ASM, Ploppy and Clumped Deck

[BJGenius007]

Recently I saw a very interesting case. This ploppy only has two bets, either table minimal $25 or $500. Most of the times he bet the table minimal. But if he saw a 2/3 clump or a 4/5 clump, he jump to the $500 in the next hand. By 2/3 clump, I mean there are more than seven cards that are either 2 or 3 in a full or almost-full table. So it is easy for him to spot the pattern. I know he is not counting because it only happened once that TC is also high and both of us had our max bet out. Most of the time it happened on negative count so I bet minimal while he bet $500. The result is astonishing for him. Almost following the 2/3 clumps and 4/5 clumps, table will get face card clump (60% to 75% of cards on the table were 10). Many times the ploppy got 20 or BJ. Or the dealer bust because of the high concentration of tens. He could do better though, I see, after 7/8 clump, the chance to get face card clump is also high. In general, the ASM like to group 2/3 together, 4/5 together, 7/8 together and face cards together if it enters some clumping mode.

Of the three casinos I often visited, this one seems to turn on ASM clumping all the time or at least 66%. The other one never did such thing, so it is like playing hand-shuffled over there. The third one falls in between. Another observation, I see the pit boss is not bothered by his spread. And in the end, the guy won a cool $4K in 40 minutes and walked away without tipping the dealer. Better than me because I only had one TC spike the time he was in.

[Norm]

Meaningless.

[BJGenius007]

Meaningless.

However, over the long period of time I do conclude that clumped only cut my ev slightly. But is it possible to exploit such clumping? I know when it happened, I won my minimal bet most of the times.

[Norm]

I'm tempted to add clumping to the censored words list.

[ohbehave]

Yea raise your bet in high TC clumps oops sorry Norm I used the C word

[BugsySeagull]

Is it good cover to talk about clumping at the table?

[Three]

But is it possible to exploit such clumping?

I know one ploppy that would say yes. LOL
I guess he is smarter than a genius.

[BJGenius007]

I know one ploppy that would say yes. LOL
I guess he is smarter than a genius.

I hope to see him again. Obviously he is doing this often and has been successful so far. IMO clumping hurts the Basic Strategy players the most, especially doubling on 11/10 because only two non-face cards can make 11/10 and the players have less chance to get a 10 in that zone.

[bjarg]

This ploppy only has two bets, either table minimal $25 or $500.

I cant believe that after all this time you still dont realize that you are the ploppy.

[Norm]

We seem to have a clump of clumping nonsense.

[Three]

Obviously he is doing this often and has been successful so far

Ploppy thinking. He won once he must do it all the time. What happened to you. You think like the classic ploppy now. I only had one store were the ASM results made me suspicious. It is the only store that that chose to get rid of their ASM's. I guess they cheated me out of so much they decided they didn't need money anymore. One thing I have learned from many decades of casino play is you play long enough you will see it all. The worst clumping I see is on the hand shuffled games. The clumps take many many shuffles to disappear much of the time. As for T clumps, they are 1/4 of the deck. I know it is hard not to have T clumps so I don't even notice them because they are expected. A lack of T clumps would be more suspicious than anything else.

This is human nature. You will play and never notice intentionally clumped cards but the minute someone puts the idea in your head you note when it happens and believe it is happening more often even if the frequency was cut in half. Once you start thinking about it you increase the significance of what you see. Almost every shoe will have some non-T ranks clumped. You start including 2 ranks and calling that a clump and it happens a lot. Add any 2 non-T ranks and it becomes unnatural not to have the clumps. Of course the T clumps are common place and expected always. So what do you think is unusual? What you are describing is what one would expect.

[bjarg]

I love it when people talk about clumping like something extraordinary.
Only an idiot would fail to realize that clumping IS IN FACT A PART OF RANDOMNESS.

[BJGenius007]

I love it when people talk about clumping like something extraordinary.
Only an idiot would fail to realize that clumping IS IN FACT A PART OF RANDOMNESS.

I am not convinced. I have only one countermeasure against clumping. If I see 2/3 or 4/5 clumps early in a shoe, I will declare the shoe is clumped and cut my spread in half (9 to 1 instead of 18 to 1) throughout the shoe. By enforcing such a rule, I have not had any bad loss in the past 10 weeks.