Table Games 3cardpoker let it ride and crazy 4card poker

Are these games predetermined to pay winning hands? I was at a casino in RI and the dealer at a BJ table told me the auto shuffler have to pay out winners at a certain rate kinda like a slot machine. He was convinced they are predetermined when they deal the big hands. I am not sure if this changes my mind to play them. I guess if it is predetermined you just have to be there at the right time and get lucky. And these games are all luck anyway, not like B J.

 

If you believe this then the game of blackjack would also be assumed rigged. All slots also could be made to say never give out a bonus.

You either believe in the randomness rules that gaming commissions enforce or you don't. It is pretty impossible to prove to someone that a game is random.

I trust the games because the games are built with a house edge. If they wanted more, they would simply increase the house edge rather than cheat. Reducing the pay on a full house is 1000X easier than programming a piece of equipment to cheat.

 

BTW, Crazy4 Poker has a overall house edge of only 1.09%. This is one of the best non blackjacks I know of in the casino. It is even better than a 6/5 BJ game. The volatility is higher though.

 

True, but there are some $15 (a little less than the minimum average bet of Crazy4Poker) 3:2 BJ games left on the Strip.

 

The house edge is 3.42%. The element of risk is 1.09%.

http://wizardofodds.com/games/crazy-4-poker/

 

Ok I'll give in. It isn't 1.09%, but it certainly isn't 3.42%. Really it should be 1.71%. Which is still better than most games and better than any 6/5 BJ I've seen.

I'm required to bet $10 on a $5 table. He based all the calculations on the $5 number. So technically you could say you are playing a $5 bet with 3.4% HE, and a $5 bet with 0% HE.

 

House edge is an ill defined term in these games. It is usually only based on the ante bet even though there are more bets at risk. So yeah, 3.42% is based on the ante only. That is why I was trying to hint that $15 3:2 BJ was a better game with good basic strategy. The average bet in crazy 4 poker is $15.70 at a $5 ante table as you raise 3X ante with a pair of aces or better, are forced to bet the super bonus, etc.

Ignoring rounding, these below are equivalent.

$15.70 total bet/hand × 1.09% loss/total bet = $5 ante/hand × 3.42% loss/ante = 17.1 cents lost/hand

But if someone plays nearly flawless strategy, they would lose less at $15 3:2 H17 BJ, which exists at Margaritaville at least.

$15/hand × 0.7% = 10.5 cents/hand.

Either game is fine if you're looking to bet roughly $15-20/hand.

 

most will say that the games are random and not pre-determined. While I mostly agree on the pre-determined part, I will say that I am trusting the shufflemaster machines less and less. This comes from extensive play on the machines versus hand shuffled decks.

In my experiences over the years, hand shuffled games just seem to bring better luck to me, especially the hand shuffled 3-card poker at some of the off-strip casinos.

but take my advice with a grain of salt, as its probably just superstition.

My theory is if a machine "knows" where each card is in the continuous shuffle machine at any given moment, then the machine is stacked somewhat in the house's favor. I didn't believe this to be the case until I watched a dealer close down a table, and had the One2Six shuffler spit out all the cards sequentially by suit with the push of one button.

 

from the website of the shuffle master:

http://www.shufflemaster.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1541:i-deal&Itemid=1126

Enhances Game Security

•Eliminates shuffle tracking and deck manipulation
•Ability to reconstruct hands for speedy jackpot verification
•Alerts dealer to missing or extra cards


so there must be RFID in the cards, I assume, I would hope though that there are ONLY 2 settings:

1. random shuffle
2. "suit and rank" order

and nothing in between!

 

First off your statement about slots is false...they do not "have to pay out winners at a certain rate"

They use the shufflemasters to increase play speed...not cheat...they are highly regulated and do not "stack the deck"...they dont know where players are sitting or how many players are even playing so how would they stack the deck to favor the casino...


They have the ability to sort cards to assist trouble shooting.

 

I would imagine the RFID in the cards allows the shufflemaster to do two things...
1. put in suit and rank order
2. simulate a random shuffle

nothing else in between...

as said above, ther RFID is there to identify missing cards, and general troubleshooting, not to stack the deck in the casino's favor..

 

Absolutely.

The main reason I mentioned it is because I actually want more people playing Crazy4 poker. If a casino has it, they only have 1-2 tables and rarely are both tables active. I know many people have the general idea that the "carny" games are just bad for the player with massive house edge. Crazy4 is one of the few exceptions and I'd like to see it more often. It also has one of the easiest strategies. Only 3CP rivals it's simplicity.

 

i always wonder the same thing. not if they are stacking the deck in the casino's favor just if the machine determines when there will be winning hands. i know those machines can tell you what card it is missing if in fact it is missing one. so if they know that they can place the cards in any order they want.

 

Agreed. Raise KQ84 or better, fold worse, and raise 3X with a pair of Aces or better. Pretty easy. Definitely easier than UTH or blackjack.

 

They COOOUUULD...but then they risk getting in trouble with the gaming board and losing TONS of money...more than they would make by cheating...

As someone already said...all of these games have a negative EV for players...so there is no point for the casino to cheat...since they will ALWAYS win in the long run

 

I would be interested in how the mechanics of that would work, I am no engineer, but the time it would take for a machine to sort like they wanted, would be tremendous, because the RFID reader would likely have to go through the deck each time a card's place is changed to see where the rest are in relation to the others...

I cant imagine it can look a a whole deck at once to determine the order or if any cards are missing..I would be it looks at the RFID of each card as it passes by what ever mechanism reads the cards, but there is no way in that size machine that a resort could happen

no way...sorry

 

It will scan all of the cards and assign a number to it, then, knowing each cards location, rearrange the cards to get to the correct order.

For ease lets assume a single suit...13 cards. It will scan all of the cards and assign numbers to each

2 --> 1
6 --> 2
8 --> 3
4 --> 4
5 --> 5
7 --> 6
9 --> 7
3 --> 8
10 --> 9
A --> 10
Q --> 11
J --> 12
K --> 13

Now it decides what order the numbers need to be in to get to the desired card order...lets say assending...it needs the cards to be in the order:

1 8 4 5 2 6 3 7 9 12 11 13 10

Then it will just grab those cards in this order....so it will grab the card in slot 1, then card in slot 8, then card in slot 4, and so on.


Now for multiple, full decks there will be more cards so the indexing numbers will go to 416 (for 8 decks)


Point being...it will only scan the cards once and then it will know their locations


The machine also probably has multiple "hands" so it can sort the full group of cards in segments and then combine...so it doesnt have to travel as much. Im sure there is an optimization algorithm to determine the best "path" to minimize time

 

OK, I can see knowing the locations, but moving them to the correct spots, and if in "segments" as you say, then it can only put some in order...just can't put my head around it...if all the kings happen to be in the first segment and all the Aces in the last segment, how will you ever get them together...
416 slots to shuffle around? still don't buy it..those machines just are not big enough...
(interesting/fun debate tho...)

 

Having never played Crazy4poker, and now wiht my interest piqued....I have a question..

is the queens up bet one of these that WizardOfOdds would say not to make...he does not mention whether to play it or not, just the table of variance is listed in his page on his site, so I assume, you do not play it...and if you do does it have to equal your ante? table minimum? or can it be $1 bet...?

thanks

 

Queens up bet is table minimum. It's similar to the pairplus bet in 3 card in that it gives you the chance to hit a big hand. It's slightly worse odds than just playing the ante and play, but not as bad as a "side bet" such as the 6 card bonus that you see at some 3 card games. If minimizing house edge is your main goal, you'd be better served playing blackjack or baccarat rather than crazy 4 without the queens up.