Mississippi Stud
"Muffy?"Quote: sodawater"In London, April is a spring month."
Quote: sodawater"In London, April is a spring month."
James Bond? Pierce Brosnan arriving in Moscow?
Quote: teliotUse a lot of cover.
I think this is terrible advice.
Take the money while it's there. It won't be there forever.
If you play 3x3x3 on 72o knowing a river 7, you will burn out the game very fast. But what do I know? I've never actually played against the game. But I have advised casinos on defending it.Quote: AxiomOfChoiceI think this is terrible advice.
Take the money while it's there. It won't be there forever.
Quote: teliotIf you play 3x3x3 on 72o knowing a river 7, you will burn out the game very fast.
Seeing the river card is rare. Every casino that I've ever been in removes the cards from the shuffler in 1 clump and fans them from dealer's left to right (so the bottom card in the clump becomes 3rd street)
Assuming that you can only ever see 3rd street, and only some of the time, I think that almost no cover is warranted. Perhaps in the cases where you have no high cards in your hand, but will spike a middle pair on 3rd, a 1x bet is warranted. I would not call that "lots of cover".
(Of course, you have to see the card often enough that the game is profitable!)
Thanks. I appreciate the insights.Quote: AxiomOfChoiceSeeing the river card is rare. Every casino that I've ever been in removes the cards from the shuffler in 1 clump and fans them from dealer's left to right (so the bottom card in the clump becomes 3rd street)
Assuming that you can only ever see 3rd street, and only some of the time, I think that almost no cover is warranted. Perhaps in the cases where you have no high cards in your hand, but will spike a middle pair on 3rd, a 1x bet is warranted. I would not call that "lots of cover".
(Of course, you have to see the card often enough that the game is profitable!)
Quote: teliotIf you play 3x3x3 on 72o knowing a river 7, you will burn out the game very fast. But what do I know? I've never actually played against the game. But I have advised casinos on defending it.
If you saw how some other people play the game, I don't think you'd be surprised at nobody noticing you going 3x3x3 on anything. And if you fold a good hand, they don't flip the cards over so nobody is the wiser.
Quote: Mission146Just look up information about hole-carding or edge-sorting it.
And infrared contact lens.
Quote: teliotThanks. I appreciate the insights.
Sarcasm not withstanding, "lots of cover" is just paranoia talking.
My turn to quote (or possibly misquote, since it's from memory) Grosjean: "My idea of cover is eating my hard 17". And then he goes on to tell stories where he won't even do that.
Quote: Mission146Just look up information about hole-carding or edge-sorting it.
Thanks, will do. I appreciate the other posts that were serious as well.
Grosjean also tells a story of a nightmare he had where he was holding (I think) K5o in Mississippi Stud and knew the River was a King, but then suddenly he was playing blackjack.Quote: AxiomOfChoiceSarcasm not withstanding, "lots of cover" is just paranoia talking.
My turn to quote (or possibly misquote, since it's from memory) Grosjean: "My idea of cover is eating my hard 17". And then he goes on to tell stories where he won't even do that.
There was a story of Russo (I think) saying something like "Hit the damn hand" when his partner was signalling him to stand for cover reasons. Russo had hard 19 and he knew the dealer's total was 20. I probably got this story wrong, but the point is your point.
Quote: teliotGrosjean also tells a story of a nightmare he had where he was holding (I think) K5o in Mississippi Stud and knew the River was a King, but then suddenly he was playing blackjack.
Is that in CAA? I really want a copy of that book...
I'm not going to argue with you that you need lots of cover if you can see the last card. I also think that this is pretty rare, and it's much more likely to be able to see 3rd street, and in that situation I think that minimal cover is sufficient.
Yes. It's a funny story. I got it mostly right. Page 390:Quote: AxiomOfChoiceIs that in CAA? I really want a copy of that book...
"I had this weird dream: I was in the middle of a Mississippi Stud game, and I had Kd3s with a Kc in front of the dealer. Then suddenly it was a blackjack table, and I was angry. Other players were running around the casino giving away money, but not to me. I was just about to figure out a way to get some, and then I woke up."
Quote: IbeatyouracesI've played a first street, second street, third street and even a first and third street game. I'm sure others have had better opportunities.
Was it a hand-dealt game?
I am trying to imagine a way that a dealer could possibly flash the top card while taking a pile of 3 cards out of an automatic shuffler. I am clearly not creative enough.
Quote: IbeatyouracesNot hand dealt. You'll figure it out.
I won't. I was not at all joking when I said that I'm not creative enough.
(I mean, ok, I can imagine ways, but they all involve blatant cheating, and I assume that we are not talking about that)
Quote: AxiomOfChoiceI won't. I was not at all joking when I said that I'm not creative enough.
(I mean, ok, I can imagine ways, but they all involve blatant cheating, and I assume that we are not talking about that)
I don't get it either. When I play the dealer has a red card on the machine. They grab the 3 cards with the red card on the bottom. They put the 3+red on the felt and then slide each one into position. I can't possibly see where they would flash any of the cards.
Mississippi Stud has gained national attention in the media recently, with some high profile cheating cases (not just hole-carding). It is vulnerable to everything. You could probably beat MS by sneezing at just the right time. Casinos have been crushed by APs for several years on the game. The collective buzz is out there, like 3CP back in 2003.Quote: IbeatyouracesAnd you can thank guys like Eliot, but not necessary him, for this.
Quote: teliotMississippi Stud has gained national attention in the media recently, with some high profile cheating cases (not just hole-carding). It is vulnerable to everything. You could probably beat MS by sneezing at just the right time.
If I can suggest a title for the paper: "Expectation inflation by sternutation."
What I am enjoying about this thread is that APs here are willing to talk about their knowledge and experiences, rather than the hushed "don't mention it - they're watching" of other paranoid (pay!) message boards. It is very refreshing. Honestly, very few casinos even know such boards exist, let alone have time to search them for information less useless than the "floating advantage", I-18 or "cut-card effect."Quote: anonimussGrosjeans analysis was out for years in CAA before the casinos (most) realized what a huge edge APs could generate. Sharp APs well before Grosjeans analysis looked at the rules of the game the same day they were released and realized if you could fold one unit or bet ten units getting odds the game was the best one out there by far playing with information.
Quote: IbeatyouracesAnd you can thank guys like Eliot, but not necessary him, for this.
So when people mention hole carding they are generally talking about hand dealt games? In PA we just got MS stud about 18 months ago so it is all new to me. They way they do it is the only way that I have ever known.
There are ways of hole-carding shoes as well, but it is mostly pitch.Quote: GWAESo when people mention hole carding they are generally talking about hand dealt games?
Quote: anonimussGrosjeans analysis was out for years in CAA before the casinos (most) realized what a huge edge APs could generate. Sharp APs well before Grosjeans analysis looked at the rules of the game the same day they were released and realized if you could fold one unit or bet ten units getting odds the game was the best one out there by far playing with information.
This is the part that I don't get. The big casinos are run by multi-billion dollar corporations. Why not just hire one math / computer guy (or girl, of course), pay the person a few hundred thousand per year, and have them answer questions like "how much of an edge does the player have on this game if they see the bottom card?".
These are really not very difficult questions to answer. I can understand a place like the El Cortez not wanting to pay someone for something like that, but a corporation like MGM or CET? This should be a no-brainer. The money is nothing to them.
There are just a few guys on the planet who have worked directly with the casino industry who can do this type of analysis. Stephen How did this a bit, but now he is mostly an AP. Mike can do this, but he got burned by Sands. Charles Mousseau does this a bit when he helps game developers. Bill Zender gets some good numbers. I think Stacey may have done this a couple of times. Who else? Name some names, I don't know who these people are. That said, the work is small for this mathematician. It really is more of a job for a consultant than a full time employee.Quote: AxiomOfChoiceThis is the part that I don't get. The big casinos are run by multi-billion dollar corporations. Why not just hire one math / computer guy (or girl, of course), pay the person a few hundred thousand per year, and have them answer questions like "how much of an edge does the player have on this game if they see the bottom card?".
These are really not very difficult questions to answer. I can understand a place like the El Cortez not wanting to pay someone for something like that, but a corporation like MGM or CET? This should be a no-brainer. The money is nothing to them.
It is false that "the money is nothing to them." There are budgets for various departments, like any business. Money has to be allocated to create a new position, and there are many other positions and projects that are queued up that may be more important.
Quote: teliotThere are about 3 guys on the planet who have worked directly with casinos who can do this math. Stephen How did this a bit, but now he is mostly an AP. Mike can do this, but he got burned by Sands. Who else? Name some names, I don't know who these people are.
Why do they need someone who has worked directly with casinos? The math is easy. Any new grad with a math and computer science degree from a good school (or even someone smart from a not-so-good-school) can do it. My question is, why don't they just hire someone? It doesn't need to be someone famous. Just a smart person with a background in mathematics and computer science.
Offer pay and benefits that are competitive with Microsoft, Google, and Facebook, and you will get someone smart. That is the key -- if you offer $100k per year, you will get a someone who is not good enough to get a job at any of these places, but if you offer $300k you will get someone good. I probably know over 100 people (including myself) who are capable of doing this work (friends, co-workers, former classmates). This is much, much less challenging than the work that I do on a daily basis. And it's not like they need a whole team. One person is probably enough.
The job requires computer programming skills, a good knowledge of probability and statistics, and understanding of most casino games and an understanding of advanced advantage play. Then they need to be familiar with the particulars of programming poker-style proprietary games, blackjack, baccarat, side bets and any other game that may be introduced, each of which has tricks. They need to understand the particular programming required for hole-card, edge sorting (and card marking), collusion, card counting and other methods (like loss rebates), applied to any random game. They should also know how to analyze a variety of non-table-game specific advantage plays. They should also be able to think outside the box to identify issues that the casino may not be aware of (that's his job, after all). You would want the guy to be able to do that too. It requires considerably more background than you state. If you find a suitable candidate, how can you tell if he can really do this and that his numbers are correct? He is probably going to want to be an AP anyway (I get asked that question all the time by people in the industry).Quote: AxiomOfChoiceWhy do they need someone who has worked directly with casinos? The math is easy. Any new grad with a math and computer science degree from a good school (or even someone smart from a not-so-good-school) can do it. My question is, why don't they just hire someone? It doesn't need to be someone famous. Just a smart person with a background in mathematics and computer science.
Offer pay and benefits that are competitive with Microsoft, Google, and Facebook, and you will get someone smart. That is the key -- if you offer $100k per year, you will get a someone who is not good enough to get a job at any of these places, but if you offer $300k you will get someone good. I probably know over 100 people (including myself) who are capable of doing this work (friends, co-workers, former classmates). This is much, much less challenging than the work that I do on a daily basis. And it's not like they need a whole team. One person is probably enough.
Quote: teliotThe job requires computer programming skills, a good knowledge of probability and statistics, and understanding of most casino games and an understanding of advanced advantage play. Then they need to be familiar with the particulars of programming poker-style proprietary games, blackjack, baccarat, side bets and any other game that may be introduced, each of which has tricks. They need to understand the particular programming required for hole-card, edge sorting (and card marking), collusion, card counting and other methods (like loss rebates), applied to any random game. They should also know how to analyze a variety of non-table-game specific advantage plays. They should also be able to think outside the box to identify issues that the casino may not be aware of (that's his job, after all). You would want the guy to be able to do that too. It requires considerably more background than you state. If you find this guy, he is probably going to want to be an AP anyway (I get asked that question all the time by people in the industry).
I think you are stating the requirements for a job that are different than the one that I described. I'm just talking about the casino being able to answer a question like "what is the player's edge if he sees the bottom card", or "what is the player's edge if he can see the other players' cards". This is not a difficult problem for someone with a background in mathematics and computer science to solve. I have to implement solutions to more difficult problems than this on a day-to-day basis. The "tricks" that you are talking about are standard stuff to anyone who does this for a living. We all know how to use hash tables to make lookups faster and equivalence classes to reduce the amount of computation that we need to do. Do you really think that a good professional software engineer can't handle these things? What do you think we do all day?
Do you think what you describe here is really a full time job? And no, a fresh off the street software developer would not have a clue if he had no prior gaming experience. I don't think you know this side of the industry at all. But you're always welcome to join the dark side. We have cookies.Quote: AxiomOfChoiceI think you are stating the requirements for a job that are different than the one that I described. I'm just talking about the casino being able to answer a question like "what is the player's edge if he sees the bottom card", or "what is the player's edge if he can see the other players' cards". This is not a difficult problem for someone with a background in mathematics and computer science to solve.
Quote: AxiomOfChoiceI think you are stating the requirements for a job that are different than the one that I described. I'm just talking about the casino being able to answer a question like "what is the player's edge if he sees the bottom card", or "what is the player's edge if he can see the other players' cards". This is not a difficult problem for someone with a background in mathematics and computer science to solve. I have to implement solutions to more difficult problems than this on a day-to-day basis. The "tricks" that you are talking about are standard stuff to anyone who does this for a living. We all know how to use hash tables to make lookups faster and equivalence classes to reduce the amount of computation that we need to do. Do you really think that a good professional software engineer can't handle these things? What do you think we do all day?
It's the "doing it all day" issue that explains why casinos don't have mathematicians on staff. If you were an operator, consider how often you might have the sort of question like you asked. It's not all the time, nowhere close, and the answer is the same regardless of where you work. Plus, with people like Mike and Eliot and Stephen giving away the answers for free over the Internet, there's not much excuse to keep someone on staff to answer them. Even if you had a particular question that couldn't be found on Google or WoO, hiring a math consultant to answer those questions whenever you had them would be far, far cheaper than keeping someone on staff.
I've been doing this a while, and I've only really come across a few dozen different game protection issues for which math analysis would be interesting. It's far more frequent that you'll see a botched promotion where game rules change, like "all blackjacks pay 2-1" or something. I recall a casino running a promo where they made suited blackjacks pay 2-1. That adds about 0.57% to the game making it basically break-even. They were wondering why their numbers didn't match and why they weren't making money, and it was because they had intended to make only suited blackjacks in spades pay 2-1 (which only adds about 0.14%). It wasn't a math question -- the math was already done -- it was a question of not using the numbers properly. Granted, having a mathematician on staff would have caught that, but how often does a casino change rules like that?
Quote: teliotDo you think what you describe here is really a full time job? And no, a fresh off the street software developer would not have a clue if he had no prior gaming experience.
We may be talking about different skill levels of software engineers. I am well aware that there are some bad software people out there; I have heard some horror stories (you would not believe some of them)
But somebody good who also has a background in math wouldn't have a problem with it. These questions aren't really specific to gaming; they are just math problems. "Find the strategy that maximizes expectation" is just math.
Quote:I don't think you know this side of the industry at all. But you're always welcome to join the dark side. We have cookies.
How much does it pay?
Quote: teliotWhat I am enjoying about this thread is that APs here are willing to talk about their knowledge and experiences, rather than the hushed "don't mention it - they're watching" of other paranoid (pay!) message boards. It is very refreshing. Honestly, very few casinos even know such boards exist, let alone have time to search them for information less useless than the "floating advantage", I-18 or "cut-card effect."
It is refreshing. While I agree that some things are better off not discussed on a public forum, the majority of this cloak and dagger nonsense is comical. Sorry fellow APs, nobody's guarding the nuclear football here.
On a related subject, disparaging someone for working for the "dark side" is misguided and mean spirited. Perhaps these successful APs would like to take said "traitor" off the job by chipping in and sending him a monthly stipend. I didn't think so.
Quote: MathExtremistGranted, having a mathematician on staff would have caught that, but how often does a casino change rules like that?
How much more often could they run promos to bring people (money) in if they had somebody to verify they were not doing something detrimental?
Quote: GWAESo when people mention hole carding they are generally talking about hand dealt games? In PA we just got MS stud about 18 months ago so it is all new to me. They way they do it is the only way that I have ever known.
Holecarding became famous for the masses with the advent of three card poker and the Shufflemaster machines. Dealers had to lift the cards over a little lip creating a potential opportunity there while other dealers developed a little upward swoop with the cards just before placing them on the table in front of them. Some dealers would take the cards out of the machine and hold them in the air all the way until they were in front of them then drop them onto the table, sometimes with anything from a slight tilt to a 45 degree angle as well. Some dealers held the front of the cards down while removing them from the machine to conceal them while at the same time lifting the back edge up facing the machine allowing a spotter sitting in the last seat behind the machine to get the card instead of the traditional first base seat. Holecarding always favored the shorter spotters. Taller players could slouch or push their chairs back creating a better angle but creating more distance and possibly hindering their accuracy. Some spotters just had incredible eyesight and could catch anything. After holecarding became endemic to the game dealers were taught to come flat out of the Shufflemaster, barely clearing the lip, and drop the cards straight down to the table in front of the machine before sliding the cards over. Some dealers are not gettable when they just start their shift but change their motions later in their shift as the wrist/arm begins to hurt from the repetitive motion and they change it. None of this has been a secret to casinos for quite a while now. Due to a combination of laziness and stupidity on the part of the pits opportunities still exist, however, and will continue to do so. The casinos went to flush mounted shuffling machines to combat the over the lip read on the old machines yet some dealers still tip the cards up when taking them out of these machines. If a casino hasn't been hit in a while there will be playable games again after the passage of time. If you act and look like you're getting the cards, they'll adjust. If you're slick, you can hammer them for quite a while without repercussions. It's easy to explain unusual plays with a little creativity. That, however, is proprietary.
