Hole-Carding 3 Card Poker: Random Walks & ROR

Hole-carding three-card poker has been popular for players who use the advantage play. Statistically, it gives the player a 3.48% edge, but in reality, it rarely reaps the profits as it shows on paper. Some players also state that the shufflers are biased when it comes to how the cards are put together.

In simple words, it is card counting, while some people may consider this cheating many casinos like to encourage this lie so that they can keep their profits to themselves. Advantage play can be applied to a variety of strategies aimed at turning the odds in your favour.

The base game has a 3.48% winning probability only if the AP has a full view of the card and also never makes a mistake throughout his play. This is a tricky play to work, and one should only go ahead if the AP notices a superstar flashing a dealer at Three Card Poker. Even if you have the perfect information, you cannot afford to make mistakes as a single mistake will lead to you losing an hour’s earnings. Keep reading to learn more –

One can sense a pattern about the Risk of Ruin (ROR) with perfect information –

• A perfect Play will lead to a 3.48% edge
• Standard deviation is 1.7417
• You can easily lose 2 units, and this happens 34% of the time

Here are a few assumptions that one must make before they are playing –

1. The player plays only when he or she has the perfect hole card information
2. They play at least 4 hours a day on average
3. The pace of the game is 40 hands per hour

Only then

• The AP will have an edge of 3.48% at every hand
• He or she needs to play 160 hands at least
• The expected earnings than would be 5.572 units per day

We must assume that AP loses 1 unit a day to mistakes –

If the AP makes an error that costs 1 unit every day, then the player’s edge is reduced to 2.86% from 3.48%. This means that the player is losing 17.94% of his expected profits just due to his errors.

It is also unlikely that the AP will get a perfect read every time. Thus the assumption that three card poker can be won easily using Advantage Play is a bit misleading. The data collected overtime only shows that it is easy to fall for the varying results it can produce, and one should have almost perfect predictability skills to make full use of this phenomenon.

Casinos should not worry about this technique as the chances of you running into a player that uses such an AP to his advantage is rare and will only play for a limited time. The law of diminishing return sets in after some time, and they will be forced to leave anyway. The casino staff and director must be aware of these players and use their help to have a better security system.