Fortunately, I no longer work in gaming, so you can show me a proof or peer reviewed research; otherwise I'm not very interested.

I've had a first: guy came up to the table and bet 12K across, including. 2k on the 6 & 8 each. When asked if he wanted them proper he said, nah. I lol'd as a couple 6 & 8's hit and a lovely rainbow was paid to him.

Ah the joy of improper bets...

What does that mean? Proper = make the payouts an even number?

Place 6/8 pays 7:6

2000 is not divisible by 6, nor is it an "easy" figure, like 1800 or 2100. I guess you can make it a $1998 bet...

...thus the rainbow of colors paid.

Yup he means make it 1800 or 2400. Though 2100 works too (but less common, as 21 wouldn't work as opposed to 18 or 24).

In all fairness 2004 is a proper bet and would still produce a rainbow.

Speaking of that...... I have a math thing which has been bothering me forever.... perhaps you can help me out.


It seems to me that when we do a tournament color up/ chip race the rule that a player can only win one of the chips is unfair. When I say unfair what I mean is that if we played that game alone the rule would mean that not all players were playing at a 0 EV, some would have a positive EV and some would have a negative depending on how many chips they had and the total number of chips. But that if you remove that rule they would be playing with a 0 ev. (for simplification I am imagining scenarios where there is no rounding as that would create a positive EV).

So I wanted to prove this and i sat down and quickly realized that I don't have the skills to do it.

So am I right? Can it be mathematically demonstrated that the rule that you can only win one chip in a chip race makes it unfair?

Or am I wrong and it is fair? And how does rounding impact this?

I'll break down the numbers. But regardless it's fair in a practical sense IMO. How can someone who entered the race with 200 walk off with 1k, when the goal is to determine who rounds up to 500 and who rounds down to 0?

It doesn't feel unfair to me for a player to win more than 1 chip because in order to win more than one they had put at risk more than 1 chip.

Suppose we have a lottery. we will have 10 tickets. we will draw 2 tickets out and have 2 winners.

If you buy 9 tickets and I buy 1 ticket would it seem fair to have a rule that says you can only win once. We both a have 100% chance of winning but you paid for 9 tickets and I paid for 1.

We can argue about whether after we draw one winner its more fair to put the winning ticket back in the draw or not .... but it seems clear to me that a rule that you can only iwn once wouldn;t be fair in that scenario.

Say you have 4 players - A has 400, B has 300, C has 200, D has 100.

Without the "1 chip only" rule:
A - 33.3% -> 0, 53.3% -> 1, 13.3% -> 2 = 80
B - 46.7% -> 0, 46.7% -> 1, 6.7% -> 2 = 60
C - 62.2% -> 0, 35.5% -> 1, 2.2% -> 2 = 40
D - 80% -> 0, 20% -> 1, 0% -> 2 = 20
A = 80/200 = 40%
B = 60/200 = 30%
C = 40/200 = 20%
D = 20/200 = 10%
So this is fair in an EV sense.

With the "1 chip" rule:
A - 28.4% -> 0, 71.6% -> 1 = 71.6
B - 39.2% -> 0, 60.8% -> 1 = 60.8
C - 55.9% -> 0, 44.1% -> 1 = 44.1
D - 76.5% -> 0, 23.5% -> 1 = 23.5
A = 71.6/200 = 35.8%
B = 60.8/200 = 30.4%
C = 44.1/200 = 22.0%
D = 23.5/200 = 11.8%
EV-wise A loses out a bit while the other 3 gain slightly.

How did you figure that out so fast?

It goes against the intent of the race IMO. The intent is to resolve the fact that people now have fractions of the new lowest denomination chip. If I have 4/5 of a chip, this shouldn't be able to become 2 chips. I just have a better chance of getting that 1 chip than others. You're not racing off each chip, you're racing off each stack. The NBA lottery draft is a good example. Each team has a different number of balls in the bag, but once one of their balls is chosen, they're done - they don't get another pick.

I'm awesome at prob & stats (humble barg). I've got a lot of experience breaking down weighted averages/probabilities/equities due to years of analyzing tables games and how casinos rate them for the purposes of comp hustling. I've got a knack for it.

Someone bet the most annoying player in the room 5 bucks that he couldn't be quiet for half an hour. It just happened to coincide with my down.





Later as I was cashing out I looked at the table. He had electrical tape over his mouth. Not sure how much that cost.

lol

Years ago I had that happen when I was dealing. I was so grateful that I paid the bet off when I got pushed out.

I am going to insert a little history here. We used to "race for the odd chips" this meant that one player got them all. It was dealt as it is now with one card for each chip, but the highest card got all the chips and this was EV neutral. The current method, while feeling "fair" does take EV from some players and give it to others.

Just a note on the math, you have demonstrated why disproving is much easier than proving. You presented a counter-example to the chip race being EV neutral, proofs are much harder if anyone cares about such things.

It is a bit unfair, but in the same way that all tournaments (except winner take all) are: shorter chip stacks have a bit more equity per chip than bigger stacks.

I did find it interesting that the "1 chip only" rule is not fair EV-wise. Intuitively I want to believe that it is, based on the reasons I already gave. I guess in that way it's like the Monte Hall problem - it seems reasonable that the choice is 50/50, but once the math is broken down it's clearly not.

Sorry if I posted this before, but when I worked nights in the sportsbook, I was once paired with a guy whose every word was a complaint about something. Finally, I proposed, "For $5, do you think you can go an hour without complaining about something?"

His eyes lit up at the prospect of winning a prop bet. "You want to bet $5?", he asked.

"No, I'll GIVE YOU $5, if can just go one hour without complaining."

It was awesome. About 40 mins in, I told him that I was enjoying it so much, I just might re-up for another hour if he made it through the first.

He didn't make it.

Don't ask me, I've only spent one week east of the Mississippi in the past four years. Check out the regional subforum under B&M.

(Not counting the occasional jaunt across the river to St Paul for rare transactions with state government, or Minnesota Wild games.)

I think the problem with comparing it to the NBA draft is that the NBA draft is that the teams in the draft lottery are not putting up anything of value. The loser in the lottery is just the teams that didn't win the lottery but they don't actually lose anything. (plus the draft lottery wasn;t designed to be fair. It was designed discourage deliberately loosing game to try to get the worst record and the best pick)

And I think our perspectives are why you looked at the one chip rule and expected it to be fair and I instinctively felt it wasn't.

You look at the chip race as a way to determine who gets an extra chip. I look at it as a way to redistribute chips with some people gaining at the expense of others.

I am guessing you see the glass as half full most of the time, where as I see the glass as evidence that someone took half my water.

Does anyone know of a place to get some good, sturdy Bridge size cut cards for a poker dealer to buy?

I hate the flimsy, thin-plastic cut cards that it seems almost all casinos give their dealers nowadays and I would really like to get something a little thicker and firmer. Not so thick that it makes the deck uncomfortably thick to hold with the cut card below the deck, but something that is noticeably thicker/sturdier than the pathetic/flimsy cut cards that are typically bent and don't even lay flat across the bottom of the cards as the stub sits in your hand. I just ordered a set of 10 Bridge size cut cards for $4.95 shipped, from Kemplasticcards.com, but they won't be here for at least a few days, so I'm not sure what they will end up being like.

I also ordered some Brybelly Bridge size cut cards from Amazon last month and they sent me the wrong (Poker) size cut cards, so I ordered a replacement set and they did the exact same thing and sent me the incorrect 'Poker' size cut cards again. If anyone knows of some good, sturdy Bridge size cut cards that would be good for dealing poker at a casino, I would really appreciate some links and or suggestions!

Btw, after checking on the order I just placed from Kemplasticcards.com, it looks like the PayPal payment I sent during checkout was actually made to Brybelly Holdings. Inc., so I'm guessing that these are probably the exact same cut cards I had ordered from Amazon a few weeks ago. Hopefully, they will actually send me the Bridge size cut cards that I selected with my order.

P.S. Long time lurker in this thread that I have really enjoyed reading over the past 3-4 years, but this is the first time that I can recall actually posting in it. So, I just wanted to say, much thanks to all of you who have contributed to this highly-entertaining thread!

Sent from my Nexus 5 using 2+2 Forums

http://www.spinettisgaming.com/Bottom-Card-for-Poker/

I have bought these before and I am certain this is what you are looking for. They have a store here in Vegas and I bought these for my old room because I was so fed up with the crappy thin cards they used. Later some dealers actually switched some of them back out for the crappy ones .... go figure.

A lot of people did the math when casinos started goignto the 1 chip rule instead of the one winner in chip races, so I knew the result in advance.

cheater!