Hole Card

Flop Poker (FP) is a poker style game that is popular in the Southern states. First introduced in 2003, it is one of the longest surviving novelty games. FP is an example of a game that is both vulnerable to hole-carding and one that APs would not go out of their way to play. It isn’t enough to have an advantage. The advantage must be attainable without substantial bankroll and time requirements.

The rules for FP are as follows:

1. The game uses a single deck.

2. The player makes an Ante wager.

Yesterday I received a request to analyze Ultimate Texas Hold'em (UTH). This isn't the first time I've had this particular request. I wrote the code to analyze UTH a couple of years ago when an online casino company asked me to independently verify the house edge. To say that this is a big game is an understatement. For practical use, running a cycle is only the first step. The information must then be culled into rules that can be effectively used. For hole-card analysis, the computations get even bigger.

Few who work in table games management and even fewer APs know that blackjack shoe games offer hole-carding opportunities. How could this even be possible? Yet advanced APs know that shoe games have been one of the most reliable sources for hole-carding opportunities over the last 20 years. Hole-carding opportunities do not exist by themselves, ready to be discovered by the astute scout. Rather, in shoe games hole-card opportunities are created by APs.

Many APs preach that the book “Beyond Counting” by James Grosjean contains everything you need if you just know how to find it.  They say that you must simply “read everything.” Mississippi Stud (MS) is a good example.  The most common hole-card to see in MS is the flop card, yet at first this strategy appears missing from Beyond Counting. After giving hole-card strategy for seeing the turn card, Grosjean states the following about flop-hole-card strategy: “This [turn] strategy is way off for the [flop] game, so you’ll have to work out your own there.” I did.

In a discussion of Ultimate Texas Hold'em (UTH), I read the following:

I found a venue that will allow a 4x bet on the flop. Surely there is some sort of edge there?

I know it must seem like I am drunk, given the way I keep analyzing over-the-top AP opportunities. How could it be possible to see both of the dealer's hole-cards in Texas Hold'em Bonus Poker (THB) at the start of the hand? I was recently contacted by a surveillance professional at a casino where this exact scenario took place! He told me that THB was hand dealt at his casino. Nothing wrong with that, just don't deal any cards until they are absolutely needed! He was writing a report on an incident and wanted to know the edge the APs got.

In this post,  I presented flop-hole-card strategy for Mississippi Stud (MS). At the time, I stated that the most common hole-card to see in MS is the flop card. After watching the game at several casinos, I was not so sure. Then I read a message board post at wizardofvegas, stating:

"Yesterday, I got to play with a Mississippi Stud dealer consistently flashing the river. SCORE!"

This post presents river-hole-card strategy for MS.

There is no doubt that Texas Hold'em Bonus Poker (THB) has a big hole-card issue. In this post I covered the situation when the AP sees one dealer hole-card, which gives the AP a 7.61% edge over the house with perfect play. Like its first cousin Ultimate Texas Hold'em, when the dealer's procedure breaks down in THB, two separate hole-cards are usually exposed. Typically, the AP will see a dealer hole-card together with either a Flop card or a River card.