Deck Penetration

Deck penetration is the term used to refer to the number of cards that have been dealt in relation to the number of cards that remain in the shoe. Penetration is usually expressed as the percentage of the deck already dealt.

For example if you are playing with a single deck of 52 cards and 34 of these have been dealt, the deck penetration would be described as 65%.

Deck penetration is extremely important to card counters, but not of anywhere near as much importance to basic strategy players. Unless the dealer is outright cheating, or indulging in preferential shuffling thinking that plenty of 10- value cards remain in the deck, the cards should be in a random order after each shuffle.

The bottom line is that, if the player is not counting down the deck and there’s no preferential shuffling, there is no advantage to the basic strategy player if the dealer were to allow 20% penetration, then shuffle, or plunge on to the 90% penetration level.

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