4 Color Deck

[Anadrol 50]

Do you use it ?

[Evan]

yup

[Anadrol 50]

What is the advantage ? Is there any disadvantage ?

[Evan]

i think its a lot easier to keep track of suits when you're 4 tabling.

[maryfield48]

[ QUOTE ]
What is the advantage ? Is there any disadvantage ?

[/ QUOTE ]

The advantage should be obvious. The disadvantage is when you play live and think 5 black cards=flush.

[Lazymeatball]

however, when you play live you only have one table to keep track of.

[GrannyMae]

<font color="green"> First Season of the Professional Poker Tour and the Four-Color Deck
by Jeff Shulman


World Poker Tour Enterprises recently announced that it will film a new tour called the Professional Poker Tour (PPT); 200 players, give or take a few, have been invited for the first season. An advisory committee was set up of some of the world's top poker players to take on the tough task of choosing which 200 players would make the list. A total of 74 players have already made the list for at least the first three years, and the others playing in the first year will have to prove themselves with their performances to continue making the tour. After the first year, players who have a good year as defined by the PPT (even if they're new to tournament poker) can qualify.

WPT Enterprises will be putting up $2.5 million this year as a freeroll to the players who make the tour. There will be five events in the first year of the PPT, and all will have a $500,000 prize pool. Each event will consist of two days of play, with the final table convening on the third day.

There is no restriction on players who want to play in other poker tours. Also, those playing in the PPT will be allowed to wear logos as long as they are approved by the PPT.

The casinos that will be hosting the PPT in the first year are Foxwoods (Nov. 9-10), Bellagio (Dec. 7-8), Horseshoe Casino &amp; Gold Strike in Tunica, Mississippi (Jan. 11-12), Commerce Casino (Feb. 8-9), and the Mirage (May 10-11).

Go to cardplayer.com to see the full list of players and all of the details of the PPT.

On a different topic, while in Aruba for the WPT event, I heard a conversation at my table regarding the four-color deck. As it turned out, everyone at my table used the four-color deck when they played online. I decided to look into the topic even more, and almost every person I talked to who plays online uses it. Is poker big enough now to change the standard black and red deck to black, red, green, and blue? Even though the idea was laughed at years ago, it may be time to change. After all, it is much easier for the television viewing audience to see the suits.

In closing, I'd like to welcome Lee Munzer to the Card Player family. Lee will be writing special features occasionally, and his first appears in this issue.




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[B Dids]

Playing on 'Stars I missed two flushed in one session "Wait, I've got Ace high he's got king high- why are my chips moving in THAT direction!!!".

From there on, 4 color deck. Now I can't imagine playing without it.

[Izaak_Walton]

Very good reply, Maryfield!! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Granny:

While the four color deck may be fine for Internet play, I believe it creates problems for live play. Here is an essay on this topic from my book Poker Essays, Volume II.

The Four Color Deck — A Realistic View


Special Note: This is an essay that I wrote in early 1995, but which for many reasons I did not publish until late in the year. Now that the four color deck has had its run, and is not in use in any cardroom that I know of, I feel — for the benefit of poker — that it is appropriate to release this commentary. So here goes.

Over the past year, a strong campaign has been waged, mostly by another poker writer, advocating the introduction of a four color deck. My stated opinion was that I didn’t see anything wrong with it although there were much more important entities that I thought card rooms should address. (Some of these are addressed in the previous essay.) I am now going to change my position. The four color deck should be very bad for poker and I strongly recommend that poker rooms do not adopt it.

I believe that the most important matter that a cardroom can and should attend to is to make every effort to protect the integrity of their games. Not only should they insure that their games are 100 percent honest, but they should also insure that the players believe their games are 100 percent honest. Poker players who are suspicious of the integrity of the games in some particular poker room, even if the games in that room are squeaky clean will tend not to play there.

In my opinion, all the poker rooms that I am currently familiar with have done a very good job in this area. I never worry when I sit down at the Mirage, the Horseshoe, the Bicycle Club, the Commerce Club, Bay 101, Hollywood Park, Fort McDowell, the Taj Mahal, or virtually any other card room that I can think of. But it hasn’t always been this way.

Ten years ago, when I still lived in California, there was one large cardroom, which had a great deal of business, that I would not play in. Whether it was true or not, I heard too many bad things about this place. I also believe that this was one of the major reasons why this room collapsed when the new super clubs opened. Players quickly deserted it for games in other locations which they felt were on the square.

So what does the four color deck have to do with this? Why am I implying that the four color deck may be bad for poker? And why should card rooms be reluctant to spread it? The answer is simple. Flashed cards will be easier to spot and when a card is flashed, there will be no doubt as to exactly what the suit is.

In the blackjack world, front loading is the art of looking at a dealers hole card. My book Blackjack Essays contains the most extensive discussion of this topic in print. Even though front loading is extremely difficult to do, and a dealer who does not follow procedure well is required, those few players who have mastered it are at times able to have a large advantage over the casino.

The reason I bring this up is that front loading can also be a problem at the poker table. My book Poker Essays contains a chapter on front loading. Any dealer, frequently a former blackjack dealer, who pitches the cards too high, is susceptible to a skilled front loader. Even though I do not consider it cheating, I recommend that you quickly ask the dealer to toss the cards much lower. Obviously, a four color deck will aid someone with this skill. Just knowing the color of a card will now be much more useful. This is especially true in Texas hold’em where each player only has two cards. (By the way, I do not have these front loading skills. I can also imagine games where some players are constantly requesting misdeals because a particular color has flashed.)

Speaking of hold’em, there is also a small group of players who constantly try to see the hole cards of the players sitting next to them, particularly the player on their right. It doesn’t happen too often, but when you are in the game when one of these players is being successful in seeing some cards that are not his, you will see some strangely played hands. Again, I don’t necessarily consider this cheating. As a player, it is your responsibility to protect your hand. If you don’t, you might release information that can greatly hurt you. (By the way, if you are new to poker, protecting your hand, that is holding your cards so that they are completely private, is probably the most important thing that you can do.)

As you can see, I feel that it would be a major mistake for a card room to use a four color deck that has the potential to make it easier for an unscrupulous player to get information about someone’s else’s hand. This could make some players question the integrity of the games and be bad for poker in the long run. In addition, going to a card with a large digit would make it even worst.

Once, when I was playing draw poker in Gardena many years ago, I threw three kings away before the draw. I did this because the person next to me picked up his hand so that the whole table could see that he held three aces. He also complained about how tight we played and that we never gave him any action.

My point is this. Even though there is nothing wrong in using this type of information when it becomes available at the card table, card rooms should not be assisting certain players in obtaining it. They should be doing just the opposite. For instance, I believe that dealers should occasionally tell players, especially tourists, that they need to protect their hands. In addition, they should not be introducing four color decks.