STREETWISE BLACKJACK

Streetwise Blackjack

The New Hard Shoe

By Peter Ruchman

What if there was a way to take the world's favorite casino card game, blackjack, and make it so heavily weighted in favor of the casino, so unbeatable, that there is no point any longer in utilizing any of the known card counting methods? Then, furthermore, what if this was accomplished by disguising it in a way that few would recognize? Sound ridiculous so far? "Impossible!" you add

Well, all you blackjack aficionados out there in the hinterlands, you have just been crowned "Wile E. Coyote" and you can call the casinos, "Roadrunner." After doing everything you can, using the broadest bands of your imaginations, chasing the lil' varmint with every breath you take, and every move he makes, guess what? You've just hit the proverbial wall, once again. This shouldn't come as a surprise.

The war between the blackjack players and the casinos has been raging, with ebbs, flows, temporary treaties, and casualties on both sides, since Edward Thorp's breakthrough Beat The Dealer was first published in 1962. The knee-jerk paranoia that erupted was notable for both its swiftness and failure. As word got out that Professor Thorp had devised a mathematically-sound procedure for gaining an advantage over the casinos, and then published it for the world to see, the casinos panicked and altered their rules. No more doubling on any hand total but 11, no more doubles after you split, and a few places went so far as to limit blackjack payoffs to 1-1, even money, lowered from the traditional 3-2.

The reaction by the players was as swift - they fled. Few played and the boycott was easy to understand. Why play a game when you don't stand a chance?

The casinos were forced to re-institute the older rules within weeks, calmer and wiser heads prevailing. But the war was on with terms of engagement subject to alteration at any time by either side. The players would try one strategy, the casinos would counter the move. The Griffin Detective Agency published a directory, both domestic and international, with pictures and known information on blackjack counters. The counters resorted to a variety of disguises and new techniques.

The cat-and-mouse game has gone on for decades. The players have newsletters, Internet chatrooms, books, periodicals, meetings, and software. A great deal of time and energy is devoted to the latest methods of outfoxing the (hen) House and getting away with the goodies. The casinos countered with tightened rules, lowered spread limits, shorter deck penetration and quicker barring. It seems for each adjustment by one side, the other found a different way to maneuver. It was a real-life chess match, played for very high stakes in some cases.

Things have been relatively quiet on this front with the lull that came from the realization by players that, in most cases, the casinos would rather err on the side of losing business by chasing customers who were perceived as knowledgeable card-counters, than suffer the exposure of potential damage. Concurrently, there was also the understanding that the casinos read the same newsletters, lurk in the bj chatrooms, and share an awareness of the issues raised by the blackjack "underground." This has also been complicated by the fact that there are companies and casinos who have employed current and retired players to advise them on counter-acting the counters. Basically, folks, there are few secrets left in the casino world.

The bar was just raised several notches by two different companies with essentially the same product. Shuffle Master, manufacturer of many of the automatic shuffling devices used in many of the world's casinos and DP-Stud, developer of the popular Caribbean Stud casino card game, have both brought their own versions of a new automatic shuffler to the market. The more popular brand of the two-Shuffle Master's model comes with the nickname, "The King." You can call it the card-counter's nightmare.

This device appears simple from the outside. The bottom resembles a traditional blackjack shoe, but here any similarity to the old manual dealing shoes ends. This rectangular box contains a motorized elevator in continual motion that interlaces with the cards creating a continuous shuffle. As the elevator is moving up and down, cards are randomly inserted into one of 19 different shelves in the shelving system The dealer pulls cards from the shoe mouth in the same traditional method as before. After all cards are dealt, and the hand is over, instead of placing the cards in a discard tray for shuffling at the cut card, all "discards" are placed into an opening on top of the shuffler (the front in the DP-Stud machine and the rear in the Shuffle Master version) and are reintroduced into the decks for immediate use.

The major difference between Shuffle Master's King and the competition is that SM employs a non-linear design. Using a patented double-random generator design, the non-linear shuffler picks the insertion point in the deck for each card. In the linear machines, most of the cards are placed toward the front of the cards waiting to be dealt, meaning that the cards located toward the rear of the shoe have a lesser possibility of getting into play. Quite simply, this design is more static and less dynamic.

You are playing against four "infinite" decks (five decks with the DP-Stud model), with each hand independent of any previous decision. There is no cut card, no penetration level, no "new shoe." Thus, there is no counting. Traditionally, card counters want a fast-paced game, the thought being that the more hands there are, say 100 per hour versus 75, the better the chances of increasing your win ratio. The King speeds up the game, but not in a way that is good for players. The casino makes out because there is less down-time lost to shuffling. The less shuffling, the greater the profits for the casino.

Then there is the cost-saving aspect of fewer decks utilized. In talking to one of the pit supervisors at a local Las Vegas casino this past weekend, I was told that the decks are changed once a day. Fewer decks are used up and removed from play due to the fact that players don't touch the cards. They are handled by the dealer only with no warping or marking due to poor dealer shuffling techniques. Also the chance of a casino being cheated is greatly lessened as well. This same pit boss told me that there had been a few objections, chiefly from players not being able to cut the cards, or see them, with one person complaining that he didn't like the machine because it eliminated a bathroom break due to the continuous action.

In talking to an assistant casino manager at a Las Vegas Strip casino, he informed me that his was one of the first casinos chosen to test the models from both companies, with cost for the casinos running in the $12-13,000 range for the machines. They have been in place since mid-March on the lower-end, $5 and $10 games and have generated a variety of reactions, with the assistant manager telling me, "Anything new is going to be initially resisted. It's too early to tell. You've got to keep an open mind." The machines are in use at the new Detroit-MGM casino and Casino Windsor across the river in Canada has gone to all 8-deck auto shufflers.

The way it breaks out is that the people who the casino doesn't want, the card-counters who represent the biggest threat, won't play against the automatic shufflers. Nor will the back-counters and section locators. The biggest problem with previous automatic shufflers was the significant amount of regular breakdowns along with the fact that certain models offered the astute player a relatively easy trackability.

A casino manager in a Las Vegas Strip casino told me that the Shuffle Master model has a double random generator, similar to the devices used in the slot and video poker machines, meaning that how the card comes out is different than how it went in and that a card that has just been played has the possibility of returning back into play within 11 cards. This casino is testing the two models, which so far have shown a 17-30 percent increase in table productivity time. This translates to less time lost shuffling, introducing new decks, etc. This manager told me that dealers seemed to like it because they don't particularly like to shuffle, they get to deal more hands, which means an increase in their tokes or tips.

He also mentioned that he found there to be a general acceptance at the lower game levels but some resistance once you get into the $25 and higher games. He hasn't noticed a difference in drop (the casino gross dollar profit at the tables) in the 6-week trial period, but remains optimistic that with 4 shuffles eliminated each hour, he recognized the extent of the innovation and remained guardedly optimistic.

This manager explained to me although the casinos are quite aware of the obvious benefits of the automatic shufflers, that if one employed perfect basic strategy against the machine, it was possible to bring the house edge down to about -.05%. He also mentioned that one of the tables lost $15,000 at one game, but did attribute that more to the luck of the draw than to any particular skill.

One more note: Shuffle Master is so sure that this machine cannot be beaten, they are offering a $100,000 challenge to anyone who can produce a computer-generated strategy for beating the machine by May 31, 2000. The rules brought to you by Shuffle Master state:

1. Proof of mathematical advantage through mathematical analysis and/or computer simulations must be submitted in order to be considered.

2. All bona fide entries, if any (emphasis, mine) will be evaluated by an independent mathematician.

3. A winner, if any (same thing), will be determined by July 31, 2000.

4. No electronic devices may be utilized, except for computer simulation as indicated in Rule number 1.

5. Entries should be sent to: Shuffle Master, $100,000 Challenge, 1106 Palms Airport Drive, Las Vegas, Nevada, 89119. Phone is 702-270-5113.

The machines can be used for any multiple-deck game and appear to be the wave of the future. As noted above, the best strategy to employ for playing these shufflers appears to be the use of Perfect Basic Strategy. Keep in mind, you are playing off the top of the deck each hand, with a neutral count every deal. Traditional theories do not apply to these machines. I spent a couple of hours this past weekend watching a few different tables that use the shufflers. I never saw any of the customers react negatively, nor heard any rude comments. The games carried on without any fanfare and for most of the world, that is probably how it will be. For the blackjack savvy, they may have to rethink the possibilities. How do you beat ColossusŠ?