Effect of dealer not revealing hole card unless necessary?

[Lonesome Gambler]

I imagine there's some complex mathematical analysis that could be done here, but does anyone have a general idea of how much one would be affected by the dealer not revealing their hole card unless necessary to determine the winner of a hand? For example, heads-up, player busts, dealer discards their hole card without flipping it first. My guess is that this essentially has the same effect as reducing penetration, but is this significant enough to worry about?

I suppose you could simply figure the standard bust rate and compare it to the amount of cards lost due to this rule, based on the amount of players. The more players, the lesser the effect. Does anyone play games with this rule, and do you find it important enough to do the math on?

Edit: Not sure if this should go in the theory/math forum...

 

[ihate17]

Procedure or habit???

I imagine there's some complex mathematical analysis that could be done here, but does anyone have a general idea of how much one would be affected by the dealer not revealing their hole card unless necessary to determine the winner of a hand? For example, heads-up, player busts, dealer discards their hole card without flipping it first. My guess is that this essentially has the same effect as reducing penetration, but is this significant enough to worry about?

I suppose you could simply figure the standard bust rate and compare it to the amount of cards lost due to this rule, based on the amount of players. The more players, the lesser the effect. Does anyone play games with this rule, and do you find it important enough to do the math on?

Edit: Not sure if this should go in the theory/math forum...

Before figuring anything, it is extremely important to know if this is a house procedure or some kind of dealer habit.
You hit your 12 vs dealer 2 and bust. You now should ask the dealer what he had in the hole because you want to know if you should have stayed or not. If not showing the card is procedure, the dealer will say that. If not procedure the dealer should tell you what the card is.

I have found that it is very rarely a procedure and once asked, the dealer will now reveal his hole card every hand.

I think there are many board members who think asking a question like this would tip someone off that they are cardcounters but these members are wrong. The average ploppy always looks at the coulda, woulda, hindsight results of most hands and here you are just doing the same thing.

ihate17

 

[Automatic Monkey]

I imagine there's some complex mathematical analysis that could be done here, but does anyone have a general idea of how much one would be affected by the dealer not revealing their hole card unless necessary to determine the winner of a hand? For example, heads-up, player busts, dealer discards their hole card without flipping it first. My guess is that this essentially has the same effect as reducing penetration, but is this significant enough to worry about?

I suppose you could simply figure the standard bust rate and compare it to the amount of cards lost due to this rule, based on the amount of players. The more players, the lesser the effect. Does anyone play games with this rule, and do you find it important enough to do the math on?

Edit: Not sure if this should go in the theory/math forum...

It is exactly the same as reducing penetration. Interesting, that in a situation where your busting would reduce the effective pen by a card, you might be better off standing on borderline situations.

 

[Lonesome Gambler]

I think there are many board members who think asking a question like this would tip someone off that they are cardcounters but these members are wrong. The average ploppy always looks at the coulda, woulda, hindsight results of most hands and here you are just doing the same thing.

Great point. I've heard regular players ask how many decks are in play, ask questions about how many decks are being cut off, and so on. Some people even ask for (and are granted) a look at the burn card.

Anyway, in the case I'm talking about, this would be a house procedure. My uneducated guess would probably be that, unless playing heads-up, this procedure wouldn't be worth worrying about. At a table with 3 players, I would imagine that very, very few hands would result in every player busting. I can't imagine more than 1/8 deck being missed in this case. An interesting rule though, and I hadn't heard of this until earlier today.

 

[ihate17]

Did you ask a pit?

Lonesome

Yes, it would be a very rare house procedure and I would not believe a dealer who told me that it was procedure.
It is also a stupid procudure, perhaps a paranoid one. I have called many average players hindsighters before because they like to recreate past hands with stays instead of hits and vice versa. This takes that away from the average loser and would anger a few of them.

Dealers will lie to you for no good reason, just because they can. About two years ago I caught a cheating dealer playing selective hole card** against the table. I let the first one pass because I had a pat hand and was sure he had a low hole card but called him out the second time he did this. He stated, "I can choose either my first or second card as my hole card" Once he said that I called the pit, the hand was played out where everyone either won or pushed and there was no further incidence.

**Selective hole card. The dealer peeks at his first card as he pulls it out of the shoe. If the card is a big card he turns it over if it is a small card it becomes his hole card. The result is the players land up busting more often because they will see big cards much more often than usual. It is easily detectible, just pay attention.

ihate17

 

[Blue Efficacy]

There are indeed several stores in part of the country where this is the house procedure. I wouldn't worry about it much, although perhaps it would affect borderline surrenders if you're playing heads up?

Nah, I wouldn't worry about it. So you lose a few cards. In a shoe game, that really doesn't mean too much.

 

[creeping panther]

Hide rule

There are indeed several stores in part of the country where this is the house procedure. I wouldn't worry about it much, although perhaps it would affect borderline surrenders if you're playing heads up?

Nah, I wouldn't worry about it. So you lose a few cards. In a shoe game, that really doesn't mean too much.

I face this often at one of my fav places. They have the best rules for a 6d in the USA but employ the hide. It is a real problem for me playing heads up, so I do 2 hands and on borderline plays will not hit.

Another one of my fav 6d games does not do this and playing heads up is a real treat.

CP

 

[stophon]

Player bust 16% of time.
Assume 1 deck is cut off of a six deck shoe and playing heads up. About 45 rounds per shoe. Normally player sees 260 cards, but on 7 rounds he sees 1 less card. So your losing about 1/8 of a deck in penetration.

When two hands are being played you only lose 1 card.

 

[iCountNTrack]

Player bust 28% of time.
Assume 1 deck is cut off of a six deck shoe and playing heads up. About 45 rounds per shoe. Normally player sees 260 cards, but on 13 rounds he sees 1 less card. So your losing about 1/4 of a deck in penetration.

When two hands are being played you only lose 3-4 cards of penetration. Three hands reduces this number to 1 card per shoe.

1/4 of a deck is significant, reducing your score by almost 10 in this case. However when two or more hands are being played the effect is pretty negligible.

The dealer actually busts 28% of the time, while player busts only 16% of the time. But yeah the effect is much more pronounced if you were playing heads up, but with more players on the table the dealer will have to play his hand.But regardless the dealer should show you his hole card if you ask him.

 

[stophon]

Sorry this is not true, the dealer bust about 28% of the time, while player busts only 16% of the time.

Ah damnet your right. I knew I should have checked or at least ran a sim before I quoted a figure. It's fixed now.

 

[Lonesome Gambler]

Player bust 16% of time.
Assume 1 deck is cut off of a six deck shoe and playing heads up. About 45 rounds per shoe. Normally player sees 260 cards, but on 7 rounds he sees 1 less card. So your losing about 1/8 of a deck in penetration.

When two hands are being played you only lose 1 card.

Yeah, this is what I was thinking. I usually play 2 hands in + counts anyway, so I suppose there aren't too many things to worry about here. Strange rule though, eh?