Let’s talk about penetration again, breaking it down to the beginner’s level. Why does penetration matter? Is it important for card counters and non-counters alike? How do you tell what “good” penetration is?

To start out, let’s get something clear. Players themselves do not cut cards out of play. A player will make his or her cut, but then the dealer always takes the yellow card and cuts the end of the shoe out of play. Where he or she makes THAT cut is what establishes the penetration percentage. And this can range from half the deck or less to more than half the entire shoe, all depending on the dealer and the casino.

If a dealer yellow card’s the shoe two decks from the back of an eight-deck shoe, you’ve established a 75% penetration, because 25% of the cards are taken out of the equation. Six decks remain, and those are the cards in play for the coming hands. This cut is always made at the end of the shoe, not the beginning. That doesn’t really matter, but just as a point of clarification.

The penetration is of general concern only to card counters and shuffle trackers, the former being much more common. The fewer cards there are in a deck, the greater advantage the card counter has against the casino. It’s specifically for this reason, too, that you’ve started to see continuous shufflers being introduced with more regularity into casino play.

But if you’re just learning how to count, and you’re at home practicing for hours and hours at a time, getting your rhythm and your confidence, so you can walk into a casino and flow through the game while looking like you’re just a regular player, the last thing you really need to worry about this step is what the penetration is. There’ll be a time down the road to play closer attention to that.