Originally Posted by
unJon
Question to KewlJ where you say that the biggest counter indicator is retreating net to min after shoe. I don’t necessarily doubt that as of course it’s what a counter would do. But I would think it has a large false positive set. Almost everyone I know that plays blackjack (95% don’t count) that vary their bets during a shoe will go back to min bet at the start of a shoe. So whatever “flow of cards” or “martingale” or other method they are using resets each shoe. Nearly every blackjack player believes in good and bad shoes and restarts at the beginning of each shoe.
Is your view different?
My view is different unJon. We aren't talking about a $25 player varying bets from $25 to $75, or maybe $100, which is about the spread most non counters randomly varying bets do. When you get into a player that starts out betting say $25 and has progressed up to $300-$400, I have been told by some pits friends they are most likely either playing some sort of progression/martingale, or chasing losses, or parlaying wins, or counting.
So the progression players shouldn't revert back to minimum wager at the shuffle. He bets in series and his progression isn't over until the series is over, so he should start the new shuffle at the next level called for in the progression. Players chasing losses, shouldn't revert back to $25 as it is hard to chase losses and make up losses, reverting back to a smaller wager than the losses occured at. Players parlaying wins,
might revert back to a smaller wager, for reasons you said, that lucky shoe may be over. And of course card counters
will revert back because the advantage they had when they were placing those big bets is gone with the shuffle.
So the point is, the raising of bets isn't the tell, the lowering at the shuffle is. And when you see a player do that several times, it points to card counting. That might not confirm card counting, but it would be a point that an evaluation might be initiated. So I don't revert back several times. I don't revert back even once. I show my spread once and exit. That is an exit trigger. With such limited information, they can guess what I might have been doing, card counter, progression player, chasing losses or parlaying wins (depending on if winning or losing), but with that limited info, that's all it really is, a guess. And they aren't going to spend much more time on it, since you have already left the table.
It really does eliminate one of the bigger....if not "tells", indicators that the player might be a card counter. You just are limiting the information shown and that works towards longevity.