Remember
when you were a kid playing poker on your kitchen table for pennies?
How did you feel when the dealer made a mistake, and you wound up
getting something other than your correct cards? If you're anything
like I was as a youngster, you probably felt jinxed.
Well, old beliefs
die hard. In the casinos today when a new player steps up to the
blackjack table in the middle of a shoe, somebody often asks if
he would mind waiting until the shuffle. This person's curious request
usually stems from that same old fear that the new player is going
to corrupt the "sacred" order of three or four hundred
randomly shuffled cards -- and that it's destined to work against
the players.
What the heck is this fear based upon? If blindly
changing the order of the cards can work against the player, couldn't
it possibly work against the dealer too? Think about this. Suppose
the dealer fanned out the next dozen cards in the shoe face-down
and asked you to pick any two for your next hand. Which ones should
you choose? Stumped?
Then how in the world could you ever prefer one
face-down card over another? And why in tarnation should the card
the player next to you would've gotten be good for him -- but bad
for you if you end up getting it? Yes, when somebody suddenly jumps
into the game or when another player puts in an extra hand, the
cards will change. But will they change for the better, or for the
worse?
When I play blackjack, even if I knew exactly which
cards were left in the shoe, I still wouldn't know their order.
So I would never know whether I preferred my own card, or the card
of the player next to me. When I double down, it's because based
on the overall odds taking exactly one more blind card is likely
to make me a winning hand. But I don't know whether the very next
card is any more likely to do it for me than the one after it. In
fact, I really wouldn't care if the cocktail waitress leaned over
and pulled it out from the middle of the shoe! I left that superstition
at the kitchen table when I was a kid.
Most serious blackjack players only object to the
order of the cards being changed when things are going well. This
suggests that if you're winning, then the following cards in the
shoe are stacked in your favor, and shouldn't be tampered with.
Let me correct that. What it really means is if you're winning,
then the previous cards in the shoe were stacked in your favor.
That doesn't say diddley about the following cards!
You should know that scientific studies on this
very question have been conducted. Using computers, millions of
hands were dealt recording the outcomes of all "third"
hands that immediately followed two consecutive wins. What percentage
of those "third" hands were won? Virtually the same percentage
as all the other hands! So then, what's sacred about the order of
the cards? In that regard, every next hand is a brand new ball game.
It tickles me when somebody comes to the table and
requests a "No Mid-Shoe Entry" sign. That means no new
player may enter the game until the shuffle. Superstitious gamblers
say it stops new players from jinxing the incumbents by changing
the flow of the cards. If this player bets big enough, the house
is likely to accommodate his request. Why? Because they know how
silly that is! It does do one thing though. It pacifies high rolling
losers into thinking they'll now be able to gain an edge by going
with the "flow" of the cards. And if that makes him happy,
then why not give him what he wants?
As for you, get over it! Don't get thrown off your
game by somebody who barges in mid-shoe. You have enough to think
about without being distracted over stuff that'll only wash out
over time. Just stay focused on things you know can make a positive
difference.
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