Blackjack Shuffle Tracking

Blackjack Shuffle tracking is a blackjack technique for players in land-based casinos only. It may be considered a science in which you follow a card through the shuffling stages, to either keep the card in or out of play. This is a rather new and complex technique.

When a blackjack dealer shuffles a deck or decks, the cards don't always get as randomized as they may seem. Card counting & Basic strategy assume a randomized deck order, but apparently it is not always so.

A shuffle of one deck, which is considered favorable to the blackjack player, consists of splitting the deck into half (26 cards in each stack) and shuffling at least 3 times.

That way, the cards get mixed enough to create a random distribution throughout the deck.

The unbalanced shuffle is a simple matter to explain. When the dealer splits the cards, there is often one stack bigger than the other. When you play 2 hands against the dealer, and he deals the last 10 cards of the deck, due to many low value cards in that part of the deck, both of your hands will lose to the dealer. Had you card-counted, you'd put a small bet since the odds are not in your favor. When the dealer is about to shuffle the deck, he splits it into a 31-card stack and a 21-card stack. When he shuffles the stacks, he can get the 10 cards from the top/bottom side of the bigger stack to remain intact, without getting mixed with the other stack's cards. Next time, these cards will be dealt again, in the same order as last time.

After the shuffle, the player is asked to cut the deck into 2 stacks. Don't cut the deck, and you'll get the exact same 2 losing hands you got in the last 2 pre-shuffling rounds. Cut the deck in the right spot (at the end of the 10 losing cards) and you'll change the odds in your favor, since now the low cards will be placed far at the bottom end of the deck. If the dealer shuffles before the deck has been fully used up, you won't have to get to these cards at all!

If you're keeping count, it's obvious to see from the 3-4 first hands you play, that the deck is heavy with 10's. Remember that high numbers work for players and against the dealer.

Some of the dealers will split the deck into 2 unequal stacks, doing so unknowingly and without intention. Many dealers, though, are ordered to do so. The dealers who are required to split the deck in such a way by the casinos are performing a "house shuffle" - a particular way of shuffling, which is favorable to the casino in the long run. The next time you go to play blackjack in a casino, pay attention to the shuffling of the dealer. You might notice there's something wrong with it.

The number of shuffle methods grows as time goes by. Some of the more known shuffle methods, brought to you by blackjack2002.com, are the "Zone shuffle" and the "Strip shuffle".

The zone shuffle is a method which is used in multiple deck games (shoe games). The shoe is split into 4-8 stacks, as prearranged picks are made, from each of the stacks, in an exact way combined with a half-deck sized stacks, in order to create a sort of a "net" effect. This effect simply involves regrouping the shoe cards in an order which is similar to that of the pre-shuffled shoe. That way, clumps of cards are prevented from being randomly mixed, all - of course - favorable for the dealer.

When the odds are favorable for the player, and the dealer keeps track of the wins and losses around the table, he might either "Strip shuffle" or shuffle randomly to help re-randomizing the deck. Strip shuffling or "Deck stripping" means the dealer strips a card from the shoe and lets it fall on top of another, thereby reversing the order of the cards on the table. This shuffling method is used to prevent clumping advantages that are favorable to the players.