Busting Vegas
 

On Jim Rome yesterday Ben Mezrich (who wrote the book about the MIT kids beating BlackJack) talked about his new book - Busting Vegas. Basically these guys employed some kind of method that gauranteed them 7 figure incomes from BlackJack. He explained the system briefly but I did not really understand it - it somehow involved deck manipulation whereby they knew when an ace would hit. ONe of the masterminds behind it is Semyon Dukach and he is hawking this "system" on his website. Has anyone heard of this before?

Re: Busting Vegas
 

It's a pretty entertaining book. They pretty much just track aces. The basic idea behind it is that when an ace comes out, they memorize the few cards that are before it in the discard tray. Then they carefully watch the shuffle, they cut so that they know around where it is, they play one hand at a time until they see a couple of the keycards, and then on the next hand they fill up the table so that the odds are greater that they'll get the ace.
They use a couple other methods, too, such as watching the dealer shuffle and looking to see the dealer expose the card that's at the end of the shoe. If it's a picture, they cut the cards soi that they know exactly where the face card is, and then when it's getting close to it, they place a bunch of hands and then manipulate where it comes out by hitting or staying on hands they normally wouldn't. The idea is to get the dealer to receive that face cqrd for his 3rd card, which most of the time will make him bust (if the dealer does indeed need a 3rd card).

Re: Busting Vegas
 

This sounds like it would get you tossed faster than just straight counting.

Re: Busting Vegas
 

From the interview, the author said that they were eventually tossed out of all the casinos even though the casinos did not know what was going on since their betting patterns didn't follow that of a regular counter. The author said that "only 10 people" in the world know this system, but apparantely it's detailed in the book and that with a few hours practice anyone can learn it.....

Re: Busting Vegas
 

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The author said that "only 10 people" in the world know this system,

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That's BS. It's called ace location. I've read about it in blackjack forums before.

Re: Busting Vegas
 

Shuffle tracking for aces, from my personal experience goes back to the 70's. I learned it from a pro, and my guess is it wasn't new then -- it sure isn't new now.

Re: Busting Vegas
 

Shuffle Tracking. It was mentioned in Jerry Patterson's book, way back. I would have thought the shuffling machines would have made it obsolete though.

Re: Busting Vegas
 

The book is not as good as his other blackjack book. They describe three tactics: (1) tracking aces through a shuffle; (2) seeing that the back card in the deck (post shuffle but pre cut) is an ace, cutting off exactly one deck, and then directing the ace to a team member's hand; and (3) doing the same thing with a ten, and then directing the ten to the dealer as a bust card.

Re: Busting Vegas
 

They were doing it 10 years ago before the casinos started taking measures to counter their techniques. Do some reading and you'll learn all about it. Nothing new.