Changing the deck structure

[Reef]

Also, how would this affect gameplay and strategy?

[NLSoldier]

LOL, did everyone pick 5 because they thought that 5 suits would mean you would get drawn out on by flushes less often?

[fnord_too]

I picked three because, intuitively, I think that suck outs would be more common (more flushes and fewer cards, 48 as opposed to 50, so the odds of hitting an n outer are higher). Of course, more denominations means fewer straights, and 3 suits means fewer ways to improve on pair based hands.

Overall, I think the more subtle the mistake, the more lesser players will make it, so having a game where chasing is incorrect to a lesser extent is probably good for the good players, since their opponents will be making more small mistakes.

[bconway6]

If you changed the deck structure, you'd have to change the rank of hands. The rank of hands is based on the probibility of a particular hand being dealt as any 5 random cards. With only 3 suits, the flush would be more likely, but the rank of hands would change so that a straight beats that flush since it is more rare.
The new rank of hands may look like this
Straight Flush
4 of a Kind
Full House
Straight
Flush
Three of a Kind
Two Pair
Pair
High Card

depending on the new probability of hands in a deck with only 3 suits.

[Monty Cantsin]

[ QUOTE ]
LOL, did everyone pick 5 because they thought that 5 suits would mean you would get drawn out on by flushes less often?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think that people chose that one because it seems like it would have more clarity. It wouldn't necessarily be more profitable, but it definitely looks like more fun. And you can't make money at a game nobody wants to play.

/mc

[Paul2432]

[ QUOTE ]
With only 3 suits . . . The new rank of hands may look like this

Straight Flush
4 of a Kind


[/ QUOTE ]

With only three suits, four of a kind is impossible. I just did some quick calcs. Here is how I see the rankings for a 3-suit, 54-card deck.

Straight Flush
Full House
Straight
Three of a Kind
Flush
Two Pair
One Pair
High Card

Paul

[Makata]

Funny you mentioned this, I was once really, really bored while visiting relatives (who love to play Pinochle there) so decided to run the numbers on poker hands with a Pinochle deck (cards 2 - 8 are eliminated, remaining 24 cards doubled to 48, i.e. 2 Ace of spades, etc). I found some really interesting things.

Assuming that you rank hands by the probability of getting them (with most probable being worst hand, etc), things change dramatically. For instance, Ace high: should it be the worst hand or one of the best? If you assign it to being the worst hand, then you can never actually get it, as there are 6 ranks of cards, but 7 available by river, thus you must have a pair. If you however rank it higher than a pair (which happens 100% of the time whereas A high doesn't necessarily) then you could pick out AKQT9 from a AAKKQT9 board as your 5 card hand. Never could decide where to rank it, so I started with 2 pair, as every single hand you have to get either 2 pair, 3 of a kind, or a straight.

IIRC, the hands went something like:
Straight Flush
5 of a Kind
Flush
4 of a Kind
Straight
Full House
3 of a Kind
2 Pair

Biggest surprise I found was, assuming I did my math correctly, how hard it was to get a flush. Going from a 13 rank deck to a 12 rank deck (if you extend the definition of rank to just be seperate cards within a suit), the chance of flush slightly decreases (to see this, imagine a 4 suit, 20 card deck. All flushes would be SF's and be nearly impossible), whereas chances for straights and pair based hands (2p, 3oaK, FH) goes up dramatically. Straights obviously go up dramatically due to there only being 6 unique ranks, and pair combinations also skyrocket due to there being 8 aces as opposed to 4.

I forget now if FH beat the straight, but I do recall dealing out alot of hands and it seemed I saw a FH every 3rd hand or better, saw just a couple straights, and of the maybe 2 or 3 flushes I saw, all but 1 was a SF. Small sample size maybe, but the overabundance of FH's seemed obvious to me it wasn't a fluke.

Sorry for the tangent, but I thought it was an interesting academic exercise at the time. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[bconway6]

[ QUOTE ]

With only three suits, four of a kind is impossible.

[/ QUOTE ]
haha good call, long night early morning.

[Reef]

Perhaps a better 2nd option would have been 6 suits, 8 denominations

[Yads]

So then a flush would be harder to get than a straight flush and be worth more wouldn't it?