Can Collusion Erase House "Let It Ride" Edge ?

[sekrah]

If all 6 players at a Let It Ride table showed each other their hands and were working together to split whatever they won, with perfect play could they erase the House edge?

[tubalkain]

Getting backed off is horribly -EV.

[joshman1204]

Of course they can, why else would the house not allow showing the cards. I dont know to what degree you can beat the house but I would assume with all 6 players having full knowledge of the cards that are out you could take the house for a pretty large %

[sekrah]

Actually.. last time I played this (time killer, me and my friends waiting for a table to open up), we were liberally holding our cards and we could easy see what each other was holding, and the Dealer made no effort to say it wasn't allowed..

Of course we'd be better off knowing all the cards than if we didn't know, but would it be enough to lower the house's 3.5% (apprx) edge to the point where it would be +EV ?

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]

If all 6 players at a Let It Ride table showed each other their hands and were working together to split whatever they won, with perfect play could they erase the House edge?

[/ QUOTE ]
I doubt it. The house advantage is large, and there aren't that many close decisions. You'll still let it ride whenever you have at least a high pair, and generally you'll pull your bet back when you don't. I believe the most common reason to change your decision is when you get a theoretically 0 EV straight draw decision and will be able to get a small edge by seeing how many live cards you have. This isn't common or worth much.

Why would the house not want players to show each other their cards, if they can't overcome the house advantage? There is no reason to return any house advantage, it slows down the game, and it may annoy players if some people want to show and others don't. Also, it may make it easier for players to cheat by switching cards.

[Ed Miller]

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Of course they can, why else would the house not allow showing the cards.

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This is a very dangerous assumption to make. It's one thing to say, "Sharing cards is bad for the house." It's another enitrely to say, "You can beat the game by sharing cards."

[joshman1204]

Yea I know realise this was not the best way to word this statement. I have read somewhere that if you can see all hands played that it is possible to erase the house edge on SOME hands. Now I dont know if you are able to completly erase the edge or if there are just a few hands where you are able to overcome the HA.

[WhiteWolf]

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Getting backed off is horribly -EV.

[/ QUOTE ]

Getting backed off of a -EV game should be +EV, no?

[Tom1975]

I don't know about Let it ride, but someone did do an analysis for Carribean stud and determined it is possible. Here's a link, the relavent question is torwards the bottom of the page:

http://wizardofodds.com/askthewizard...ewizard19.html

[Siegmund]

Only slightly off-topic:

This reminds me of an interesting remark in the "sales brochure" for Texas Shootout. One of the features of the game that the designers are touting to casinos is that it is played with six decks for the specific purpose of minimizing the usefulness of seeing other players' hands, enabling the game to be dealt face up.

This suggests that the game designers are well aware that many "old" table games are vulnerable to being beaten by collusion and taking steps to make new games unexploitable is part of the process now.