Oh, it’s very easy to count a six deck shoe: easier than counting single deck, which really requires a more advanced counting system.
The problem is that the player’s advantage comes from situations where there are a higher percentage of tens and aces left in the shoe, because just through variance an abnormally large percentage of low cards has been seen.
A ten and ace rich shoe favors the player primarily because of the increased chance of getting a blackjack. If you get a blackjack you get paid 3:2, but if the dealer gets one you just lose your bet, so even money. If blackjacks pay closer to even money (6:5), this advantage goes way down.
The problem with a six deck shoe is that the effect of each card removal is much smaller when there are a lot more cards to be seen. So you typically don’t get to big positive counts where the player has a huge advantage until you are near the end of the shoe. The casino can thwart counters by using six deck shoes and reshuffling while,there are still two decks in the shoe, thus reducing greatly the situations where the shoe is full of player-favoring cards.
There is a smaller amount of advantage that can be gained by alternating you playing strategy based on the count. For example, a 16 vs a dealer’s ten. That hand should be hit any time the count is negative, and you should stay if the count is positive.
Counting cards in multiole deck black is very simple. Start with a count of zero when the shoe is shuffled. Every time you see a ten valued card or an ace, subtract one from the count. Any time you see a 2,3,4,5,6 you add one to the count. 7,8,9 are ignored. This is a basic ‘hi-lo’ count.
So if you get dealt T7 and the dealer has a 4 showing, the count is still zero. You stand, and the dealer hits a 7,5,8 and busts. The count is now +1. Or rather, this is the raw, or ‘running’ count. Your real advantage is based on how many extra high cards there are per deck. So at the start of a six deck shoe, the true count is found by dividing the running count by six.
The player isually has the advantage at a true count of +2 to +3, depending on rules. So you can see that near the beginning of the shoe there would have to be 12 to 18 times as many low cards as high cards seen before you’d have the advantage. That’s rare. But with only one deck left, a running count of 5 is a true count of 5 and a big advantage.
The more decks in a shoe, the less often situations that favor the player arise. Then the only way to beat the games is to only sit down to bet when the count is very high. But that’s easily thearted by the casino not allowing mid-shoe entry.
That’s probably way more than you wanted to know.
