Three Card Sabotage
Just got back from a business trip in Biloxi and my wife and I had a ton of fun playing this game. It was at the Golden Nugget. The felt and rack card said Three Card Sabotage but the flag on the table said Three Card Poker. I was calling it "Three Card Poker on steroids". Basically 3CP but the dealer gets 4 cards. After the dealer makes his hand there are 2 sabotage cards that will remove any matching cards from the dealers hand. The dealer always qualifies and the players can bet 1x or 2x the ante on the Play circle. The ante bonuses were much better than 3CP as well. I think these were the only differences. The sabotage cards really are what made the game fun. I was surprised at how often the dealers hands got wrecked by them. It was the loudest cheering i have ever seen at a table game. Very streaky game though.
Anyways, I googled the game and the only thing that came up was a generic page on the Shuffle Master website. I was wondering if anyone knew of any casinos in the Northeast US that had it? The dealers said it was new so there might not be that many casinos that had it. Figured it wouldn't hurt to ask.
Quote: BroPesciLong time lurker here but I don't see this game posted anywhere so I figured I would make an account and ask about it...
Just got back from a business trip in Biloxi and my wife and I had a ton of fun playing this game. It was at the Golden Nugget. The felt and rack card said Three Card Sabotage but the flag on the table said Three Card Poker. I was calling it "Three Card Poker on steroids". Basically 3CP but the dealer gets 4 cards. After the dealer makes his hand there are 2 sabotage cards that will remove any matching cards from the dealers hand. The dealer always qualifies and the players can bet 1x or 2x the ante on the Play circle. The ante bonuses were much better than 3CP as well. I think these were the only differences. The sabotage cards really are what made the game fun. I was surprised at how often the dealers hands got wrecked by them. It was the loudest cheering i have ever seen at a table game. Very streaky game though.
Anyways, I googled the game and the only thing that came up was a generic page on the Shuffle Master website. I was wondering if anyone knew of any casinos in the Northeast US that had it? The dealers said it was new so there might not be that many casinos that had it. Figured it wouldn't hurt to ask.
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Fascinating. Obviously "Dealer has 4 cards" is an enormous dealer advantage and the sabotage cards and No DNQ are meant to compensate. I imagine that the strategy is completely different than 3CP.
Just checking: the sabotage cards will remove any cards with matching rank?
And if dealer has A222 and the sabotage cards are 2-3, the dealer only has a one card hand, an Ace-high. Would that beat a player's K-High hand such as KQ7?
It was daunting seeing the dealer with 4 cards at first but it really didn't feel like an advantage once we played for a bit. When the dealer had a straight or a flush it got nuked into like a 9 high it felt like most of the time. Thats when the table would really get loud.
One guy swears he had the strategy down. He played Q-8 for 1x and A-10 or better for 2x. The Q-8 felt about right but i played a pair or better for 2x. The game was super fun, my wife really wants to play again but we aren't going back to Biloxi anytime soon lol
Yeah, can't find much. The Mississippi Gaming Commission approved it in January 2022.
What's that other side bet? A progressive jackpot?
Did you bring home one of the rack cards?
It's a clever gimmick. Lots of suspense.
My wife grabbed a rack card. I will find out if it made it home and I will share it tomorrow if it did
imgur com/a/HKRpFQL
Quote: BroPesciI found the rack card but it appears i am not allowed to post a link or image. If you replace the space with a . below u can see the rack card. Sorry it got a bit mangled in our luggage
imgur com/a/HKRpFQL
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The forum's in-built image hosting ("Insert My Picture", down below the cancel button) should work (to the best of my knowledge), although there are some file size restrictions and refused uploads do not come with a handy error message.
Due to the file size limits, cropping and resizing are likely necessary for any image captured with a modern camera like a cell phone.
External links and images are blocked for new members until good standing is established, as a spam prevention measure.
Welcome to the forum. Glad to have you. -D
Pair or Better : 44.91%
A-high : 14.49%
K-high : 11.71%
Q-high or lower : 28.89%
So it looks as if your fold/call cut-off might be somewhere in Kxx, and your big raise is with a good Ace or any pair or better.
Raise 4: AQ2 or higher
Raise 2: K97 Or Higher
Fold: K-9-6 or lower
I still have a bug relating to when the sabotage cards are paired and match a dealer card. When I fix it, my recommended strategy may change a skootch.
I meant to label the strategy decisions this way:
For basic strategy, I am currently getting:
Raise 2: AQ2 or higher
Raise 1: K97 Or Higher
Fold: K-9-6 or lower
I still have a bug relating to when the sabotage cards are paired and match a dealer card. When I fix it, my recommended strategy may change a skootch.
Again ignoring the Player's cards, which would have a slightly impact on the boundary as it would reduce the chances of the Dealer getting A-high, I get the boundary is AQ5. Chances of AQ6+ = 49.82% AQ4- = 49.93%.
Added: I'm guessing when the Player's cards are considered it will be similar to other poker games. In those cases when you have a card, that reduces the chances of the Dealer getting one, while if you don't then the chances for the Dealer is better. Thus I can imagine the same logic might apply here; so you raise any AQx (as you have one of the Queens) and only call with AJx (as the Dealer has more chance to beat you with an AQ).
Quote: charliepatrickI agree that it would be in the area of AQx.
Again ignoring the Player's cards, which would have a slightly impact on the boundary as it would reduce the chances of the Dealer getting A-high, I get the boundary is AQ5. Chances of AQ6+ = 49.82% AQ4- = 49.93%.
Added: I'm guessing when the Player's cards are considered it will be similar to other poker games. In those cases when you have a card, that reduces the chances of the Dealer getting one, while if you don't then the chances for the Dealer is better. Thus I can imagine the same logic might apply here; so you raise any AQx (as you have one of the Queens) and only call with AJx (as the Dealer has more chance to beat you with an AQ).
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I have a composition dependent spreadsheet. The removal of the Ace in AQx will increase the EV of AQ2 by more than 4 percentage points (i.e., the win percentage of AQ2 goes up by about 0.7%). Because you are reducing the probability of dealer's AKx and AQx hands that you will lose to.
Quote: charliepatrickI agree that it would be in the area of AQx.
Again ignoring the Player's cards, which would have a slightly impact on the boundary as it would reduce the chances of the Dealer getting A-high, I get the boundary is AQ5. Chances of AQ6+ = 49.82% AQ4- = 49.93%.
Added: I'm guessing when the Player's cards are considered it will be similar to other poker games. In those cases when you have a card, that reduces the chances of the Dealer getting one, while if you don't then the chances for the Dealer is better. Thus I can imagine the same logic might apply here; so you raise any AQx (as you have one of the Queens) and only call with AJx (as the Dealer has more chance to beat you with an AQ).
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I have a composition dependent spreadsheet. The removal of the Ace in AQx will increase the EV of AQ2 by more than 4 percentage points (i.e., the win percentage of AQ2 goes up by about 0.7%). Because you are reducing the probability of dealer's AKx and AQx hands that you will lose to.
Three Card Sabotage Basic Strategy
Raise-2 on AJT or Higher.
Raise-1 on K94 to AJ9
Fold on K93 or lower.
Quote: gordonm888Found the glitch in my spreadsheet, and it should be accurate now.
Three Card Sabotage Basic Strategy
Raise-2 on AJT or Higher.
Raise-1 on K94 to AJ9
Fold on K93 or lower.
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That’s awesome that you’ve worked out the strategy! Any chance that the house edge is an “easy calculation” from here? Just curious…
Quote: camapl
That’s awesome that you’ve worked out the strategy! Any chance that the house edge is an “easy calculation” from here? Just curious…
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First we don't yet know what the bonus payouts are for the high hands.
Second, there are two ways to calculate the house edge, both of which will be much easier now that we have defined the strategy rules:
- a loop code that runs through every combination of player, dealer and sabotage cards. (This is a 9 card game, which is not too bad although the UTH game that Teliot was evaluating in another thread was also 9 cards and that looping code run was stated to take about 4 days.)
- a simulation, just run 100M or 1B hands and accumulate statistics.
There are multiple members who could do either or both but they need to have an interest. The sabotage cards are a novel innovation (which I kinda like) but it does make algorithms for automated hand evaluation a bit more difficult because the dealer's hand can range from 0 to 4 cards.
We'll see if anyone steps up.
The Player's hands could be simplified to types of hands (e.g. AsKsJs, AsKsJh, AsKhJs, AsKhJh, AsKhJd, with appropriate factors, to cover all the AKJ possibilities).
But then I'd go onto looping all 52/51/50/49 remaining cards, ignoring any scenarios with ones already held by the player... (while this is longer than working out the types of hands the dealer can make, it's less error prone). I think at the knockout stage one may be able to work out the chances of matching cards rather than looping, but again it might be easier just to loop.
(If I wasn't busy working on a Blackjack project I might have looked into this in more detail!)
Quote: charliepatrick^ I agree it's a lot of work although in this case, unlike UTH, there's only one decision point for the Player.
The Player's hands could be simplified to types of hands (e.g. AsKsJs, AsKsJh, AsKhJs, AsKhJh, AsKhJd, with appropriate factors, to cover all the AKJ possibilities).
But then I'd go onto looping all 52/51/50/49 remaining cards, ignoring any scenarios with ones already held by the player... (while this is longer than working out the types of hands the dealer can make, it's less error prone). I think at the knockout stage one may be able to work out the chances of matching cards rather than looping, but again it might be easier just to loop.
(If I wasn't busy working on a Blackjack project I might have looked into this in more detail!)
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Charlie, I agree with everything you say. As you state, there are indeed ways, such as suit folding, to somewhat simplify the House Edge calculation (almost all of which I did indeed incorporate into my composition-dependent spreadsheet to evaluate KISSC hand decisions.) Having said all that, it is still a considerable undertaking. Other than Wizard and JB, I can think of 8 forum members* off the top of my head who I personally know are adept and efficient at doing loop codes or simulations for (non-BJ) table games. However, some (but not all) of those people may be accustomed to charging fees and/or have various terms and conditions for performing analyses.
My point, though, is that game strategy optimization and House Edge calculations for non-BJ games involve a considerable amount of work requiring considerable niche expertise, and that not everyone gives it away for free -i.e., just for the joy of doing calculations and for the joy of being helpful.
* BTW, there may be dozens of forum members whom I am not aware of who routinely do these type of looping code or monte carlo simulation calculations for non-BJ table games. Because, obviously, some WOV forum members choose not to advertise their capabilities for various reasons! And because I certainly don't know everyone and everything.
Quote: JoeTheDragonwhat happens if all dealer cards are wiped out?
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In my spreadsheet analysis, I assumed that if all dealer cards are eliminated by the sabotage cards that the dealer's hand loses to any and every player hand.
Quote: JoeTheDragonwhat happens if all dealer cards are wiped out?
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In my spreadsheet analysis, I assumed that if all dealer cards are eliminated by the sabotage cards that the dealer's hand loses to any and every player hand.
With regular 3CP you raise when there's about a 33% chance of winning, the logic being you are risking losing £2 2/3 vs winning £1 1/3 (as most the time your win will be DNQ). Also -2*(2/3)+1*(1/3)=-1.
However in this game if you did win, since the Dealer always qualifies you would be winning £2 not £1. Thus I get it that you would call if your chances were 25% or better. -2*(3/4)+2*(1/4)=-1.
Thus I think you call Q87 or rainbow Q86. I agree with AJT for call x2.
P: As Jh Td V: 131009 Win: 105170823 Tie: 507930 Lose: 104078487 EV x1: 0.010415240 EV x2: 0.015622860
P: As Jh Th V: 131009 Win: 105054667 Tie: 485850 Lose: 104216723 EV x1: 0.007989655 EV x2: 0.011984483
P: As Js Th V: 131009 Win: 105057642 Tie: 485850 Lose: 104213748 EV x1: 0.008046387 EV x2: 0.012069581
P: Ah Js Th V: 131009 Win: 105060617 Tie: 485850 Lose: 104210773 EV x1: 0.008103120 EV x2: 0.012154679
P: As Jh 9d V: 131008 Win: 104602772 Tie: 507930 Lose: 104646538 EV x1: -0.000417301 EV x2: -0.000625952
P: As Jh 9h V: 131008 Win: 104464659 Tie: 485850 Lose: 104806731 EV x1: -0.003261599 EV x2: -0.004892398
P: As Js 9h V: 131008 Win: 104514523 Tie: 485850 Lose: 104756867 EV x1: -0.002310709 EV x2: -0.003466064
P: Ah Js 9h V: 131008 Win: 104495541 Tie: 485850 Lose: 104775849 EV x1: -0.002672690 EV x2: -0.004009034
P: Qs 8h 7d V: 110706 Win: 52677536 Tie: 339720 Lose: 156739984 EV x1: -0.992217937 EV x2: -1.488326906
P: Qs 8h 7h V: 110706 Win: 52608269 Tie: 325200 Lose: 156823771 EV x1: -0.993677281 EV x2: -1.490515922
P: Qs 8s 7h V: 110706 Win: 52627251 Tie: 325200 Lose: 156804789 EV x1: -0.993315301 EV x2: -1.489972952
P: Qh 8s 7h V: 110706 Win: 52630226 Tie: 325200 Lose: 156801814 EV x1: -0.993258569 EV x2: -1.489887853
P: Qs 8h 6d V: 110705 Win: 52306413 Tie: 339720 Lose: 157111107 EV x1: -0.999295128 EV x2: -1.498942692
P: Qs 8h 6h V: 110705 Win: 52221139 Tie: 325200 Lose: 157210901 EV x1: -1.001059720 EV x2: -1.501589580
P: Qs 8s 6h V: 110705 Win: 52272135 Tie: 325200 Lose: 157159905 EV x1: -1.000087244 EV x2: -1.500130866
P: Qh 8s 6h V: 110705 Win: 52262078 Tie: 325200 Lose: 157169962 EV x1: -1.000279027 EV x2: -1.500418541
If the Dealer has to pick their best hand before the sabotage cards, and there's still the ability to Raise x2, the game seems to be slightly in the Player's favour! So I think that confirms the sabotage should happen first.
Quote: charliepatrick...simulations...a high House Edge (over 7%)...UK 1/4/5 bonus payments...
Quote: BroPesci...The ante bonuses were much better than 3CP as well...
Seeing the OP's comment, this may be how the game gets back to a reasonable House Edge. For instance 2/1 for Straights and 10/1 for Trips and StFlushes gives ...
| Hands: | 1 000 000 000 |
| Win: | 397 312 330 |
| Lose: | 601 674 650 |
| Tie: | 1 013 020 |
| Fold | 358 362 671 |
| Win: | 913 878 163 |
| Lose: | 680 333 762 |
| Tie: | 688 546 |
| Proft/Loss | - 124 818 270 |
| Bonuses | |
| Straight 2/1 | 65 152 492 |
| Trips 10/1 | 23 551 890 |
| SF 10/1 | 21 734 620 |
| Profit/Loss | - 14 379 268 |
