Pai Gow Poker Collusion

Automatic Monkey

Automatic Monkey

Banned
#1
#1
Being 49 out of 53 cards are dealt out at a full table of Pai Gow Poker, and the house edge is relatively low, it seems like it would be a good game for collusion to determine a dealer's possible hands before arranging the players' hands. Just knowing whether or not any player has the joker would be simplest and probably the most powerful single piece of information you can have.

Anybody aware of any work done on this?
 
bj bob

bj bob

Well-Known Member
#2
#2
Automatic Monkey said:
Being 49 out of 53 cards are dealt out at a full table of Pai Gow Poker, and the house edge is relatively low, it seems like it would be a good game for collusion to determine a dealer's possible hands before arranging the players' hands. Just knowing whether or not any player has the joker would be simplest and probably the most powerful single piece of information you can have.

Anybody aware of any work done on this?
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Yes, the joker is a key card in pai gow. I've been told that it adds 2-5% to a player's pct., but I think that's just hunch math. I believe Norm might have the exact number on that.
In any case, I would definitely learn: "anyone have the joker?" in Cantonese/ Mandarin.
 
Automatic Monkey

Automatic Monkey

Banned
#3
#3
bj bob said:
Yes, the joker is a key card in pai gow. I've been told that it adds 2-5% to a player's pct., but I think that's just hunch math. I believe Norm might have the exact number on that.
In any case, I would definitely learn: "anyone have the joker?" in Cantonese/ Mandarin.
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In terms of setting hands, there should be a significant difference between knowing the dealer definitely does not have the joker and a 64% chance that he does have the joker. And with collusion you will know which it is for every hand.

I've seen plenty of roundeyes playing Pai Gow poker. The tiles, that's a different story, that's strictly Asian. All I know about the tiles is that it's the only other casino game with a Wong.
 
C

callipygian

Well-Known Member
#4
#4
Automatic Monkey said:
Being 49 out of 53 cards are dealt out at a full table of Pai Gow Poker, and the house edge is relatively low, it seems like it would be a good game for collusion to determine a dealer's possible hands before arranging the players' hands. Just knowing whether or not any player has the joker would be simplest and probably the most powerful single piece of information you can have.

Anybody aware of any work done on this?
Click to expand...
I did some rough simulations a few years back. Because knowledge of the dealer's cards can only affect playing decisions and not betting decisions, and because most playing decisions are obvious, there's not enough to turn this into an EV+ game by itself.

HOWEVER, if you can find a game where a player is banking and can talk to the other players (this is against the rules everywhere I've played), it's possible to beat the house. If you can play heads-up with the dealer and are allowed to bank every other hand, you can allegedly also beat the house (my sims could not confirm it, though). The major edge you get is from winning ties on the low hand, not from knowledge of cards.
 
Automatic Monkey

Automatic Monkey

Banned
#5
#5
I, ap wog

A recent study at Foxwoods shows their comp rate is 40% of the average bet per hour. This is an equivalent 26.7% cashback on average bet per hour. Makes the game a little more interesting, no?
 
M

mjbballar23

Well-Known Member
#6
#6
Automatic Monkey said:
A recent study at Foxwoods shows their comp rate is 40% of the average bet per hour. This is an equivalent 26.7% cashback on average bet per hour. Makes the game a little more interesting, no?
Click to expand...
Expected loss betting $100 per hand: 100 * .0254 (house edge) * 25 (hands per hour) = $63.50 per hour.

Cashback per hour: $26.70

New house edge: 100 * x * 25 = (63.50 - 26.70)
x = .01472 = 1.472%

Comp value per hour: $40

New house edge in relation to comp value: 100 * x * 25 = (63.5 - 40)
x = .0094 = .94 %

This could be manipulated even further by: slowing the game down below 25 hands per hour, finding ways to bet less than $100 per hand while still maintaining a $100 per hand average bet in the eyes of the pit, and collusion between players...
 
C

callipygian

Well-Known Member
#7
#7
mjbballar23 said:
This could be manipulated even further by: slowing the game down below 25 hands per hour, finding ways to bet less than $100 per hand while still maintaining a $100 per hand average bet in the eyes of the pit, and collusion between players...
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And banking every hand you're allowed to.
 
Katweezel

Katweezel

Well-Known Member
#8
#8
Collusion gang

Just say the whole Pai Gow table is taken by AutoMonk's collusion gang, and each round the whereabouts of the joker is known...uh,... how much can we make AM? :cat:
 
hawkeye

hawkeye

Well-Known Member
#9
#9
I'd like to know the answer to that last question too. I don't think it would be all that hard to come up with a system to identify who has the joker with a full table of team players. With all the pushes in Pai-Gow, I see room to make it work.
 
J

johndoe

Well-Known Member
#10
#10
I've seen this played very openly, where the players and dealer would openly discuss hand content and how to structure their best hands. I can't imagine that you'd have to do much to conceal a signal.
 
C

callipygian

Well-Known Member
#11
#11
johndoe said:
I've seen this played very openly, where the players and dealer would openly discuss hand content and how to structure their best hands. I can't imagine that you'd have to do much to conceal a signal.
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That's because the house has set rules on how the dealer plays his hand. It's like blackjack where the dealer is free to give advice because his play is independent of players' play.

However, this changes when a player is banking at PGP (which I believe is essential to any EV+ strategy) - the banker is (at least where I've played) not allowed to discuss with the other players what they have, because the banker is NOT playing by a set strategy. The dealer (who is a player during player-banked hands) is still free to give advice to all the players and still acts based on house strategy (which is where the potential for EV+ comes in).
 
hawkeye

hawkeye

Well-Known Member
#12
#12
The first time I played I naturally assumed that everyone at the table would show each other their cards, and when I go my cards I just flipped them heads up on the table and spread them out to look at them, and let everyone else see them. The dealer flipped, called over the pit boss, I thought I was gonna get tossed. It wasn't a player-banked game, and they told me I can never do that again.
 
C

callipygian

Well-Known Member
#13
#13
hawkeye said:
I thought I was gonna get tossed.
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I think it's pretty hard to get tossed from a pai gow poker table. My friends and I have done some really stupid things (e.g. throwing cards at each other) and we've never been tossed.

You're not supposed to show your hand or talk to other people about it but we do it all the time. Sometimes we have questions (for each other or for the dealer) on how to play our hands, sometimes we just want to brag about how bad our hand is (9-high FTW!). It's never a problem but we got warned once when it was a player-banked hand.

We usually tip pretty well to make up for all the idiocy the staff have to put up with. :eek:
 
Automatic Monkey

Automatic Monkey

Banned
#14
#14
Odd. When I've tried it, the banking didn't seem to work that way. The player-banker played his hand against the dealer. Then the non-bankers played their hand against the player-banker as if he was the dealer. So the casino isn't going to care how anybody sets their hand.
 
C

callipygian

Well-Known Member
#15
#15
Automatic Monkey said:
Odd. When I've tried it, the banking didn't seem to work that way. The player-banker played his hand against the dealer. Then the non-bankers played their hand against the player-banker as if he was the dealer. So the casino isn't going to care how anybody sets their hand.
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Banking works that way in my games too. Not sure if I explained it correctly.

The casino cares because there were people at the table who weren't part of our group - so that while unlikely, it's possible the banker could have set his hand to maximize the possibility of winning against the house and the non-group player, and then we (the non-bankers) get kickbacks later.

Most casinos enforce a pretty strict policy of non-sharing when a player is banking, and they're more lax when the house is banking.
 
N&B

N&B

Well-Known Member
#16
#16
Played PGP at FW for a long time up to 2005. Comps were quite good if you did not bank. Generally, I presumed the HA was halved. I always used to complain about the 5% commission betting at a $25 table... obviously 4% should be the case. Flat betting $25 for 30 hands (about 1 hr) seemed to net me dinner at all times ($12-13). I like the idea of the bonus side-bet I've heard about out West.

Since I haven't been to the PGP areas in at least 3 years I'll inquire here if Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun has the side bets... yea or nay?
 
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