2 Deck vs 6 Deck: Which Is Better for Blackjack?

hey this is colin from blackjack apprenticeship and i've been asked the question recently what is my opinion on double deck versus shoe games like six or eight deck well we have a video that covers this topic in our paid video course and rather than refilm the whole thing here for youtube i thought i'd share with you that video so without any further ado here's our video on single deck versus double deck versus shoe games six and eight deck games and everything you need to know [Music] [Applause] [Music] there are legitimate advantages to playing single deck double deck or shoe games as a card counter i want to take a few minutes and talk about what you need to know when considering your different options so let's start with single deck well the first thing to know is it's rare to find a quality single deck game today most of the single deck games out there have absolute garbage rules like it paying six to five or even even money on blackjacks and you know unless you're playing a six to five with everything else being amazing and a huge best spread there's no way you're gonna beat that game even even then i'm very leery of a six to five game but there are some three to two single deck games out there that are still beatable very rarely do you find one where you can double on any first two cards but you can even be a single deck that is hit 17 three to two and you can double on just 10 and 11 but beyond whether the rules are quality and make sure you use something like cvcx to know if the rules are good enough the second thing you're going to need to know though is if they're dealing enough rounds and and i say rounds not deck penetration because i recommend uh when you're doing deck penetration for single deck 2 just count the number of rounds being dealt it's a lot easier than saying did they deal like 0.5 or 0.6 or 0.7 of a deck it's really easy to track how many rounds are they dealing before they shuffle and the rule of thumb is if they only deal two rounds you can't count cards of that game if they deal three rounds before shuffle it's beatable if they deal four rounds it's a lot better and five rounds is obviously even better still so let's talk about double deck the first thing you're going to need to think about with double deck is are the rules and is the deck penetration good enough to to really beat the game and a couple rules of thumb is i would not play a six to five double deck so it's got to be three to two and then as far as deck penetration i wouldn't play a double deck game that doesn't deal at least one full deck right it's 50 pen like cut right in half that's the bare minimum and it gets a lot better in terms of ev the better the cut like 0.9 is a lot better than cutting or them cutting off 0.9 decks rather than cutting off a full deck and then if you get to like 0.7 or 0.6 that they only cut off 0.6 of a deck it gets way better for for a double deck game so those are two things it's got to be dealing at least a full deck preferably a bit more than that and it's got to be three to two so the next thing you're gonna need to consider is that one really nice thing about double deck is that you get to the long run faster and the risk is going to be lower relative to a shoe game if all other things are equal if you can play some decent double deck games as you're starting out with a smaller bankroll that's really advantageous that's one of the advantages to double deck i'll get to the advantages of a shoe game but being able to take advantage of that generally higher initial advantage for for us as a player and the lower risk generally and the shorter long run all those things make double deck favorable so taking advantage of the better house edge generally the shorter long run and generally lower risk can be really advantageous but another thing to be prepared for with double deck is that your bets are going to change a lot faster so if you're just used to six or eight deck you know you're playing playing playing okay now we're getting a true one true two true three well with double deck it's changing every couple rounds um so you gotta be prepared for that you gotta move your bets quickly be doing your true count you know very quickly and accurately and not be afraid of changing your bets you know every round or two a few other things to consider is that casinos tend to watch double deck more closely so you just have to be prepared that there's gonna be a little bit more like basically casinos know that card cameras tend to gravitate towards double deck and so they tend to watch it a little more closely so be prepared for that and if you want to play double deck you know you can't be paranoid you got to play in a way that you're beating the game but another thing you want to consider is you got to avoid those really negative counts that's what's going to eat up your ev that's what's going to skyrocket your risk so if we're getting to a true negative 3 you know definitely anything beyond that my advice is to to sit out you can run the numbers yourself with cvcx and maybe there's a bet spread where it's worth it for you to play through negatives but you know that's really going to crush you if if you don't have a large bankroll and then the last thing to be aware of for double deck is that it is a slower game than a shoe game so there's this big uh post i put on the forum that's kind of this comparison we did all these speed tests one of the big things to be aware of is a double deck game isn't the same as a shoe game in terms of rounds per hour and so you can say oh well this double deck game at 100 rounds per hour is more valuable than this shoe game six or eight deck game at 100 rounds per hour but you're not going to play those two games at the same speed if you're if all other things are equal like the number of players at the table so just be prepared double deck slower is generally a pitch game where you know the dealer holds it and throws it face down and when they do that it's just slower the players handle the cards everyone has to look at their cards and tuck them all that stuff slows it down plus they shuffle you know every deck or so it just is gonna make it a slower game all right so let's talk about the pros and cons of playing a shoe game so first off just like with the other games pay attention to the rules make sure it's three to two i would never play a shoe game that doesn't pay blackjack's three to two uh but secondly pay attention to the deck penetration so it's again we have an entire video dedicated to this but this is a huge part of rev there's a huge difference if a casino cuts off two decks if they cut off two decks or more i wouldn't play that shoe game unless there's something incredible going on like with with the rules or something otherwise you know there's huge difference between cutting off two decks compared to a deck and a half compared to only cutting off one deck so for the church team we train our players to prioritize casinos and dealers with better deck penetration because it really is going to impact your ev and your risk the next thing i'd say though is a benefit of a shoe game is that they you can generally get away with a bigger bet spread the casinos don't watch it quite as closely if you're at double deck you know using a one to twenty one to forty bet spread it's gonna look pretty insane but you know it's not uncommon for a pro card counter to use a one to twenty one to forty bet spread on a shoe game it just it doesn't stick out quite as much and so that could be you know one of the advantages so another thing to think about is again avoid those negative counts don't play through a shoe if you don't need to you know when you in a shoe game for the church team we said hey if it gets to a true negative one and a half or below it's time to step out unless you know you're playing heads up and it's your only option is to play through it if you have another table you can go to or if you can you know take a three five minute break from the casino and let you know the suckers at the table play through those negative counts let them lose their money and you can just step away and save some ev and keep your risk lower the final thing i'd say with the shoe game is one of the ways you can really capitalize on a shoe game and one of the ways the reasons why i actually kind of think that a shoe game is is often your card counter's best option is if you can play heads up you can really maximize rounds per hour so you can you know blaze through shoe after shoe if it's just you and the dealer that's not always an option but if you are playing a shoe game consider that consider if you're a perfect card counter the impact on being able to get in more rounds per hour it's it's not unlikely that you can play two or three times as many rounds per hour heads up on a shoe game than at a double deck game especially a double deck game with other players at the table so playing perfect comes first don't worry about playing fast if you're not perfect yet but these are really the things i think about when i walk into a casino it wasn't that long ago you know a couple months ago i was in a casino and they had a single deck some double deck games and some shoe games and i was thinking through well what is going to maximize my ev my rounds per hour and what are the considerations as far as deck penetration all those things i'll play one two three four five six seven eight decks based on how it's going to impact my ev hopefully that helps you understand kind of the pros and cons of each between single double deck or shoe games the rules offered at each the deck penetration at each how many rounds per hour i can expect to play at each of those games and just how much heat there's going to be if they're you know hawking the double deck game or the casino has a reputation for backing people off at double deck then i might try the six or eight deck game and make up for you know the house edge the initial house edge by rounds per hour or just by longevity so again that's the way you need to start thinking through this if you have any questions leave it below and we'll get it answered for you for more on card counting you can subscribe to this youtube channel or if you're serious about card counting check out our membership which has our entire video course training drills betting software and a whole lot more you can find it all at blackjackapprenticeship.com

Channel: Blackjack Apprenticeship

Views: 172,685

Keywords: Blackjack, blackjack apprenticeship, blackjack apprentice, colin jones, how to count cards, blackjack strategy, beat blackjack, double deck, 6 deck, shoe game, blackjack shoe

Id: u3ZYXfYK1d0

Length: 9min 54sec (594 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 10 2021