Is it necessary to burn a card online?

[LoveDub]

Subject line says it all. Logic dictates that it is not necessary, but in the interests of an online room modelling a real room, should it be done anyway?

I am aware that there is no way that a player can sneak a peek at the top card, nor can the dealer. But still...

[Hornacek]

Can you add the option "This is a really incredibly retarded question... why am I wasting my time reading this?"

[LoveDub]

LOL, I'm guessing you're the only one that can answer that...
Isn't option 3 enough?

[LoveDub]

And no, I can't edit a poll, otherwise I would be happy to add that for ya...

[lonn19]

How would you even know if a card was burned or not??

[LoveDub]

There would be no way to know for sure, but you could always ask support. They might know.

[Sciolist]

No, what'd be the point?

Online card rooms aren't really trying to model b&m casinos - here's something a colleague said earlier today in a mail:

[ QUOTE ]
At PokerStars we are not trying to simulate B&M play, this is ultimately where we disagree - no tipping the dealer, no smoke, no big smelly gamblers that haven't slept in 3 days, no dealer mistakes; I could go on! Moreover B&M play should be trying to simulate some of the cliches of online play!

[/ QUOTE ]

[LoveDub]

It's academic, not be taken too seriously.

[StacysMom]

I voted yes, online play is clearly based on BM play. So it shoudl keep its general elements at heart. I know there is no legit reason beside nastalgia to burn a card online. But there is also no reasont to have a dealer sitting at the table. No reason to simulate the cards being delt. No reason to use visual represenations of chips, numbers would suffice...

But to be honest, i dont care about it much, just enough to vote yes.

[Jeffage]

Burning cards is a security precaution to dull the impact of marked cards. It's so nobody can see the top of the next card coming off the deck in case it's marked. It has no bearing in online play.

Jeff

[SackUp]

Polltard!

[Alobar]

best...gimmick/troll...account....ever!

[CountDuckula]

I know; let's offer a way to mark cards in online play, so that there really is a purpose in burning a card! /images/graemlins/crazy.gif

-Mike

[TheMainEvent]

I can't believe people think this is a dumb question. Losing players are very superstitious and will look for any reason outside of their own bad play as to why "they always win in live play but lose online." People will be distrustful of any element of online cardrooms that differs from B&M.

[pokerrookie]

[ QUOTE ]
Burning cards is a security precaution to dull the impact of marked cards. It's so nobody can see the top of the next card coming off the deck in case it's marked. It has no bearing in online play.

Jeff

[/ QUOTE ]

In a live game, the dealer deals clockwise around the table, as opposed to one card to player 1, a card to player 6, etc... It doesnt matter which card is dealt, it's all random right? Yet the standard, to avoid the speculation that the dealer is dealing in a non-random, unethical manner, is to always deal clockwise beginning with the SB. The question then, is why do poker sites bother with this method? I think, it is to simulate B&M. As such, they should probably burn a card for the same reason.

My 2 cents, but probably not worth even that.

[ripped]

thanks for wasting my time with this dumb poll.

[MicroBob]

On True Poker I think they show the dealer knocking the table before dealing the turn and river card just like they do in a 'real' casino.


The idea that the online-site also doesn't need to show the cards flying to each player in the appropriate order is also a good one.



There was someone who posted about online burn-cards about a year ago (I think in the general forum) who insisted that because the online-sites don't burn a card they are CHANGING the order of the cards and it's not a REAL poker game (or some other such nonsense).


This doesn't seem THAT different to me then all the silly nonsense that goes on in a B&M casino when there is a slight dealer error regarding the order of the cards.
It's a mis-deal even before anyone has looked at their cards if he happens to skip a player. All he has to do is give that guy the next card afterall.
It's pretty stupid but many players seem to think it makes some sort of difference (technically I guess that it could somehow allow for cheating).

It strikes me as being about as stupid as players requesting deck-changes in live play because the guy next to them got high pocket-pairs for 3 hands in a row or because they themselves keep getting 63o.


Yes....showing some sort of burn-card at an online-casino would be REALLY stupid.
But so are most of the people who play there.

So I agree that this question is actually not quite as stupid as one would initially think (or as stupid as I would have thought a few months ago).

[witeknite]

I can't remember where I read this or which site had the smart ass, but when asked if they burn a card, he responded saying that every morning they went outside and burned a whole deck of cards. That covered them for the day.

WiteKnite

[maybedinero]

I reckon burning cards will just confuse the online players who haven't B&M experience, particularly since the real reason in B&M for it is irrelevant online.

[boose_bagina]

why burn a card when the cards are constantly being shuffled anyways???

[junkmail3]

[ QUOTE ]
why burn a card when the cards are constantly being shuffled anyways???

[/ QUOTE ]

Because if they didn't burn a card we'd have to write a new pattern mapper.

[TheMainEvent]

[ QUOTE ]
why burn a card when the cards are constantly being shuffled anyways???

[/ QUOTE ]

I think on most sites the order of the deck is arranged (shuffled) prior to the hand and then is fixed for the remainder of the hand. Is this not correct?

[fluff]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
why burn a card when the cards are constantly being shuffled anyways???

[/ QUOTE ]

I think on most sites the order of the deck is arranged (shuffled) prior to the hand and then is fixed for the remainder of the hand. Is this not correct?

[/ QUOTE ]

That would be a very illogical thing to do.

[TheMainEvent]

Pokerstars (http://www.pokerstars.com/security.html)

[newhizzle]

i think stars does, but i know party dosent, but anyway, as much as it would be technically pointless to burn cards, the OP does have a point, and that is that the fish are into superstitions, they may feel that they did not hit their draw because the card that was supposed to be burned came on the river instead, and in order to keeps gaves thriving we need to keep the fish happy

[LoveDub]

It is logical. The order of the cards is decided once you've shuffled in a live game. See following voluminous excerpt from Gaming Club's Fairness page:

[ QUOTE ]

The shuffling algorithm used to ensure a truly random deck is of extreme importance. The Gaming Club Online Poker Room employs a sort shuffle using a random number generator that generates 232 different values pulled from a 4096 bit entropy pool. This is different from the Knuth shuffle used by some other systems, and it has some advantages.

Here is an example of how the shuffling algorithm works.

We assign a random value to each card, as follows:


Ace clubs = 289384521
2 clubs = 1543421228
3 clubs = 410684245
Jack spades = 306557875
Queen spades = 1382797013
King spades = 1886740576

The cards are then sorted by their unique index value. This results in the following ordering:


Ace clubs = 289384521
Jack spades = 306557875
3 clubs = 410684245
Queen spades = 1382797013
2 clubs = 1543421228
King spades = 1886740576

This method of shuffling eliminates the problem that a single-pass Knuth shuffle has involving the modulo bias. It is possible to mitigate these effects by using a multi-pass Knuth shuffle, but this becomes obsolete with the introduction of the superior algorithm.

Some interesting numbers:

A deck of cards can have 52 (roughly 8x1067) permutations. How this number has been arrived at can be determined fairly easily.

The first card dealt can be any one of 52 cards. The second card can be one of any of the remaining 51 cards. At this point there are 51x52 different permutations. The third card can be any of the remaining 50. Therefore to find the number of possible shuffled decks, the number to be calculated is 52x51x50x49...3x2x1, resulting in approximately 8x1067 different combinations. Given a true random data source, the initial permutation available using the shuffle method is (2¹¹)5¹. This is roughly 8x10500.

Due to the fact that a 4096 bit entropy pool is used, the numbers are pulled from any one of 24096 different combinations. As a result, there are 10433 different ways that data can be generated to produce random decks. To state this fact a little more clearly, it is 10382 times as likely that one could randomly choose the same molecule of water from the ocean twice in a row, than the same set of values being generated in a shuffled deck.



[/ QUOTE ]

[LoveDub]

[ QUOTE ]

the OP does have a point, and that is that the fish are into superstitions, they may feel that they did not hit their draw because the card that was supposed to be burned came on the river instead, and in order to keeps gaves thriving we need to keep the fish happy


[/ QUOTE ]

This was the main reason for asking the question. If even one fish leaves because the game is not a 100% model of B&M, then that's somebody's next pot. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[mackthefork]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
why burn a card when the cards are constantly being shuffled anyways???

[/ QUOTE ]

I think on most sites the order of the deck is arranged (shuffled) prior to the hand and then is fixed for the remainder of the hand. Is this not correct?

[/ QUOTE ]

That would be a very illogical thing to do.

[/ QUOTE ]

No it wouldn't.

Mack

[LoveDub]

[ QUOTE ]

Polltard!


[/ QUOTE ]

What is a polltard? Is that like a petard?

Word History: The French used pétard, “a loud discharge of intestinal gas,” for a kind of infernal engine for blasting through the gates of a city. “To be hoist by one's own petard,” a now proverbial phrase apparently originating with Shakespeare's Hamlet (around 1604) not long after the word entered English (around 1598), means “to blow oneself up with one's own bomb, be undone by one's own devices.” The French noun pet, “fart,” developed regularly from the Latin noun pditum, from the Indo-European root *pezd-, “fart.”

[Maddenboy]

I was playing online once and someone asked this stupidass question.

I said "of course not."

Some guy said, "yes they do."

I said "do you know how stupid that is? do you know WHY casinos burn?"

He said "I am a trained professional. They burn to 'protect the integrity of the deck.' That's what they taught us in dealer school here in New Mexico."

He explained they burned to make jackpots less likely, by removing cards from the deck that might have been used for a jackpot.

After arguing for about 6-7 minutes, I gave up. But I often hear that stupid, meaningless, talismanic phrase in my head.

Protect the integrity of the deck (applied to Jackpot, not cheat-avoidance).

[Maddenboy]

But, if they did it to resemble b&m, wouldnt they SHOW the burn, so customers could think "aaaah. the burn. Just like at the casino."?

Otherwise, how would they achieve this b&m-ness?

[dibbs]

Not a stupid question but I'ma say no, because it doesnt need to be done, and showing a card be burned might create more "rigged" theories than it would deter.


I recall a recent thread thats basic essence was "STARS ISNT A REAL POKER GAME CUZ THEIR ENGINE DOESNT BURN A CARD", few months back I think.

If burning cards doesn't make any sense, why deal one and one card clockwise (starting with the left of the dealer button)? That doesn't make any sense either (from a random point of view), unless you want the B&M experience.

On a somewhat related note, I've seen in home games that some "leet" players spread the card deck out on the table after shuffling and then deal from top right with the cards never leaving the table. However, you can clearly see parts of the flop, turn and river cards. So why burn cards then?

[subzero]

What's your screen name? Wanna play heads up?

[HavanaBanana]

I have't played Stud in a Casino for years, but no burn card there right?

Certainly there should be one.

When I worked at The Gaming Club Poker Room, we once had a guy call in complaying that the player in seat 2 got his card first (in Stud), we had to inform him that it is only the image looking like that, they are virtual images of cards that have nothing to do with the deal itself!

On a similar note, on the casino part they had many players call in thinking that the casino actually was on a riverboat. (RiverBelle)

ToT

[chrisg]

This is the most retarded question ever. Christ. Why am I replying. I've been sucked in.

Where's my heroin? I want to inject my eyeball.

[Maddenboy]

There IS a burn in stud.

Perhaps you'll recall when everybody chases to the river, and the dealer runs out of cards, he shuffles the burn cards and flips up a community 7th street card.

At least, that's what they do here in Socal. Comes up often enuf in Hi-Lo stud (chase, chase, chase).

[AA suited]

[ QUOTE ]
MainEvent wrote:
[ QUOTE ]
why burn a card when the cards are constantly being shuffled anyways???

[/ QUOTE ]

I think on most sites the order of the deck is arranged (shuffled) prior to the hand and then is fixed for the remainder of the hand. Is this not correct?

[/ QUOTE ]

nope... continuous shuffle

and it doesnt matter since it's random

[HavanaBanana]

Sometimes I like to burn the Qs5s , but sometimes they rock!


[ QUOTE ]
***** Hand History for Game 2649078000 *****
$15/$30 Texas Hold'em - Saturday, September 03, 23:34:48 EDT 2005
Table Bad Beat Jackpot #1054466 (Real Money)
Seat 10 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: evv11 ( $810.75 )
Seat 2: d0g___b3rt ( $580.50 )
Seat 3: mtg_gypsy ( $1079 )
Seat 4: craps7777777 ( $750 )
Seat 5: ThreeBetMan ( $1033.83 )
Seat 6: mrstircrazy ( $1667.83 )
Seat 7: Swepe101 ( $2345.50 )
Seat 8: punditlover ( $1065.34 )
Seat 9: theunit ( $706.25 )
Seat 10: TuristOnTilt ( $929.55 )
evv11 posts small blind [$10].
d0g___b3rt posts big blind [$15].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to TuristOnTilt [ 5s Qs ]
mtg_gypsy folds.
ThreeBetMan folds.
mrstircrazy folds.
Swepe101 folds.
punditlover folds.
theunit folds.
TuristOnTilt raises [$30].
evv11 raises [$35].
d0g___b3rt folds.
TuristOnTilt raises [$30].
evv11 calls [$15].
** Dealing Flop ** [ Kh, Tc, Jc ]
evv11 checks.
TuristOnTilt bets [$15].
evv11 calls [$15].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 6d ]
evv11 checks.
TuristOnTilt bets [$30].
evv11 folds.
TuristOnTilt: GRANNY MAE!!!
TuristOnTilt does not show cards.
TuristOnTilt wins $191.50

[/ QUOTE ]

ToT

[AA suited]

lol..

and if evv11 called on the turn and the river was a blank?