Data by Penetration (SCORE Charts)

How much does penetration matter?

Depth refers to a specific point in the shoe. Penetration refers to all depths up to that point. Most counters do not fully realize how much penetration interacts with everything we do.

Penetration is the percentage of cards dealt before the dealer shuffles. In Blackjack shoe games, the dealer usually deals to a cut card. In single-deck games, the dealer often deals a fixed number of rounds depending on the number of players. In all cases, the deeper the penetration the better for the card counter as more information is known and a better range of counts is available. These charts are different from the previous charts as they display overall results depending on penetration. That is, they do not show the advantage at a particular depth, but the advantage of all hands when the dealer deals to a specific penetration. On the x-axis you will see numbers from 130 to 26. This means that 130 to 26 cards are behind the cut card. 26 indicates that the penetration is 5.5 out of 6 decks.

This chart displays the player advantage for 130 to 26 cards cut off for a six-deck game using Hi-Lo and bets from 1 to 12 units. We can see that the advantage at 130 cards (2.5 decks cut off) is about .64% and this increases gradually to 1.67% at 26 cards.

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 © 2009 Norman Wattenberger