Single Deck Blackjack vs Multi Deck Blackjack

Single Deck Versus Multi-Deck Blackjack

While playing Blackjack, in a casino or on line, you will find each table has a different number of decks of cards that they are dealing. Tables have anywhere from single, double, four, six and eight decks of cards being shuffled and played at all times.

A lot of blackjack players have different ideas and theories as to which is better, less decks or more. You may even over hear a blackjack player complain that it is tougher to count cards at a table where there are more decks of cards being used. This is where you can definitely separate the true card counters from the people that just don't know what card counting is. A true card counter wouldn't care if there were a hundred decks being shuffled and played at a table, he or she could still count the cards on that table just as easily.

Some blackjack players think that tables with more decks of cards are better, because when a shoe is a good shoe, it lasts longer, giving away more money, more winning hands, more hands for the dealer to break on. Some blackjack players feel the opposite, saying that a bad shoe on a blackjack table with eight decks of cards lasts a lot longer and the dealer more often just takes your money and beats you hand after hand, for shoes that last too long.

In the end, for the real card counter, a card counter realizes that no matter how many decks of cards that are being shuffled and dealt at any blackjack table, doesn't matter. The reason is that, even on a single deck, hand held game of blackjack, all fifty two cards will not be dealt, nor seen by the players, because most casinos will instruct their blackjack dealers to place the cut card at least forty percent of the way forward. This means that once sixty percent of that single deck of cards have been dealt, the dealer will then shuffle the cards and start all over, leaving forty percent of those cards in the single deck shoe, were never dealt, nor ever seen and no matter how many ten valued cards have not been dealt during the first half of the shoe, you will never get to see them, or play them. Even on an eight deck shoe, the dealer maybe instructed to cut off up to, and sometimes even more than two decks of cards, meaning you only see and are dealt seventy five percent of the cards in that eight deck shoe.

A lot of players complain about a single or double deck blackjack game, because it seems like the dealer is always shuffling, when you have up to seven blackjack players at one table, plus the dealer gets a couple cards every hand, there really is very few cards to go around. It seems, you win one, lose one, and push on an other, then it is time to shuffle and start all over again. How does one get a good winning streak when the dealer shuffles after every third hand?

Some blackjack players will complain that while playing an eight deck shoe, there is never a break, never a time when the dealer is shuffling and a good opportunity to take a minute, stretch your legs, go to the rest room, etc. Those same players may complain that the dealer takes too long to shuffle all of those eight decks, making the breaks between shoes, too long.

In the end, the odds on a single, double, four, six or eight deck shoe seem to be rather the same. Less cards do not make it easier, more cards do not make it harder, it all just seems to come down to whether or not you like to take a lot of short breaks in play, or fewer longer breaks in the action.