Mississippi Stud - Playing Two Hands?

I'm reading up on Mississippi Stud and I plan on playing for the first time tonight. I'm familiar with the correct strategy at this point.

Am I screwing myself if I play 2 hands simultaneously (my wife plays the second hand)? We do this in Three Card Poker and Blackjack, but I feel like Mississippi is different as we are sharing 3 community cards to make our hand.

When I think about it...I feel like the chances of us both making hands sharing the same community cards would be tougher than say both our hands beating the dealer in Blackjack.

Am I overthinking this?

Thanks for any insight.

Quote: folman

I'm reading up on Mississippi Stud and I plan on playing for the first time tonight. I'm familiar with the correct strategy at this point.

Am I screwing myself if I play 2 hands simultaneously (my wife plays the second hand)? We do this in Three Card Poker and Blackjack, but I feel like Mississippi is different as we are sharing 3 community cards to make our hand.

When I think about it...I feel like the chances of us both making hands sharing the same community cards would be tougher than say both our hands beating the dealer in Blackjack.

Am I overthinking this?

Thanks for any insight.

Welcome to the forum, folman. Good question.

My personal.opinion, without the math skills to prove it, is that you will have a slight advantage playing two hands over one, assuming you both have learned optimal strategy, and assuming you are able to discretely see each other's cards .

I'm not really encouraging you to cheat, but in a practical way, people do see each other's cards in that table configuration, so you might as well use that information to make informed decisions on marginal plays.

When your hands are similar, two cards you may need to complete your hand are used up in hers. This could of course be helpful if the house hand works with both, but usually it makes your hand worth slightly less until you know more.

Conversely, if your hands are dissimilar, your chances as two - handed are slightly better that one will work with the dealer's hand, and help dampen the variance of only playing one (by having an extra shot at benefiting from the dealer's hand).

I would think more than 95% of your hands would play the same as if you were playing only one, but the very marginal hands would be pushed in one direction or the other with that knowledge. I think most of your advantage will be in folding marginal hands with one or two cards used up by your wife (and vice versa, as in all of this).

My very wild estimate is you might gain .3 to .5% on the HE, which is still solidly in favor of the house if my estimate is correct.

This all weighs against the fact that , if you're planning to play at table minumums, it's twice as expensive to play. If you were going to ante at twice table minimum or more anyway, and have the bankroll to ride out the variance of this game (too high for my taste, but a lot of people love it), then I definitely would spread that br over 2 hands.

Anybody else with better math or solid guidance want to weigh in? Maybe even have some access to the game.protection report? Think I'll check teliot's stuff, see if he did something on this.

In Mississippi Stud, the action of the other players has no effect on your own hand. While you'll have some co-variance by playing two hands, that's no reason not to do so.

Furthermore, if you can see your wife's hole cards, you can use that information to improve the play of your hand. For example, if you're dealt a pair of 3's, Basic Strategy is to bet 3x on 3rd Street. However, if you see that your wife has a 3 also, then you should bet only 1x on 3rd; if instead she also has a pair of 3's, then you should fold both hands. For more information on playing Mississippi Stud with information, see How's excellent articles on his website at this URL:

https://discountgambling.net/category/mississippi-stud/

Hope this helps!

Dog Hand

Yeah, teliot references Stephen How's work heavily. Good link.

Teliot discusses collusion at some length himself, here:

https://www.888casino.com/blog/novelty-games/mississippi-stud-collusion

The surprising part to me, is that even 2 cards helps a lot. The chart he provides shows about a 1.5% gain on knowing just 2 other cards. But then, you're starting at 4.91% HE, so that's pretty rough. Knowing a 2nd hand, with correct adjustments, gets that down to 3.35%. Still kind of high, but more useful than it would seem.

Quote: folman

I'm reading up on Mississippi Stud and I plan on playing for the first time tonight. I'm familiar with the correct strategy at this point.

Am I screwing myself if I play 2 hands simultaneously (my wife plays the second hand)? We do this in Three Card Poker and Blackjack, but I feel like Mississippi is different as we are sharing 3 community cards to make our hand.

When I think about it...I feel like the chances of us both making hands sharing the same community cards would be tougher than say both our hands beating the dealer in Blackjack.

Am I overthinking this?

Thanks for any insight.

If you both use the same strategy as you would otherwise, it's the same thing. Does it matter if you're playing by yourself or if there are 5 other players (assuming the same basic strategy)? No.

Sure, sometimes you may have a situation where you have 7,7 and your wife has 7,5 or whatever and that hurts you, but conversely, your 7,7 is stronger if you know she doesn't have a 7. Also, remember you can win with just the community cards, as there may be a pair of jacks or better on the board -- everyone wins. It all evens out.

Now, if you care to learn a more advanced strategy (idk what that is or how much it'd take away from the HE), you could knock the HE down a tad if you use a more advanced strategy where you take other players' cards into consideration. Like it was said above, if you have a pair and your wife has one of those cards, then your hand isn't as strong. Same applies (to a degree) if you have a flush draw, straight draw, etc.

Playing 2 hands: I believe that the covariance in Miss Stud is not greatly different than the covariance in Blackjack or Three Card Poker. In BJ or 3CP you are comparing your hand to a dealer hand -and if the dealer hand is high-ranking then both of your hands are likely to lose. In Miss Stud, there is no dealer hand to contest in common - just 3 community cards.

I suspect that covariance in Miss Stud largely arises from the appearance of Low cards (2-5) in the community cards. Those cards convert very few losing player hands into winners -so when there are 1 or (especially) 2 or more - Low Cards in the community cards, the House Edge is much, much higher.