Theoretical question - which game would you play? All else equal:
Game number 1 - has 2 players (including you) and a slow dealer. You will get about 100 rounds per hour.
Game number 2 - has 5 players (including you) and a lightening fast dealer (the "best in the west"). You will get 120 - 140 rounds per hour.
Which game?
We all know crowding is bad. But is it purely because of the presumably slower game speed or is it because you are less likely to get the good cards in the high counts?
I would think this game would be 50-60 rounds/hr. I wouldn't play this game.Originally Posted by Bigdaddy
It doesn't matter how fast the dealer is with this many at the table you aren't going to have a fast game. Again I would estimate 60 rounds/hr. There ploppies would likely start leaving en masse due to the fast dealer so I might watch a bit. I would love to get that dealer heads up.
When that great count comes you want to get in as many high advantage rounds as possible. Likewise when the good cards hit that will kill the advantage you want to get as many as possible to work in your favor. Crowding eats both rounds and good cards when they hit en masse. This is the main reason crowding is bad. Game speed depends on many things like dealer speed and other players' speed and if the others are playing any side bets. Some casinos are smart enough to offer some games with no side bets to increase game speed for at least a table or 2. More rounds per hour is the casinos best friend since they always have an advantage. Well with almost everyone anyway.
Last edited by Three; 07-27-2016 at 05:32 AM.
Not one person answered your question correctly. Yet again, everyone wants to tell you what, in real life, the speed of the game would be, when, in fact, you told us that a) this was a theoretical question, and, therefore, b) you had the right to make the hands per hour anything you pleased.
The correct answer is unequivocally the second game. The number of players at the table does very little to your overall edge at the game. It hardly changes at all. If you can get 120-140 hands per hour vs. 100, take the larger number of hands, no matter how many people are at the table. And shame on the others for not answering, YET AGAIN, the specific -- and very clear -- question that you asked!
Don
Because the reason why we want to play HU is because we want to get more hands per hour. The OP is asking if Game Number 2 would be better if it gets more hands per hour in spite of the higher number of players. If a dealer could somehow deal more hands with five people at a table than a table with just one player, than you should go for Game 2. Time is money. However, this is almost an impossible occurrence. One way this could be possible is if the dealer at Game 1 was a newbie and therefore a super slow dealer and the dealer at Game 2 is Speedy Gonzales with the five players also being super speedy. This is extremely unlikely, but as Don reiterated from the OP, the question was theoretical.
The question is interesting to me though because you could have a table with one player vs. a table with two players. If the dealer at the table with two players is significantly faster than the other, this may be worth considering. However, don't forget that the dealer will only be there for 30 minutes.
Last edited by marriedputter; 07-26-2016 at 11:49 PM.
CVCX assumes you will be sitting at third base. This gives you extra information for playing. It also slightly increases actual penetration because the dealer deals more cards after the cut card.
"I don't think outside the box; I think of what I can do with the box." - Henri Matisse
Thanks Don - this is the answer that I thought was correct. I have run sims with differing numbers of players and it seemed to make very little difference in SCORE. But I just had to ask because everybody talks how table crowding ruins a game. But it's not the table crowding itself - it's what it does to game speed.
Sorry Bigdaddy. The thing is I would probably play neither. I don't feel I have to play. I look for certain things or a combination of things. If I can get them I feel winning over the short term is fairly certain. Some of my worst beatings over a longer period of 2 or 3 days are when I played rather than be more particular about what I was looking for. You said everything else equal but you didn't specify what everything else is. Some things would mean I would never play either game. Without specifying I would have to assume average. I can play when and where I want. It is hard for me to use a mentality that these are the only 2 games to play and I have to play now. That is the road to a bad beating. I have tried to use every tool from sims to personal experience from my records and memory to eliminate as much of that as possible. Unfortunately you can't eliminate it altogether.
T - I was just trying to get my head straight on a Theoretical question. The correct answer dispels the myth that table crowding is bad "...because you won't get as many of the good cards in the high counts." - that's incorrect. The correct answer is that table crowding is bad because it tends to reduce game speed (rounds/hour).
That being said, I do have a real-life example in mind. I play a pitch game where one of the dealers is so fast, it's a no-brainer that I'd rather play his table with 4 sitting than at the average dealer's table with 2 or 3 sitting. He changes cards between the shuffles (in and out of the ASM) so fast that you don't even notice that the deck has ended. All you see is the cut card waving in your face - he's ready to go. I notice that most dealers use the deck changeover delay as an opportunity to BS with the players. Not this guy...
Tthree, you write "I can play when and where I want". This means that your home base is Las Vegas or that you play at high enough stakes and have the time to travel to lots of places with confidence that you can earn more than the expenses involved with travel. I think a large majority of those on this forum are not where you are. Thus, we are never sure that "winning over the short term" is "fairly certain".
For many of us, there are indeed two games to play or a casino or two to play and limited time to play (except for an occasional trip). While you always seem to have choice games to play, we struggle with the optimal way to play games (6d, h17, no surrender, penn of 4.5).
This is incorrect if you play-all. If you are selective it is right. The eating of bad cards and rounds in a negative count almost equals out their eating good cards and rounds in a positive count. If you eliminate much of the negative counts played this is not an issue. When you take the bathroom break playing heads up what typically happens? Almost everywhere removes the cards from the shoe because pretty much nobody will play at a table that went so bad everyone left. They assume the same fate awaits them if they play the rest of the shoe.
Well you didn't say it was a pitch game. I think everyone assumed a shoe game. I know I did. Important considerations are much different in pitch than in shoe.
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