Burn cards
It seems to be a universal practice/tradition to burn a card at the start of a deck/shoe and following a change in dealer. Why is this so?
It seems to be a universal practice/tradition to burn a card at the start of a deck/shoe and following a change in dealer. Why is this so?
Magican asked:
It seems to be a universal practice/tradition to burn a card at the start of a deck/shoe and following a change in dealer. Why is this so?
Burning a card with a dealer change is not quite universal. Many of the casinos that I play do not do that, at least in Shoe games. (In pitch games, they often break the deck and reshuffle.)
When a new dealer burns a card, some players will think disrupts the "flow of the cards" and will either lower their bets, or leave the table.
Burning the first card from the pack does seem to be universal. I presume it originated because of fear that the top card might be partly exposed during the cutting procedures. But I am not sure.
Burning the first card from the pack does seem to be universal. I presume it originated because of fear that the top card might be partly exposed during the cutting procedures. But I am not sure.
My belief (and the one mentioned in most cheating texts, albeit emanating mainly from one source) is that this is a protection against players who have information about the top card, which would include but not be confined to exposure during cutting procedures.
Sitting at first base I have seen the bottom card of a 6 deck shoe numerous times. Are there any statistics on the advantage of knowing what the bottom or burn card is?
May garner more attention to you than you might like though. Can't believe it's due to knowledge of the top card, as that would be the first baseman's first card and exposed for everyone to see in a face up game, and only pertinent to the 1st baseman's hand in a face down game. Probably just another element of randomness introduced to the game. Casinos love randomness in their games.
Harrah's cuts between 12 and 20 cards off the top and burns them in their pitch games.
Other than that, I don't believe there is any advantage.
...if you are seeing the back card BEFORE the pack is cut. See my post (and subsequent follow-ups) on AP.com entitled, "re:Card-Steering...(long)", for some more info if thats the case. Otherwise, the only gain (or loss) you would see, would be from including the card in your count, which would result in a change to the house edge equal to the effect of removal of the card, divided by the decks remaining. So for example,at the beginning of a shoe, if you see a five as the burn & a four as the back card after the cut: (.69 / 6) + (.55 / 6) = +.206_%.
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