of the shuffled cards cannot change once placed into the shoe.

What "order that may be desired" could cause the casino to win more than expectation?
link to original post

Well, speaking again only in THEORY - something like this:


but even there, note that Lonnegan doesn't let anyone cut the cards before dealing, once he's introduced the cooler.

Quote: MDawg

Quote: coachbelly

Quote: MDawg

This is the way it works at different casinos:

Thank you for your prompt response.

The sequence of the shuffled cards cannot change once placed into the shoe.

What "order that may be desired" could cause the casino to win more than expectation?
link to original post

Well, speaking again only in THEORY - something like this:

but even there, note that Lonnegan doesn't let anyone cut the cards before dealing, once he's introduced the cooler.
link to original post

Actually Lonnegan cuts the deck and then switches in the cold deck after. He’s to the right of the dealer so the person that would cut.

There’s a one handed cut that a dealer would use to cancel a cut if the dealer has already swapped in a cold deck.

Don’t ever play in a home game with someone holding the cards in a mechanics grip, boys and girls!

I love The Sting, but it really irks me how they string bet in that scene.

Quote: coachbelly

Quote: MDawg

But none of them is able to sort cards in any particular way to make the player lose (or win)

Are the shuffled cards removed from the shuffle machine, and then placed into and dealt from a shoe?
link to original post

On LIR, I typically see an iDeal type shuffler.

A discarded deck is loaded into the machine's input tray.
The shuffled deck currently inside the mechanism is dispensed out in packets; each packet is sized to be dealt as a player's hand.
If there are community cards or a differently sized dealer hand, a different button on the machine is pressed to dispense an appropriate packet.
Once the machine senses that the last packet has been taken out by the dealer, it begins ejecting the stub of the deck.
Once the stub is ejected, the discards from the prior round are automatically loaded into the mechanism, and shuffling commences while the players act on their hands and wagers are settled.

Quote: unJon

Quote: MDawg

but even there, note that Lonnegan doesn't let anyone cut the cards before dealing, once he's introduced the cooler.
link to original post

Actually Lonnegan cuts the deck and then switches in the cold deck after. He’s to the right of the dealer so the person that would cut.

There’s a one handed cut that a dealer would use to cancel a cut if the dealer has already swapped in a cold deck.

Don’t ever play in a home game with someone holding the cards in a mechanics grip, boys and girls!

I love The Sting, but it really irks me how they string bet in that scene.
link to original post

Yes lots of technically string betting but they do declare in advance exactly what they are doing, as in "I'll call and raise" etc.

What I meant, which I believe you are saying the same thing, is that once the cooler is introduced Lonnegan doesn't allow anyone to cut it. In other words, he pretends to cut, and does cut the deck, but not the one that is put into play. By not allowing anyone to cut the cards before dealing, I mean that he doesn't cut the cooler himself, either.

Actually, if a cooler is done right, it is possible to shuffle it and still let it go into play, but you have to be careful to shuffle only the lower portion of the deck that is to be dealt. I mean you may sit there shuffling ten times and still leave intact the portion of the half deck that needs to be dealt to effect the cooler scam, if you know what you are doing. But again, if anyone cuts it after this incomplete shuffle, the cooler is busted.

The technology in an advanced Shufflemaster device certainly has the technological capabiliy to allow it to shuffle a shoe into any predetermined order. However, the control software in the shuffler device reportedly does not have the capability to allow a user to input a predetermined order and this is reportedly verified by GLI, Inc. who certifies shuffler devices for the US gambling industry. There are several WOV threads on this topic from the past 6 years.

But such a shuffler device is possible to build and program by vendors other than Shufflemaster, so if you play in a casino in countries such as Russia (brilliant people and corrupt institutions) nobody in this forum can make guarantees about whether any given shuffler device in that country is fair or crooked. Be cautious.

Quote: coachbelly

Quote: MDawg

This is the way it works at different casinos:

Thank you for your prompt response.

The sequence of the shuffled cards cannot change once placed into the shoe.

What "order that may be desired" could cause the casino to win more than expectation?
link to original post

Getting back to your question, the reason it worked for Lonnegan (at least until Gondorff replaced his 3s with Jacks), is because no one was able to cut the cooler before it was dealt.

Which is why there is effectively no way for the shuffle machine to set up a deck for the player to lose more than expected, or at all.

Let's say that the house knew that a Blackjack game was to be one on one and only one card burned. Let's say it set up the deck so that the person dealt the first card (the player) would lose every single hand in the shoe. Possible? Sure. But only if the "cooler" could be dealt out exactly as set, and not cut by the player. Once cut, all bets are off and anything could happen, maybe even...that the dealer ends up losing every hand.

Let's say that the house set up the deck so that an entire portion had only low cards and would remain player unfriendly because more and more low cards only would be coming (even though the count was rising). Sure, fine, bad for the player (in theory anyway). But what if the player then happened to cut the deck so that this entire section came last, and the section that came up first was blocks and blocks of faces/tens. Who would win then? Well if every card coming out were a ten I suppose it would be one push after another. These are extreme examples, but in any case, given the player cut, I think it would not be feasible to set up definitively the deck in a way to make the player lose hand after hand, or even more than expected, which is an additional reason why (besides the absurd illegality) it's wrong to theorize that the casino would ever do such a thing. I also think that given the player cut, if a section did start rolling by that was ridiculously lopsided (tons of small cards one after another, or blocks of tens, etc.) that it would just become obvious that something was wrong and the scheme would be outed just like that. I.E. lot of risk, versus only potential benefit to the House.

Quote: MDawg

Yes lots of technically string betting but they do declare in advance exactly what they are doing, as in "I'll call and raise" etc.

some of that and some of pushing chips in for a call and then declaring a raise.

Quote: MDawg

What I meant, which I believe you are saying the same thing, is that once the cooler is introduced Lonnegan doesn't allow anyone to cut it. In other words, he pretends to cut, and does cut the deck, but not the one that is put into play. By not allowing anyone to cut the cards before dealing, I mean that he doesn't cut the cooler himself, either.

We are saying same thing. My point was that because Lonnegan was right of dealer, there no one else that would be cutting cards but him. It’s a good position from which to introduce a cold deck.

Quote: MDawg

Actually, if a cooler is done right, it is possible to shuffle it and still let it go into play, but you have to be careful to shuffle only the lower portion of the deck that is to be dealt. I mean you may sit there shuffling ten times and still leave intact the portion of the half deck that needs to be dealt to effect the cooler scam, if you know what you are doing. But again, if anyone cuts it after this incomplete shuffle, the cooler is busted.
link to original post

If you brought in a cold deck as dealer, you would probably do one of the following:

1) Introduce it after the shuffle and cut. This is what Lonnegan does from the cut man position.

2) Introduce it after the shuffle but before the cut. Then cancel the cut with a one-handed cut when taking deck back.

3) Introduce it pre shuffle and then execute a few false shuffles, and then cancel the cut.

Quote: MDawg

Let's say that the house knew that a Blackjack game was to be one on one and only one card burned.

Wouldn't the house also need to know how many hands the player will play for each round, before the cards are shuffled?

The player would need to request a one-on-one game, not the house...correct?

Should a player request a private table, would the house establish how many hands he was permitted to play for each round, and insist that he agree, before the cards are shuffled, to play that same number of hands per round?

It's understood that they could insist, but I am asking if any casino would try something like that...before shuffling the cards?

Yes, understood. All of those factors, additionally besides that the player is allowed the final cut, would contribute further to making it not feasible for the House to try to stack the deck.