Ask Frank (Single-deck Video Blackjack)

In your book Victory at Video Poker, you give the strategy for single-deck video blackjack games. How can one tell when the machine is starting to deal from the top of the deck as opposed to being in the middle of the deck? If when I put my coin in and the cards are being dealt from the middle after many high cards have been played, my count will be in error. Maybe the machines shut down and start over after not being played for a length of time.

Thanks,
Lou

Dear Lou,

Freaky as this is going to sound, there is no middle of the deck in a computer card game. It's just an RNG selecting number sequences that correspond to card values. When a sequence is selected, say, one that corresponds to the ace of spades, then that sequence is put on "hold" for that round so that the ace of spades can't show up in two different hands. However, the "order of the cards" is always being selected at random; it's not as if a deck is just sitting there after the shuffle with the cards in a given sequence (whether you know the sequence or not).

In real life, even if a dealer were to deal from the middle of the deck, a high count is a high count, a low count is a low count. Since you don't know where the remaining cards are placed, the probabilities only change based on what cards have already been seen by the players, not by where in the deck the dealer is pulling his cards from.

In any machine game using an RNG, the machine works even when it isn't being played. That's right. Unlike that unseen tree in the forest, the cards are being selected, discarded, selected, discarded, even when no one is around to see them.

All the best in and out of the casinos!
Frank Scoblete

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