Caribbean Stud team this weekend

Hi guys and girls. I am in Vegas this weekend.

I am looking to form a Carribean Stud team. It will be each keeps his own win or loss. No pooling of bankroll. Effect should be the same.

We will meet somewhere at a location to be determined by pm, once we have all members.

Btw, this is NOT a cheat team. I don't mean like a card swapping team, but a Caribbean AP team.

I doubt you will find many takers, but good luck.

If I were in Vegas, I would collude on the WPT 3x Hold 'Em game with you.

How many players do we need on that game to get a positive expectation? ill do it. Lemme read up on that game.

Addendum: yeah its a nice game. Anyone wanna play wpt game?

Nice to meet you teddys.

Quote: klimate10

Hi guys and girls. I am in Vegas this weekend.

I am looking to form a Carribean Stud team. It will be each keeps his own win or loss. No pooling of bankroll. Effect should be the same.

We will meet somewhere at a location to be determined by pm, once we have all members.

Btw, this is NOT a cheat team. I don't mean like a card swapping team, but a Caribbean AP team.

The only way I can envision a CS AP team would be to share card information. For example, if the dealer has a Q up, the team would inform each other if they had any Q's. If all 3 Q's were out, then I would surmise you would go in with a bust as opposed to folding. I would think this pre planned conspiracy would fall into the category of prosecutable illegal activity, as opposed to just being asked to leave. If there is a legal way to have a CS AP team, please do tell....

If anyone thinks it is cheating, they are free to not partake.

You would be surprised at the power of prayer.

Cheating, no, but the pit will tell you to not communicate if they catch on. I've been told this many times in Pai Gow Poker, when my wife would tell me what her hand was or I was obviously glancing. Knowing how many matches to the up card in Caribbean has far more power than knowing Pai Gow hands.

For example, on a full table (40 cards played), if the dealer is showing an Ace and no one else has one, the odds that the dealer has a pair of Aces is 3/4 (4 x 3 / 16), meaning that your EV from throwing (-1 unit) in a pair is higher than playing it (-3 units x 3/4 + 3 units x 1/4 = -1.5 units). If All aces are played, then the dealer has to make a pair from four cards which is only about 30%. Other made hands would accounts for an additional 3%. Call the odds of qualifying then with no pair possible from the upcard at about 1/3rd. Therefore, going in with an unqualified hand knowing that the dealer cannot make a pair from his up card would have an EV of about -1/3 unit (1 x 2/3 - 3 x 1/3) vs an EV of -1 from throwing in, on a full table.

So, colluding in Caribbean does have alot of power. My figures I realize are quite approximate, but I think are valid.

Quote: klimate10

If anyone thinks it is cheating, they are free to not partake.

You would be surprised at the power of prayer.

There have been many varied and interesting discussions here on what is cheating. Some consider (ok, just Dan) counting in BJ cheating. Some (ok, just Dan) consider taking advantage of a flashing hole card dealer cheating. Some (ok, just Dan) consider keeping a payment when you should have lost cheating. I think the conspiracy part of a 'team' takes it to a whole new level, and I would think prosecutable. I'm interested if someone who is more familiar (Dan, Face) with what would actually happen if the 'team' was discovered. Since it seems like this will not be your first 'party', have you ever been backed off a CS table?

From the wizardofodds...
I've been asked lots of times if an advantage can be gained by sharing information with other players. Although the rules forbid this in the land of casinos, there are multi-player Internet casinos where this could be done very easily by phone. However, don't get your hopes up. According to the paper "An Analysis of Caribbean Stud Poker" by Peter Griffin and John M. Gwynn Jr., which appears in the book Finding the Edge , in the perfect situation of having 7 colluding players it would be possible to narrow down the dealer's unseen cards to just 16 possible cards. Using a computer to analyze all 1,820 possible 4-card sets out of 16, the player would have an advantage of 2.3%. In a six player game the house would still have an edge of 0.4%. An article on this topic by Scott McIntosh at Review Poker Rooms also explores this topic and comes to similar conclusions.

Stealing a look at other player's cards can cutdown the house edge marginally. If you have a borderline ace/king hand it would help to see if the other player's cards match the dealer's up card. The more that match, the more inclined you should be to raise. While the Internet would be a perfect forum to share information in a multi-player table, the most number of seats I have ever seen is three.

Discountgambling.net

Look up section on Caribbean Stud. +EV. 1.1% player advantage on 7 player table.

Yes. They will back u off after the third time everyone, who is betting black, calls with bullshit.

They will especially know when everyone bets big but doesn't play the $1 sucker progressive.

But if everyone is playing to keep his own, there will be cover bc each will be betting different amount.

These days you can't find many Caribbean Stud game, if any at all, in Vegas.
Christmas time I was there and visited all casinos which had that game in the past, but I saw none.

This game is also dying, if not already dead, in the other markets.
I saw many midwest local casinos removed it in the last year or so.
BTW, this is my favorite game, that's why I care about it.

I don't think it's prosecutable. You're not using any devices to cheat. They will just ask you to leave.

I don't think carribean is the best game for collusion. WPT is probably easier to keep your cover.

Quote: klimate10

Discountgambling.net

Look up section on Caribbean Stud. +EV. 1.1% player advantage on 7 player table.

It would be quite difficult to get a team of seven players to one table and make them all understand the signalling rules and stick to them.

How were you going to do the signalling? Each player puts colored chips aside depending on how many dealer upcard copies or Ace / King they have? With seven players such signaling would become obvious extremely quickly.

Besides, with 1.1% edge you are actually going to break even until you get a high paying hand (str.flush or higher). They are very rare so most of the time you'll break even.

This thread reminds me of a buddy I had in the military. Frank Caputo was from Boston and swore his family crest when translated from Italian to English was " Win if you can, lose if you must, BUT ALWAYS CHEAT."

Quote: Jufo81

It would be quite difficult to get a team of seven players to one table and make them all understand the signalling rules and stick to them.

How were you going to do the signalling? Each player puts colored chips aside depending on how many dealer upcard copies or Ace / King they have? With seven players such signaling would become obvious extremely quickly.

Besides, with 1.1% edge you are actually going to break even until you get a high paying hand (str.flush or higher). They are very rare so most of the time you'll break even.

Forgetting the ethics and legal stuff, if the game is positive EV, it is positive EV. I don't think it would be too complicated to devise a system of simple signals to arrive at that positive EV. Also, don't forget the comps which these players will be gaining, as they will be playing a game witha very high theoretical loss.

Take a sip if you have a match to the dealers up card.
Move your napkin if you have a king.
Adjust your hat if you have an ace.

Quote: SOOPOO

Forgetting the ethics and legal stuff, if the game is positive EV, it is positive EV. I don't think it would be too complicated to devise a system of simple signals to arrive at that positive EV. Also, don't forget the comps which these players will be gaining, as they will be playing a game witha very high theoretical loss.

Yep, it's positive EV but like in video poker you will run below EV until you hit the highest payout. It's worth to know that this may take months, and your six AP mates might not have patience to play for so long. Basically you get a free shot for a high payout. If you play long enough you will get it.

Quote: SOOPOO

Take a sip if you have a match to the dealers up card.
Move your napkin if you have a king.
Adjust your hat if you have an ace.

Hmm, ok. So with every hand you would have to observe each of your six confederates and calculate how many of them do each of these actions? And what if someone has two kings or two dealer upcard matches? They take multiple sips? Move napking twice? It would be extremely likely to lose track and play suboptimally.

Quote: buzzpaff

" Win if you can, lose if you must, BUT ALWAYS CHEAT."

I like that

Frank was a trip. Once I hit a big pot hole in Texas and it broke the muffler straps and the muffler was dragging. I ask frank to get up the car, it had dual exhausts and rip the muffler off. Frank was big and muscular but got under the car and ripped off the muffler.
But as we pulled away I hear a muffler dragging. Frank had ripped off the wrong one.
Oh, did I mention we were both drunk ? LOL

I think if you have a pair or higher you could announce your hand and say something like, to the dealer, "Queens or lower", where the pair mentioned is one lower than the pair that you have.

Anything that cuts down the HA is good.

After just reading up on the Wiz's site on CS advantage play, sounds tough to pull off with a group of strangers. You'd definitely need to practice the signals for a while before hand, and then you'd definitely want to arrive at the table separately, but you'd still need to guarantee that you get all 7 spots. Hard to pull off.

If you do end up making this work, I would suggest against the EMFH (every man for himself) strategy. Pooling 7 bankrolls together would greatly reduce the variance, and just think of the jealousy if 1 guy hits the royal and no one else does on the trip...

Obviously EMFH is much, much easier and essentially doesn't require any trust, since you are only risking your own money. Pooling bankrolls with strangers (or "internet friends") is just stupid, I agree. But getting into the long run would be so much easier with 7x the action.

The only casino where anyone has ever told us to keep it quiet was the texas holdem game in New Orleans. Atlantic City casinos or even the Harrah's properties in Veags or Chester no one has ever complained that we telling each other our cards. Now these were 10 dollar tables so maybe they just didn't care enough. i look at my wifes hand all the time, mostly to make sure she doesn't mess it up(which leads me to screw my hand up once in a while!).

The wife and I look at each other's cards all the time - although not too blatantly. I've had dealers tell us that instead of moving the cards and showing each other to just tell each other so the cameras don't see all the movement.

I also do what someone else suggested earlier and tell the dealer what I want. If that encourages other players to do the same then I use that information as best as I can to cipher the dealers possible hands.

I do think there's an advantage to knowing two or more hands at TH.

the website discountgambling.net has a good way of colluding. Very simple, but perhaps a bit obvious, as it uses chips. This form of collusion is more likely to result in a back off. It doesn't fit the definition of criminal cheating.

Quote: boymimbo

Cheating, no, but the pit will tell you to not communicate if they catch on. I've been told this many times in Pai Gow Poker, when my wife would tell me what her hand was or I was obviously glancing. Knowing how many matches to the up card in Caribbean has far more power than knowing Pai Gow hands.

For example, on a full table (40 cards played), if the dealer is showing an Ace and no one else has one, the odds that the dealer has a pair of Aces is 3/4 (4 x 3 / 16), meaning that your EV from throwing (-1 unit) in a pair is higher than playing it (-3 units x 3/4 + 3 units x 1/4 = -1.5 units). If All aces are played, then the dealer has to make a pair from four cards which is only about 30%. Other made hands would accounts for an additional 3%. Call the odds of qualifying then with no pair possible from the upcard at about 1/3rd. Therefore, going in with an unqualified hand knowing that the dealer cannot make a pair from his up card would have an EV of about -1/3 unit (1 x 2/3 - 3 x 1/3) vs an EV of -1 from throwing in, on a full table.

So, colluding in Caribbean does have alot of power. My figures I realize are quite approximate, but I think are valid.

Great post. I was just playing CS the other day and whenever the dealer was showing an Ace- guy on 1st base would ask "Who else has one?" Kinda funny as it was blatant, but it was nice knowing when the other players had the 3 remaining Aces. I honestly wouldn't of thrown away any pair if none of the players had any of the remaining Aces though. But know you have me thinking about it. :)

Quote: EdgeLooker

Great post. I was just playing CS the other day and whenever the dealer was showing an Ace- guy on 1st base would ask "Who else has one?" Kinda funny as it was blatant, but it was nice knowing when the other players had the 3 remaining Aces. I honestly wouldn't of thrown away any pair if none of the players had any of the remaining Aces though. But know you have me thinking about it. :)

This is also something that is useful to know in CS: Suppose that dealer's upcard is, for example, Six and you have a garbage hand (less than A/K high) but you also have one Six in your hand. Even with one Six removed from dealer's outs you should still fold your hand. But suppose that you then steal a peek of the player sitting next to you and see one more Six in his hand. Now you should raise even with garbage and you would save about 10% of the value of your ante bets long-term.

Whenever this happened to me in CS table I said aloud: "I don't think that the dealer is going to qualify this time". It was a subtle hint for everyone in the table with garbage hand to raise instead of folding. Whether anyone in the table actually made strategy changes because of me I don't know.

I don't know the maths but with a borderline AK (or a Q-high in 3-card) there's a saying that if everyone else has stayed in (i.e. raised) then it's probably best for you to do so as well. I suspect this is more significant in 3-card as players could have an Ace or King, whereas in 5-card they're more likely to have a pair or something insignificant rather than AK. So one way is to wait if you have a borderline hand. Certainly if you have one of the dealer's cards, then a sneaky peek in a neighbour's hands will help.

I've seen players even play nothing- when at least 5 of the other 6 players were staying in the hand. Kind of kills me when these players get lucky and win 100's of dollars playing nothing, while I'm mucking and losing my a@@, I mean my antes, lol.

It is interesting that someone will decide to try to make a colluding team of 7 players in CS, based on information he has found on a single website of someone analysing the game and finding a practical strategy with an EV of 1.1%. How do you know that this person's mathematical analysis is correct. Even if it the 1.1% Ev is correct , by analogy the element of risk on your side is around half of that, ie around 0.5%. Wizzard gives a 5.2% HE and 2.6% Element of risk and the same apply if you have the advantage.
This website shows the only analysis of a practical strategy for collusion in CS that I have seen on the web.
But there are people that have analysed CS extensively and more importantly the various variants of CS found outside the US (option to exchange cards etc) but this information is not publicly available.
Regarding the strategy on that website, it is generally correct but the author did not realise that he would get much better strategy if he separated the strategy into 2 blocks, when the delear has upcard of 2-Q and A-K (like in BJ the strategy is generally completely different for upcards 2-6 and 7-A). The reason being that the dealer qualifies more with A-K than with 2-Q because of the AK qualification which warrant a different strategy.
You only need to know how many upcards are in the other players hands and a strategy which is different for Dealer 2-Q and A-K to get a small EV for 7 players. You do not need to bother with A,K information which only add very little EV. I am not sure exactly how much EV you get with this, but I thing is around 0.6%. You can add on this with strategy of A,K seen when the dealer has A-K. Strategy that incorporates A,K seen when dealer upcard is 2-Q adds miniscule Ev.
The most important strategy variation is when to play with nothing.
You play with nothing when all 3 upcards have been seen and dealer has 2-Q. If the dealer has A-K you still fold with nothing and all 3 upcards seen.
No serious player of CS (and its many variants outside the US) will play the US game. The 1% Ev quoted is very small for such a game which has a Standard Deviation double that of BJ and is a lot slower than BJ. For such a game anything less than 2% is a waste of time.