shuffle tracking is one of the newest techniques that blackjack aficionados use in order to give themselves some advantage over the house. When intending to use this technique, you need to be reminded that casinos do not use simple shuffles. This is intended to thwart any possible attempts by shuffle trackers.
There are two strategies used by casinos to counter moves by any player who will attempt casino shuffle tracking. One method introduces dealer-driven randomness. In this strategy, the dealer plugs the cards that have not been played into the played ones at various random areas and sequence of choices for zone shuffles.
The other method used by the house is the stutter shuffle. Here the dealer shuffles a couple of piles by picking from one pile and another pick from the already shuffled cards and placing the result over the stutter pile.
It is worth noting that rarely does the house use the dealer-driven randomness and stutter shuffle. The casinos are confident that any method is sufficient to stop shuffle trackers. While the latter can be effective, shuffle trackers do manage to beat the former.
In addition, the house modifies its shuffle after a few months. Again, this is a countermeasure against attempts for casino shuffle tracking.
There are two methods that you can use in tracking a shuffle. The easiest one is to take 8 decks of cards, put a label on the back of each card with letters representing various monitoring units, use these tracking units to sort each card, and then follow the shuffling pattern of the casino. Afterwards, you count the amount of cards from the various tracking units that ended up in each sector.
Another method of casino shuffle tracking that you can use is the symbolic method. Begin with a uniform amount of copies of each tracking unit. For instance, if there are four tracking units with two replicas of each, then the appearance of the cards prior to shuffling would be: DDCCBBAA.
In the symbolic method, you would manipulate the pattern so that you will come up with the card distribution after the cards have been shuffled. This strategy was previously used in profile generation of a simple shuffle and is likewise the basis of other casino shuffles.
Casino shuffle tracking is much harder to learn and master than card counting. As they say, one can be a good card counter but never good shuffle trackers. However, when used correctly, you can give yourself a huge advantage over the house.