Cutting for Advantage

basic blackjack strategy while I use the high-low. We sat together at a $2 table, he at third base, me next to him where I could see the cards a bit more easily. Between us we received the cut card about half the time. Whenever my husband got the cut card, he asked me to cut "for luck" and I did so according to the count. Once, when the deck was neutral at the shuffle point, I told him to go ahead and cut.

We had a relatively new dealer who was making an abnormally large number of mistakes, such as not paying off blackjacks correctly, misadding cards, etc. Once he counted twenty-one on his five-card hand, beating the table, only to be informed by one of the players (fortunately) that he really had a twenty-two. We had to watch him extremely carefully, as most of the mistakes were in the house's favor. Some mistakes were in our favor. One time he paid off my husband's natural, and my husband left his standard $2 bet. After the dealer busted he paid off the entire table, giving my husband another $2.

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Another reader says:
My last trip to Tahoe suggested a blackjack problem that may have some application as well as being of theoretical interest. In a casino where one cuts the cards by inserting a colored card, I encountered a dealer who held the deck in such a way so I could always see the bottom card of the deck before I cut. The question is: As a function of the card seen and the number of players at the table, where should one cut the deck and how should one use the knowledge of this one card? Of course one can cut so that small cards go to the bottom and are not used, leading to a slightly favorable deck, and large cards are cut close to the top, but I think that one can do better by incorporating the knowledge about the location of one card into one's playing strategy (i.e., either by strongly suspecting that the "known card" is the dealer's hole card, or maybe the next card to be dealt.) I would be curious to hear any comments you might have.

Some professionals have perfected the ability to cut exactly the number of cards they want. For example, with seven player hands in action, they do a seventeen-card cut; the cut card is inserted exactly seventeen cards from the bottom. After the cut, the known card is seventeenth from the top. One card is burned, fourteen cards go to the players, and one card is the dealer's upcard. The known seventeenth card is the dealer's hole card.

Peter Giles says:
Sometimes I try to cut the cards so that my first card will be an ace or 10. Griffin's Theory of Blackjack says if lean cut myself a 101 have an advantage on that hand of 13%. With an ace my advantage is 52%. Averaging these numbers, with four 10s to one ace, means my average advantage if I can cut myself a 10 or ace is around 21 %. If I stay in practice, I can cut, glance at the bottom card, and about 80% of the time drop it plus one more card to be burned. Of course I sit at first base. My favorite game is using this technique with a dealer who shuffles every time I raise my bet. Then I can not only get rid of unprofitable situations, but I get to cut more often.

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