Alternative Advantage

People ask me why I don’t count cards in blackjack anymore. “If you are so smart at counting cards, why aren’t you still out there playing?”

Just because I know how to count cards and once counted on a professional level does not mean I should do it again. If the truth be known, I would rather work as a night cook at a Waffle House than count cards. At least I would know at the end of the week I could pick up a paycheck.

People compare the ability to profitably count cards in blackjack with the 2008 movie 21. All fun and glamor. Traveling to Las Vegas and Atlantic City with pretty girls and lavish accommodations. In reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

The movie 21 almost ruined the future for a bunch of college students in Denver, Colorado. The same year the movie was released, I was asked to present a two-hour seminar on the mechanics of card counting for the business students at Denver University.

Some members of the faculty were concerned that a larger number of juniors attending the business college were planning on not returning to classes in the fall session. After watching the exploits of the MIT card-counting team depicted in 21, the consensus around campus was to learn how to count cards during the summer break and become professional blackjack players, traveling to various casinos all over the world. Who needs a degree in business when you can count cards, sleep until noon, and become rich at the expense of greedy casinos?

I presented my session to around 300 eager business students in one of the university’s lecture halls. The approximate 30 slides of material focused on mathematics, the practice required to play at a professional level, the bankroll requirements so you don’t go broke during down swings, and the meager 1 percent return the professional can expect seemed to dampen their expectations.

After presenting the final PowerPoint slide you could hear a pin drop. I successfully crushed the hopes and expectations of all the young people in attendance who thought globetrotting as a card counter would be the answer to their dreams. Mission accomplished.

Why I Would Not Count Cards

To make card counting worth the professional-level counter’s time and effort, he or she would need to wager a minimum or base bet of about $100. The professional is looking to make somewhere between 1.5 times and two times their minimum bet, or $150 to $200 per hour of play. Since most counters need to move around to different casinos to stay undetected, the best expectation is a total playing time of about four hours per day.

Based on a play week of about 20 hours, the professional counter’s theoretical win (or T-win) can be estimated at $3,000 to $4,000. This is before operational expenses such as the cost of transportation, lodging, and any meals not covered by casino comps.

In addition, a large amount of the professional card counter’s time is spent practicing, scouting games and game conditions, and traveling. Playing 20 hours per week could be more of a dream than reality. Depending on availability and distance between casinos, playing time might be reduced by 50 percent.

To wager a minimum bet of $100, the counter will need to operate with a starting bankroll of $20,000 if required to use a bet spread of 12 or 16 units. The counter would also be subject to negative fluctuation of up to $10K to $15K during a normal period of counting play.

This is why flipping omelets at the Waffle House isn’t such a bad option.

Attacking Exposed Cards in Alternative Games

In alternative table games, the primary avenue of attack by the advantage player is obvious. Look for a game where the dealer fails to protect the value of cards when removing them from the shuffling machine.

If I can spy one of the dealer’s cards or one of the table community cards, I can make my raise-check-fold decisions with information not available to the average customer. Even though alternative table games are subject to a higher house advantage as related to blackjack—anywhere from 2.5 percent to 5 percent compared to blackjack’s 0.5 percent—utilizing additional card knowledge can create a huge advantage.

If I find a dealer accidentally providing me hole-card information, I gain 33 percent of their hand information in Three Card Poker or 50 percent of their hand information in Ultimate Texas Hold’em. If the dealer inadvertently offers me a peek at one of the community cards, I have future information about the value of my eventual hand.

For example, in Ultimate Texas Hold’em, the information gained from seeing one of the five community cards can provide me with the future strength of my hand, and if I can also see one of the dealer’s hole cards, the future strength of the dealer’s hand as well.

Finding this information is not really that tough. Even your best dealers will become complacent and sloppy over a period of time, and with a little bit of pre-attack scouting, the advantage player can probably construct a profitable game plan for exposed card attacks in your casino.

Gaining Community Card Information in Mississippi Stud Poker

If the advantage player no longer plans to count cards and opts to attack inadvertent exposed cards in alternative table games, where does he or she look first?

The first alternative game they should look to attack would be Mississippi Stud Poker or one of its derivatives. What makes MSP the most profitable alternative game for the advantage player is the game’s betting structure, which provides the player with three wagering opportunities at up to three times the ante bet.

If the advantage player is able to locate a dealer who accidentally exposes the “flop” community card, or the first card to be turned up, he or she can make their first betting decision based on three cards of information instead of only two. Knowledge of this one exposed card eliminates the house edge of 5 percent and provides the player with an additional 40 percent to 50 percent mathematical advantage.

Yes, those numbers are correct. Perfect computer play indicates the player will have a 54 percent advantage subject to the ante wager by having prior knowledge of the value of the first community card. A more realistic estimate using a memorized practical strategy is still a lofty 40 percent.

Based on an average of 40 rounds dealt per hour, and a $100 ante wager, the advantage player can expect an hourly earning value (EV) of $1,600. And that’s why this is the game the advantage player looks to attack.

Note: The most common community card seen is the “flop” card. However, the costliest card is the last card turned up, the “river” card. Seeing the “river” card will provide the player with a computer-perfect edge of 104 percent!

In addition to the increase in earning potential, the higher player advantage reduces the amount the player needs as a supporting bankroll. Instead of the required $20,000 in blackjack, the advantage player only needs to gather $5,000 to $10,000 in bankroll funds. The additional multi-wager game volatility is offset slightly by the high player advantage.

Note: If I were to attack this “high return” game, I would probably wager only $25 to $50 on the ante. The lower average wager, though reducing my per-hand earning value, would greatly decrease my exposure to floor and surveillance. If I limited my win amounts to $500 or less, I could play undetected for many trips to the money well.

Gaining Hole card and Community Card information in Ultimate Texas Hold’em

The next most vulnerable and profitable alternative game for the advantage player is Ultimate Texas Hold’em (or one of its derivatives). In this game, the advantage player is looking to identify a dealer hole card and one of the five community cards. If he or she only sees the dealer’s hole card, the practical gain over the game is about 10 percent. Using mathematics of 40 rounds, times $100 ante, times 10 percent, the calculated per-hour earning value for the advantage player is about $400.

This return might not seem like much when compared to the earning value of the previous alternative game of MSP, but when compared to the EV of the professional-level blackjack card counter who looks to earn $150 to $200 an hour betting $100 units, the return is more than twice as much.

This is calculated providing the advantage player is seeing only one of the dealer’s hole cards. If the player can see both a hole card and one community card (either flop or river, with the river slightly more valuable), the player can expect to gain a total of 20 percent, or an EV of $800 per hour!

Gaining Hole-card Information in Three Card Poker

The “magnet table game” for most advantage play and cheating attacks is Three Card Poker. For a couple of decades now, this alternative game has seen its share of hole-carding, use of marked cards, and card switching, and is considered the most vulnerable of the alternative game family.

In TCP, the advantage player seeing one of the dealer’s three hole cards can reverse the game’s basic house advantage of 3.4 percent and gain an additional 3 percent edge. The hole-card information strategy is simple. If the spied hole card is not a qualifier (Queen, King or Ace), the player raises on any hand. If the card seen is a qualifier, the player needs the same card with an additional 9-2 or better to raise. For example, if the exposed hole card is a King, the player needs to hold a three-card hand of King-9-2 to raise.

Return from this hole-card attack is much less than the other alternative games mentioned previously. TCP is subject to an estimated earning value of about $120 per hour. This estimate is based on the calculation of 40 rounds, times $100 ante, times 3 percent edge. This estimated return is in parity with the expectations of the professional-level blackjack card counter, but can be gained without the level of attention focus on someone playing blackjack and making substantial betting increases.

Old Habits are Hard to Break: Attacking the Dealer’s Hole Card in Blackjack

If for some reason the previous three alternative games are not an option, the fallback plan for the advantage player lays with blackjack, but is not through the technique of card counting.

The next attractive method is seeing the bottom card or hole card of the dealer’s hand. Blackjack hole-carding is usually associated with weak dealers in the hand pitch format, but that’s not totally true. Where there are more opportunities to find weak dealer bottom card insertion techniques in hand-dealt games, shoe-dealt games can also be attacked using the same theory.

If the advantage player can get a glimpse of the dealer’s bottom card during the hole-card delivery process, the player can gain up to a 13 percent computer-perfect edge primarily through aggressive double down and split decisions when it is apparent the dealer has a busting hand.

A slightly less aggressive strategy will gain around 10 percent. This is approximately 10 times greater than the 1 percent edge the professional-level card counter can attain. If our blackjack hole-card player wagers $100 a hand and plays an average of 100 hands per hour, his or her return would be $100, times 100 hands, times 10 percent, for about a $1,000 theoretical win. The problem experienced when attacking blackjack is any winner is immediately placed under a microscope and analyzed, while winners in alternative games seem to be ignored.

How Do We Defend Against These Situations In Alternative Games?

There is no need to discuss protecting blackjack, since that subject has been beaten to death over the past several decades. With the alternative games examined in this article, the first step to defending them is to learn the “basic” wagering strategy for each game.

The premise here is to know what good and honest play looks like. If you don’t know what the correct strategy is, you cannot spot betting and folding decisions that are based on additional card information. The following is a list of points of interest to focus on to detect the possibility of exposed card attacks in Mississippi Stud, Ultimate Texas Hold’em, and Three Card Poker.

• Focus on player(s) wagering near to the maximum wager limit of the game.
• Are these players first-time customers or new to the casino?
• Look for a player positioned diagonally across from the shuffling machine who is sitting low to the table.
• Is the player sitting diagonally to the shuffler focused on the machine’s card delivery well during the hole-card and/or community-card grab and delivery by the dealer?
• Are the suspected players making minimum or no side bets while playing?
• Are these players raising and staying in hands that basic strategy suggests should be folded?

Note: As an observer, you will only see the value of the cards in their hand when they raise and stay in the game. Cards in a folded hand are usually tossed to the dealer face down, placed into the used card well of the shuffling machine, and go unknown.

Solution: If exposed dealer hole cards are a problem, consider leaving the dealer’s hand in the shuffler until all players have made decisions on their hands. This procedure eliminates any chance of accidental dealer card exposure.

Solution: If the same problem exists with the community-card drop, consider utilizing a modified plastic “cut card.” The modified cut card has a hole cut into the card that is positioned directly above the “sensor” in the delivery well. This opening in the plastic card prevents the sensor from detecting the modified card’s presence and allows the shuffler to drop the community card on top of it. Without the hole, the machine will not drop the three- or five-card community drop.

Solution: Have the I-Deal Plus shuffling machine programed to automatically drop plastic cards underneath the dealer hand and/or community card drop. AGS’ shuffler has a similar programable function.