3-Card Poker After 12 known cards.

Our Casino where I live offers 3 Card poker with 5-4-1 ante payout, 40-30-6-4-1 Pairsbet-payout, with dealer opening on Q or better. the table uses 1 deck, and will reshuffle every other hand if there are less then 4 players at the table.

After I ran some simulations on my own created Excel Spread sheet, it seems that after 12 known cards have been played, I can get a theoretical edge on the pairsbet. It seems on about 70-80 of 800 hands I get a 1.5%-2% average edge in the pairs bet. Is my excel spread sheet set up incorrectly? It seems to me if i could identify the positive EV positions I could (given a large enough pairsbet bet) be positive EV overall.

From what I have looked at the edge arises when the first twelve cards are concentrated in a few ranks and suits, i.e, the first twelve cards are 3 Kings (club,diamond,heart), 3 Aces (club,diamond,heart), Two 9's (club,diamond), and a 8 (club), 4(heart), and 3(diamond). My spreadsheet gives me a 6.8% edge in this position.


Thanks for any help in advance.

I have no idea why any casino would do this. It is beyond dumb from a game protection standpoint.

Not checking your numbers, but you are almost certainly correct that the PP can be beat. Likewise, the main game can be counted and your playing strategy adjusted accordingly.

I was told about the rule from someone who has no need to lie about it, I am certainly going to go check it out as it seemed insane to me as well. I basically never gamble though, so I thought I might have been missing something obvious due to my naivety.

Thanks for your reply.

Zip your lip. Post no more. Go out and make money.

Quote: DeMango

Zip your lip. Post no more. Go out and make money.

I'm not going to analyze this and post it on apheat, if that was any part of your concern.

Thank you, it was.