Counting CSM Blackjack (+EV)
A few people have asked me about the countability of blackjack dealt from a constant shuffle machine (CSM). I’m a big advocate of counting the CSM, especially for card craps, because of the ease of the windowed count. Even if the dealer collects no muck (i.e., immediately shuffles completed hands back into the CSM), you’ll still be +EV more than 8% of the time for good BJ rules. It’s a lot easier to count a CSM than a shoe. I call it counting for the ADHD crowd. All you have to do is pay attention to the last 16 cards (or the collected muck) fed into the CSM before the hand is dealt. Plus, you’ll probably never get backed off from CSM blackjack, even when wildly varying your bets.
EV vs. Windowed Count
I use my model of the ShuffleMaster 126 (source) CSM in the blackjack simulations for this post. I’ve talked in detail about this model before, in my posts on card craps. Basically, there’s a buffer of at least 16 cards in the chute (so the dealer never waits for a card), which introduces state into the system. If the dealer collects no muck, you simply use the running count of the last 16 cards fed into the shuffler. Use the simple hi-lo count (2-6 are +1, 10-A are -1). If the dealer collects a lot of muck, and feeds it all into the shuffler right before the next hand starts, then use the count of the entire muck.
For these simulations, I used 6 decks in the CSM, and typical-good H17 blackjack rules (3:2 BJ, late surrender, re-split Aces 3-times, double-after-split). My blackjack analyzer calculates the ideal EV for these rules at -0.445% for 6 decks. I ran the simulator head’s up against the dealer, and kept track of the 16-card windowed count and the subsequent hand outcome. I plotted the next-hand EV vs. the windowed hi-lo count in the graph below.
The graph shows a very linear relationship between the 16-card windowed hi-lo count and the EV of the next hand. When the running windowed count is +5 or more, the next hand from the CSM is +EV. The windowed count is ≥ 5 about 8.2% of the time.
| Count | Frequency | Approx. BJ EV |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 11.5% | -0.44% |
| 1 | 10.8% | -0.34% |
| 2 | 9.36% | -0.24% |
| 3 | 7.46% | -0.16% |
| 4 | 5.46% | -0.05% |
| 5 | 3.67% | +0.04% |
| 6 | 2.25% | +0.14% |
| 7 | 1.25% | +0.22% |
| 8 | 0.627% | +0.29% |
| 9 | 0.280% | +0.43% |
| 10 | 0.111% | +0.49% |
Conclusions
Serious card counters will tell you you can’t count a CSM. But the data above shows that a CSM goes +EV more than 8% of the time. Plus, it’s infinitely easier to count a CSM than it is to count a shoe. You can lose track of the count for a hand or two. As soon as you regain attention, you’ll know what the count is. You can probably vary your bets wildly without attracting any attention or interest from the floor. You can probably even Wong hands when the count is bad. Or less than +5.
Counting a CSM is great for the casual counter. It’s basically short-attention span counting. If you see the last 16 cards into the CSM prior to the deal are low (have a running count of 5 or better), then you’re +EV for the next hand. Even if you just see a net +3 count for the last 16 cards, you still know the next hand will be better than average. You can start/stop paying attention on a per-hand basis (unlike a shoe, where you have to wait for the next shoe if you lose the count).
At it’s simplest, CSM counting will tell you when the next hand will be better-than-average (half the time), or worse-than-average (half the time). So, if you Wong half of the time, you’ll only play the better-than-average hands (EV better than -0.45%; the above curve to the right of count=0), and miss the bad hands. That’s a quick way to reduce the house edge from 0.45% to 0.22% (only play 53% of the hands; wait until the count is ≥ 0).
Could this principle apply to CSM games like Pontoon? or Switch Blackjack?
Yes, you can apply a windowed count to any game dealt out of a CSM. The effectiveness of the count depends on the strengths of the EORs (effect of card removal) for the particular game. I’ll definitely look into Blackjack Switch; that’ll be interesting!
Hi, you alluded to the fact that serious card counters will tell you that you can’t count a CSM. That’s definitely the conventional wisdom. How sure are you about your assumptions re: windowed count? Might you be wrong? If you are right, why isn’t this info more widely known?
Sorry to sound skeptical but it feels like you must be missing something, somewhere.
Serious counters will concede a CSM is countable to a degree, but they’ll say it’s not worth counting. My numbers are correct, and the windowed count works as stated. I also argue that it’s easier to count a CSM, because you can vary your bet wildly ($5 to $100, a 20x swing would get no attention; Wong-ing would get no attention), and you can lose the count temporarily.
I’m correct about all of this. I think it’s good to know about this effect, but I don’t think it’s very profitable in the scheme of things.
The effect is stronger for 4-deck CSM Pontoon, which I’ll publish later.
I’d agree that’s a way to loss less at least, pretty good for leisure play.
Just wondering if the card just inserted have the same probability to reappear at the end of the buffer as the other cards or not. I think that depends on the mechanic, IIRC one of the selling point of the ShuffleMaster is that the shuffle is not perfectly random, so I support the answer is no? Just a thought, might take that into consideration. But I guess it’s too hard to put that into the equation even if it’s significant.
Right, the last cards fed into the CSM have *zero* probability of coming out in the N cards, where N is the minimum buffer depth of the chute (I use N=16). It’s hard to make an ideal (perfectly random) CSM, because it would slow down the dealing process. The N-card buffer in the card chute speeds up the dealing process, but affects the randomness of the cards out of the shoe (relative to the recent cards dealt). That’s the point of this post. I modeled the CSM with an N-card buffer in the chute, and showed how to use a N-window count against it.
I know some casinos with very good rules (0,11% edge off the top) but using one2six shufflemaster
I want to play it but I didn’t understand everything of your post.
What is “buffer” and “muck”
it depend of the casino, they put back the discard sometime directely after each round, sometime after 2 or 3 round. My question is, when to begin counting hilo and when to go back to “zero”
for example ; if the count is +5 at the end of the first round
I bet for a RC of +5 or a TC of 0,5-1 in the 2nd round (the dealer put back the discard at the end of the first round) and count again from zero for the 2nd round ?
How do I do if the dealer decide to put back the discard ‘during’ a round and not at the end …
Thanks you in advance
The buffer is a minimum number of cards maintained in the front of the chute where the cards egress the one2six. The muck is the accumulated discards before it is placed back in the shuffler. For a CSM, you should use the running count of the muck plus the last N (buffer depth) cards fed into the shuffler. If there is no muck (it was just fed back into the shuffler), then only use the count of the last N cards.
I understand, but when the dealer put back the discard (muck) into the csm there is a time to wait in order to have these cards reshuffle. how to know when I have to reset my RC ? (when the muck is completely in the csm)?
The cards putted back into the csm make time to be completely reshuffled in to csm, how to know when to reset EXACTLY my RC in the case with a muck of 1 deck etc… ?
In the above post, I describe the use of a *windowed* running count, that’s never reset. However, it’s often much more convenient (and practical) to reset the count after a round of hands, particularly when the muck = last round of hands. I’ll post soon on when conditions work for non-windowed (reset after each round) count with a CSM.
Thanks you for your anwser …
Some casinos just wait 1 round before putting back the discard into the csm, some others don’t wait and put back during the round, but also I know some casinos where they wait 2 decks even more before putting it back. I’m pretty sure it can be profitable, espescially with good rules ? but I don’t know exactly how to count it, when to reset RC etc …
Is there any counting system better than other for counting a CSM ? or Does it exist some different strategy for CSM ? I ask you that because I know some pros who now play on CSM with succes and I don’t know exactly what they are doing …
Thanks you very much
i used a 5m simulator by using 7 boxes data, stand onsoft 17, double on 9, 10,11, surrender allow, split for 3 times, no peek at blackjack, double allwoed after split, A split once, and CSM machines (house edge = -0.5%, -ve meant advantage for casino) averagely around 28-30 cards info to do the card counting,
2,3,4,5,6 = +1,
7,8,9 = 0
A,T,J,Q,K = -1
Bet 1x, count <+5
Bet 2x, count = +5
Bet 3x, count = +10
BEt 4x, count = +15
I prepared 1000 unit capital to fight with Casino, after 1000 hours played in Casino during weekend for 1 year ++, I made a small profit, around +0.1% from my total bet…I believe it works
Thanks for the confirmation on the countability of CSM blackjack. I’m probably going to upload a CSM BJ simulation kit to Github when I get around to it. There’s a few people out there that care about counting CSM blackjack, and want to evaluate custom strategies.
somemore, u can takeover other players surrender’s bet. says surrender on 12 or 13 vs dealer’s face card, or surrender on 14,15 vs dealer’s 9 or didnt double down on 9,10,11 (please get approval becos 1 card allowed to be drawn)