Ace is a killer in 1cp

Hi, guys,

First time posting. Thanks for your time : )


I haven't been able to get access to either of Grosjean's books so I don't know if this is well know, but I found out about the following just a couple of days ago ....


Not identifying the hole card being an Ace is very costly. Even if you play correctly it's still a negative ev game.

For example, if you cannot tell the faces apart, play QJ5 agasint face (JQK mix) brings the advantage down from 3.48% to 2.407%.

If further you cannot tell Ace from other small cards (2~T), then the correct play is still to always raise (against A,2~T mix). However, ev drops from +2.407 to -2.427%,

yeah, playing paint/no-paint has a house edge of 2.4%!

Even if you can distinguish the faces, not being able to tell an Ace when it's in the hole still brings you down from +3.48 to roughly -1% !!

Not telling an Ace is the single most costly mistake.

(btw, someone asked somewhere about not bluffing.....play Q32 or better against 2~J, other plays remain the same. The overall ev for that is +0.2408%, barely any advantage at all. This is the 2nd most costly mistake.....the variance is indeed greatly reduced, though, from 3.033 to 2.608, even lower than the ordinary play Q64 (not hole-carding) of 2.68)


In my very limited experience so far, I already had many times not correctly telling an Ace and tasted the bitterness.

It's relatively unlikely that one will not be able to tell an Ace from 6~T. On the other hand, Ace of spades has a huge blob that is pretty tricky at times.

Could this be one of the reasons that many AP have not been able to show a profit?





p.s.
I just did my own combinatorial analysis so I have the numbers. Detailed discussion is welcomed if anyone is interested.

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Quote: Robert215

Could this be one of the reasons that many AP have not been able to show a profit?

As you probably know, the variance of playing "one card poker" is extremely high. One time I was on a cruise and had a clear view every time and still got clobbered. You need to win the bonus payouts (e.g., straight flush, three of a kind) to really get ahead in this game.

Quote: jon

As you probably know, the variance of playing "one card poker" is extremely high. One time I was on a cruise and had a clear view every time and still got clobbered. You need to win the bonus payouts (e.g., straight flush, three of a kind) to really get ahead in this game.

yeah sometimes I really feel like betting on pair plus when I get straight flush once every half an hour.....

... okay in all seriousness, do you have a systematic way to beat this sidebet?

I don't believe it's beatable, and you don't need to let out any details, but I'd be delighted to know there's someone out there exploiting it.

There's a number of possible avenues. The way I did it was scout small joints for hand-shuffled games. There's some carryover in the card order between deals, so you can jack your bet up if you observe many cards that make up part of a bonus hand on the previous round.

Nvm. Deleted. Misread post. Thought we were talking 3cp.

Quote: klimate10

Nvm. Deleted. Misread post. Thought we were talking 3cp.

They are talking about 3cp.

Quote: GBV

There's a number of possible avenues. The way I did it was scout small joints for hand-shuffled games. There's some carryover in the card order between deals, so you can jack your bet up if you observe many cards that make up part of a bonus hand on the previous round.

You're talking about shuffle-tracking, right?

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Quote: Ibeatyouraces

Problem is your bet is made before cards are shuffled and cut unless the place was that stupid.

You don't actually need to see the shuffle. You just need to know they don't break up the card order effectively.

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Quote: Ibeatyouraces

Again, effective only if you bet after. Its like walking up to a hand shuffled bj game without seeing the shuffle and insisting the high cards are up front.

No.

You have information about the card order without seeing the shuffle as long as the procedure is standardized.

Solve by experiment: Place some sequence of cards in some meaningful order. Have someone else shuffle the cards using a standardized shuffle, out of your view. Observe the post-shuffle card order is non-random.

hmm, I never thought about the possibility of shuffle tracking 3cp....the joints I've visited so far don't offer hand shuffling (even when the machine keeps jamming very round @@).

Although hard to quantify, it does seems profitable.

Thanks, GBV!

Yeah, most places use a shuffler. Only places that look truly bankrupt use hand-shuffles.

There's an additional question whether the shufflers actually randomize the cards. By and larger most shuffling machines don't, but discovering what non-randomness exists and how to exploit it is non-trivial.

Some believe that the card order is not broken up properly by the shufflers, which may be a partial explanation why hole-carders lose money with what should be an impressive edge. If this is actually occurring, you could potentially turn any non-randomness to your advantage. I've taken some data on this but not enough to prove anything.

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Quote: Ibeatyouraces

I've seen a brand new unshuffled deck go in and come out completely unorganized.

Yeah, me too. That said, I doubt any effects would be that strong. It might be quite a subtle effect which wouldn't be powerful enough to be noticed by humans in any short space of time., and/or it might be a kind of ordering which isn't intuitively noticeable. Such effects can still meaningfully affect house edge, variance and optimal strategy.

What kind of data have you collected?

I just started to keep track of the bluffing results (my hand not opening vs. dealer bottom card being small). I probably will need at least 3 or 4 months to have statistically significant data.

If one is to consider the non-randomness that might be taken advantage of, then nuances like the number of players might come into play.....there's just so many parameters (unless one is recording the exact cards seen on the felt)...it would be really nice to have the patent document of the current shufflers.

3cp with CSM, only one player vs dealer, after each round the dealer will put the used cards(6 cards) on top of the remaining cards which already in the discard tray. After that the dealer will put the whole deck of cards into CSM, these 6 used cards will be the last few cards that be inserted into CSM.

What is the probability that any of these 6 cards(used in previous round) will be dealt out in next round(one player vs dealer) ?

0.0001 % ?

Quote: ssho88

3cp with CSM, only one player vs dealer, after each round the dealer will put the used cards(6 cards) on top of the remaining cards which already in the discard tray. After that the dealer will put the whole deck of cards into CSM, these 6 used cards will be the last few cards that be inserted into CSM.

What is the probability that any of these 6 cards(used in previous round) will be dealt out in next round(one player vs dealer) ?

0.0001 % ?

I'd say about 54%....

1 - (46/52 * 45/51 * 44/50 * 43/49 * 42/48 * 41/47) = 0.539906683...

For those who don't get the joke, what I'm trying to do here is compute the probability that, given a randomly shuffled deck, any of 6 predetermined cards will be one of the first 6 cards dealt.

The shufflers are fair, and if you don't believe it, then join the conspiracy theorists. In addition, every 3CP game I have played uses 2 decks. So while you are playing with one deck, the other deck is being shuffled. There is ample time for the deck to be completely randomized.

(My probability calc is probably off, as I don't actually do these kind of exercise that often. But what I was going for as the probability of NOT getting any of those six cards, and subtracting from 1, which is a common probability trick.

Quote: AcesAndEights

I'd say about 54%....

1 - (46/52 * 45/51 * 44/50 * 43/49 * 42/48 * 41/47) = 0.539906683...

For those who don't get the joke, what I'm trying to do here is compute the probability that, given a randomly shuffled deck, any of 6 predetermined cards will be one of the first 6 cards dealt.

The shufflers are fair, and if you don't believe it, then join the conspiracy theorists. In addition, every 3CP game I have played uses 2 decks. So while you are playing with one deck, the other deck is being shuffled. There is ample time for the deck to be completely randomized.

(My probability calc is probably off, as I don't actually do these kind of exercise that often. But what I was going for as the probability of NOT getting any of those six cards, and subtracting from 1, which is a common probability trick.

I don't believe that CSM can randomly shuffle the deck !

Quote: ssho88

I don't believe that CSM can randomly shuffle the deck !

Well then go out and exploit it! After a round without any big cards (A/K), bet big. There should be a great possibility for an edge if the game is as non-random as you describe. Probably have to determine just how non-random the shuffle is, though, to work out a specific strategy.