Bacc Pairs, Burn Cards, and Probabilities
March 27th, 2022 at 12:02:24 PM
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Hi All,
I've been banging my head against this problem for a while, and doing some digging in these forums and elsewhere for an answer. I know the general consensus when it comes to counting the Pairs wager in Baccarat is "Don't", it's not something you can't pull the trigger on often enough to make it worth it. I've been working on trying to figure out how the burn cards factor into any probabilities, I've seen some places treat them the same as any unseen cards in the game (ie. the portion of the deck behind the cut card). I'm wondering if there is a way to factor them in at the start. If it's a Queen that comes out, that's 10 cards being burned. That cuts significantly into the amount of possible combinations left to create the pairs that are being looked for, and any causing a variance between House Advantage and Player Advantage that could potentially create a false trigger of when to make the bet. What is the effect on a single card, or multiple cards when calculating House Advantage, how are burn cards accounted for? Or are there simply to many variables to have an easy "each unseen card changes HA by 0.02%". There's no predicting from what 'pile' the burned cards came from, aside and I'm hoping to find a way to better incorporate these unknowns.
Thanks in advance, this isn't something I've seen much on and it's been beating me up trying to figure it out.
I've been banging my head against this problem for a while, and doing some digging in these forums and elsewhere for an answer. I know the general consensus when it comes to counting the Pairs wager in Baccarat is "Don't", it's not something you can't pull the trigger on often enough to make it worth it. I've been working on trying to figure out how the burn cards factor into any probabilities, I've seen some places treat them the same as any unseen cards in the game (ie. the portion of the deck behind the cut card). I'm wondering if there is a way to factor them in at the start. If it's a Queen that comes out, that's 10 cards being burned. That cuts significantly into the amount of possible combinations left to create the pairs that are being looked for, and any causing a variance between House Advantage and Player Advantage that could potentially create a false trigger of when to make the bet. What is the effect on a single card, or multiple cards when calculating House Advantage, how are burn cards accounted for? Or are there simply to many variables to have an easy "each unseen card changes HA by 0.02%". There's no predicting from what 'pile' the burned cards came from, aside and I'm hoping to find a way to better incorporate these unknowns.
Thanks in advance, this isn't something I've seen much on and it's been beating me up trying to figure it out.
March 27th, 2022 at 12:26:50 PM
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If you don't see what the burned cards are, then treat them as if they are still in the deck. A particular card is equally likely to be in any position in the shoe, whether it's the first burned card or the 17th card from the end of the shoe.
Another way to look at it: if there's a certain point in the shoe where it is reshuffled, put the burned cards back into the deck below that point. Would this change the game significantly?
In theory, the number of burned cards could have an effect, but a number of people, myself included, have done tests with various positions in the shoe (for example, if you start 7/8 of the way through an 8-deck shoe, this is the same as burning the first 364 cards), and didn't detect anything more than a miniscule advantage either way. I doubt that removing up to 11 cards from the top is going to matter.
Another way to look at it: if there's a certain point in the shoe where it is reshuffled, put the burned cards back into the deck below that point. Would this change the game significantly?
In theory, the number of burned cards could have an effect, but a number of people, myself included, have done tests with various positions in the shoe (for example, if you start 7/8 of the way through an 8-deck shoe, this is the same as burning the first 364 cards), and didn't detect anything more than a miniscule advantage either way. I doubt that removing up to 11 cards from the top is going to matter.
