Getting Started

Skilled blackjack players however, are never satisfied with today's winning techniques. They are constantly developing and testing new techniques to gain the advantage either in the online casino or the brick and mortar one. John May, an advantage player who makes his living beating the casinos at their own game, summarizes these new techniques that he and other pros use in his book "Get The Edge at Blackjack". I will give you a brief overview of some of these techniques; for more details I highly recommend May's book.
Card Steering
This is not a new technique but it requires a team of highly skilled players to pull it off. In fact, this technique was recently covered in a gaming protection seminar given for casino industry security personnel that I attended. Basically a team of players take over a blackjack table. The player at first base is trained to cut a specific number of cards from the back of the shoe (say 25 cards). He could do this consistently every time. The rest of his team would note what the bottom card of the shoe was (requires a careless dealer). This last card would now be the 25th card out of the shoe. The team of players would play their hands such that they knew beforehand which player would get that 25th card. If the 25th card were an ace or ten-value card that player would make a very large bet. This technique is powerful because if you know your first card is an ace, you would have a 50% edge over the casino, and if it were a 10, the player would have 13% edge.
Card Sequencing
This technique involves memorizing a key card that goes into the discard tray before an ace, and then watching for the appearance of the key card after the shuffle knowing that when it appears the ace will not be far behind. Players who use card sequencing have to be selective about the dealer. They basically look for dealers that shuffle the same way every time since cards that are riffled perfectly will generally remain in the same order in close proximity. Once a card sequencer has memorized the key card and it appears on the table, he will spread to two or three hands with big bets to ensure that he is dealt the ace. The very good card sequencers can memorize 4 or more key cards in a shoe and their associated aces.
Shadow Play
This technique involves visually observing flashed cards without the dealer's knowledge (therefore it is not cheating). Sometimes dealers will inadvertently flash a card when they riffle or strip the cards too high off the table. Alert players seated in the third base seat are trained to note the card and it's location in the pack of cards. Sometimes this requires the player to sink low in his seat. By knowing when the flashed card will appear out of the shoe, the shadow player can adjust his betting and playing strategy accordingly. Shadow players who are very good can often memorize the location of several cards. This technique can give the player a big edge so much so that often players use illegal methods to observe a flashed card. At a casino industry conference last year I learned about a team of players who pulled off the following scam. One player had a tiny video camera in the button of his suit jacket (fiber optic technology was used) and while the dealer was shuffling he placed his arm directly on the table and positioned the camera so that the cards could be seen by the camera while the dealer shuffled the cards. The information was transmitted by satellite to a confederate who was in a truck that had a satellite dish. The confederate used high tech video equipment to rewind the tape and watch the dealers shuffle in very, very slow motion (the cards were literally floating in the air as they were being shuffled) so that he could literally see the sequence of each card in the pack. He radioed his partner at the table (through a tiny earpiece) what the sequence of the cards would be as they were dealt from the shoe. These guys won several hundreds of thousands of dollars before the casinos finally figured out their scam.
Big Player
This is a modification of the technique made famous by legendary blackjack player Ken Uston. Teams use several spotters to back count several blackjack tables. Whenever the count goes positive, the spotter signals the big player into a positive shoe. The big player then makes large bets when the edge is in his favor. There are other techniques covered by May in his book such as exploiting the Over/Under side bet, forcing the dealer into making mistakes, and stacking the cards before they go into the discard tray. Certainly these techniques are not for the average player. And casinos are not sitting still and doing nothing about this. For example, many casinos now have rules that do not allow players to enter mid-shoe or players must place the cut card at least one deck into the pack or they are using continuous shuffling machines that reshuffle the cards after each round. But still, advantage players continue to look for ways to exploit the game of blackjack and in fact May describes how the pros have already figured out a way to beat the new continuous shufflers.