True, but you can always defend with, and not have to hear about, The Sacred Order of The Cards (TSOTC) being disturbed. Plus only having to shuffle and reflop 4 cards instead of the entire deck is probably quicker so you don't have to hear the wailing moans as long.

It's easy to come up with contrived situations that illustrate this, in that it changes a KK holding when multiple aces or kings are known to still be in the stub.

Each method has its flaws.

This method lets casinos eek out a few more rakes per day*, so it's likely "better" (for the casino) than any other "flawed" method.

[*Unless of course your casino has over-protective floor persons that can't let dealers handle any irregularity without stopping the game and getting two witnesses...]

yes, dont play live. play online. much safer.

I think this would be the best solution.

Unless each dealer's box is going to contain a nice dice SHAKER, I'm not thrilled about a dealer hand-dropping a single die onto the felt.

It also lacks a certain...elegance.

Don't forget the dice calipers for measuring the die, and the little lathe device for making sure it is balanced, whenever anyone requests a new set up.

I'm not trying to be difficult, but picking up a die out of the tray and rolling it right in front of you seems... ...very National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation.

Yes, obviously there will have to be a portable backboard set up, and the dealer will have to throw the dice over the betting line and hit the board for it to be considered a legal roll (after waiting for the side bets on the results of the roll to be completed).

I believe Roberts Rules of Poker will be rewritten to include what happens if the die manages to land on another player's chips.

For you who think it's great, then you won't mind if when you and I are all in preflop in the final hand of the WSOP main event and you flip up KK against my AA and my best friend who happens to be dealing "accidentally" puts out 4 cards on the flop, one of which is a king, and he then juggles the 4 cards and just happens to pick the king to be the burn. No problem there. None at all.

This would be impossible to detect or prevent.

I will never fathom why someone would sacrifice game integrity for superstitious nonsense.

Personally I like the rule and we've used it for about 6 months w/o any issue. I can't be critical of a decision that will give us at a minimum 80% correct board cards. Shuffling all the cards, I'm pretty sure has a much lower percentage.

3/4 = 80% (minimum!)

4/5 = 80%, 5/5 = 100%.

This is just silly. As I pointed out earlier, in tournament play at the WSOP the floor picks the burn so it doesn't matter if the dealer is your "buddy". Unless of course the floor that comes over is your buddy too!

Let me see...guaranteed that 2 of 3 on the flop are correct and then for sure 4th and 5th street are still correct. So that's.....yep for certain we have 4 of the 5 cards that were suppose to show up. that's 80% in most places. So if shuffle them all, how many are coming back correct? Again, that's just our opinion

Better solution is to attach a Trouble game board to the table. Each time there's a problem just pop the bubble until a 1-4 shows up.

Shouldn't the goal in a situation like this be the same as a premature burn and turn? Shouldn't we preserve the order of the cards to the best of our ability? I agree it seemed strange the first time I heard it, but the more I thought about, the more it made sense.

really all that needs to be said about this! so weak.

I don't at all mind giving in to the tea leaf readers and horoscope followers, as along as you don't replace a system that is fairly immune from manipulation with one that is trivially gamed. Horrible tradeoff.

Of course, even sillier, the Dealer buddy would have to know that a king is going to come off in the first 3 cards, since proper flop procedure is to deal the flop face down and flip it. So given that I am already playing with a dealer and his buddy that know what the next 3 cards are going to be off the deck so they can fake a bad four card flop, I think at that point this procedure is the least of my worries.

And what is the alternative? Why you give Cheater-Dealer the entire deck to stack and shuffle and deal out an entire new flop without a burn. Nice.

I don't think it's great. I prefer the old method for all the reasons you list. But let's face it, the chances of that situation happening are incredibly slim.

If we're going to spend energy regarding dealer shadiness, how about a campaign to get them to stop rolling the stub, which I have seen almost every single dealer do during my weeks here in Vegas playing all around town. A lot of them squeeze it too. A lot of them flash the burns.

These things happen all day every day. Again, I agree with you completely regarding why this new procedure is iffy, but I gotta look at the odds on this one.

Heck, for a simple burn/turn, what in current procedure prevents the dealer from peeking the stub and then setting the deck on the reshuffle? That's ENTIRELY dealer-controlled, unlike the new 4-card flop policy.

No he wouldn't. The Dealer Buddy could deal four off and ditch a king if it shows up, and if not, just ditch a different card.

There's a massive gain some of the time, and a little gain the rest of the time.

Anyone know the rule for a 5 card flop....I'm being serious.

The old-skewl, non-TDA, 4-card flop procedure works fine for 5 or 8 or 17 card flops. Just pick the flop up, shuffle it in to the remaining deck, cut, and put out 3 new cards.

Cut the dealer off, and get him some coffee ASAP. May want to give him a stern talking to about drinking on the job.