Card Counting

[AvatarForm]

This is just blatantly incorrect.

You are always one step ahead... Damn you Gadget!

[Dolomyte]

The most successful group of card counters was the MIT 6. The key phrase there, was MIT. how many of you are math geniuses with full scholarships to MIT? Fictionally, you have Rain Man, who was autistic, but his flash of brillaince was ...math. and then you have the hangover, where alan could have also been somewhat autistic.

Other notably succesful card counters (the guy who sued atlantic city) for instance, was tested and proven to have genius level math comprehension.

Sorry, the majority of people on earth, myself included, cannot do math at the speed in which it is required to successfully count cards at vegas. It's probably easier to do in malifaux since there are typically less flips (a standard table seats 8 people, not including splits and the like) but its still really hard.

If your good enough at math to get a scholarship at MIT, or have been tested at genius level, or hell, are autistic, by all means, PM me and I'll pay our trip to Vegas baby.

[Ciaran]

Dolomyte: The math behind it is exceedingly simple, it's quite literally grammar school level. The people that DO count cards at Blackjack tables say that the biggest misconception is that you have to be a math wiz. What made the MIT group so successful at it was they accepted the fact that it only gave them a ONE percent advantage over the house. Over time that added up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

MIT required? Not at all. All it took was the self discipline to put a system in place and actually follow it.

The system MIT used was as simple as: subtract a one for a high card, leave the count alone for mid cards, add a one for low cards, once the count hit a certain number signal the major bettor to swoop in and rake in some cash. Most systems are based on that theory with different spreads.

My communications maintenance MOS in the Marine Corps had harder math than that. Being a Logistics Executive for Target required me to keep multiple running streams of numbers in my head. Neither seemed easy at first, once I practiced a little they became something close to second nature and I could focus on other things while running numbers in the back of my head. The human brain is so incredibly malleable that it starts changing to facilitate new habits and learning within days many times.

Almost anyone CAN do it. Most people would choose not to out of the false belief that they cannot. The initial learning curve would be so rough as to make most people absolutely convinced that only geniuses are capable.

[Justin]

The most successful group of card counters was the MIT 6. The key phrase there, was MIT. how many of you are math geniuses with full scholarships to MIT? Fictionally, you have Rain Man, who was autistic, but his flash of brillaince was ...math. and then you have the hangover, where alan could have also been somewhat autistic.

Other notably succesful card counters (the guy who sued atlantic city) for instance, was tested and proven to have genius level math comprehension.

Sorry, the majority of people on earth, myself included, cannot do math at the speed in which it is required to successfully count cards at vegas. It's probably easier to do in malifaux since there are typically less flips (a standard table seats 8 people, not including splits and the like) but its still really hard.

If your good enough at math to get a scholarship at MIT, or have been tested at genius level, or hell, are autistic, by all means, PM me and I'll pay our trip to Vegas baby.

If your arguments were based on how to count cards, and not on people who counted cards, your argument might be worth listening to. But the system itself is very, very simple. I would actually tell you how, and this post really wouldn't be all that much longer for it, except that marshals have expressly forbidden the process being posted here.

I hear Einstein was great at tying his shoes. Doesn't mean I need his brain to do it.

[Dolomyte]

I concede, your all correct. im wrong, we can all do it.

Let's meet up at the next tourney we are all going to and play some blackjack. I'm willing to let you guys take money from me. Winner's buy drinks though.

[AvatarForm]

I concede, your all correct. im wrong, we can all do it.

Let's meet up at the next tourney we are all going to and play some blackjack. I'm willing to let you guys take money from me. Winner's buy drinks though.

You sound like a guy in brisbane who deliberately comes last in Malifaux events for the Booby Prize, cos its cooler than the trophies...

[Dolomyte]

Realistic, funny, alcholic?

[AvatarForm]

Realistic, funny, alcholic?

None of the above... deliberately losing with the perception that the reward is greater.

[RisingPhoenix]

I concede, your all correct. im wrong, we can all do it.

Let's meet up at the next tourney we are all going to and play some blackjack. I'm willing to let you guys take money from me. Winner's buy drinks though.

Sure, as long as you're willing to spend enough hands to assure us that 1% odds get there.

Or use one deck. Hell, lets just play 1 deck blackjack no reshuffle, you be dealer, I'll buy you drinks.

[Finklehelm]

Are the rules prescriptive about stacking your discard pile so that cards under the top card cannot be seen? If not, a simple card counting scheme with your discard pile gets very easy.

[Gentleman J]

OK, skipping right past the controversies and having never played a game of Malifaux, card counting relies on a huge number of trials and small percentage benefits over a long period of time in Vegas. The best card counters in the world MIGHT get 5% ahead of the house across every game they play. The big deal is that when they're at a big advantage that $5 bet suddenly becomes a $10,000 bet. In other words, Vegas card counting means very little 99% of the time but capitalizes hugely on that other 1%. In Malifaux, you may well find its not worth the effort required for the benefit of knowing that three actions every five or six games will be shoe-ins.

Here's some basic thoughts and some basic math on how to deal with it:

Your deck has 54 cards.

Not counting jokers, the average card value is 7.

13/54 (24.01%) of the cards are of any given suit.

So two VERY dirt simple, very rough things you can track are high/low and whether a given suit has shown up more or less than it is likely to. You can also keep track of jokers, of course but that's hardly counting.

Every time you see a card worth 8 or more modify your count by -1. Every time you see a card of 6 or less, modify by +1. You count can (in theory) be anywhere between -24 and 24 but is likely to hover around 0.

At +/-4 the odds move from 50% to 54.5%. to At +/-8 the odds have moved from 50/50 to 62.5%. At +/-12, the odds are 66%. Unless you're very deep into a heavily stacked deck, this is not likely to matter much. Shy of +7 or so its less than a 10% bonus. This could probably be tuned based on an important target number but the odds would have to be recalculated. If you're really on the ball you could also track your opponent's cards.

Suits might be easier to track. Keep track of the number of cards you've seen (your hand plus discard) and the number of a given suit you've seen. The math is somewhat tricky and I'm sure there's a shortcut but its late so here's what I've got.

Subtract number of a given suit seen from 13

subtract number of total cards seen from 54

This gives you a ratio that you can turn into a rough percentage and that's your odds of getting that suit on your next flip.

One thing: don't forget your hand!

[Morgan Vening]

Here's some basic thoughts and some basic math on how to deal with it:

The problem I see with the math (and I may be seriously wrong), is that the single deck of Malifaux throws those numbers around too much to be useful. At +/-8, you state it goes from a 50% to a 62.5% chance. If that's after 8 cards, maybe. But if you've blown through 30 cards during the turn, plus the 6 in hand, those numbers change drastically.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of the restriction on looking through the discard, as long as the order isn't changed (for stuff like Zoraida's Crystal Ball), with the caveat that it not be 'abused'. Obviously, with abuse being so subjective, I don't blame Wyrd for doing it the way they have, but as long as it doesn't slow the game down any, if my opponent wanted to (and afforded me similar opportunities), I don't have a problem.

The one thing I'm curious to know, is how often people think card counting has a qualitative effect on a game. With such a relatively diverse range of numbers, and with some base instinctuals (Have seen eight of the 'picture' cards and the RJ in the first 10 cards+hand, know the odds of another is small), how often is a player going to make a conscious choice to do an action or not do an action, based on an accurate card count? You've done the math, and you know that there's a 60% chance of getting off your uber-spell of power. Do you not try it? What about 50%? 40%? At what point do you definitively say "I'm going to change my gameplan, and not activate this model, or not do that action, because the odds aren't good"?

Gentleman J mentions in Blackjack it's the one hand in one hundred that makes all the difference, which is when you change the stakes. The difference between BlackJack and Malifaux in this context, is that during a given game, there's probably only a handful of actions per game that would have a similar context. Example, your last activation for the turn is an Executioner in melee range of a Rotten Belle. You know that the count is fairing poorly (but not critically) in your favour. You've got 2AP, you're gonna pass?

Couple that with having to count your opponent's deck at the same time, factor in his count, and then ratio out the two, because well, most effects in the game that'll truly matter, that counting might be useful for, the opponent gets to flip for, either opposed, or as a spell.

All together, I'm not sure that anything more than instinctual card counting will have a meaningful outcome in 5% of games, let alone 5% of flips. Just seems like an attempt at a lot of work, for very little gain.

Morgan Vening

[Gentleman J]

The problem I see with the math (and I may be seriously wrong), is that the single deck of Malifaux throws those numbers around too much to be useful. At +/-8, you state it goes from a 50% to a 62.5% chance. If that's after 8 cards, maybe. But if you've blown through 30 cards during the turn, plus the 6 in hand, those numbers change drastically.

Yes and no. Remember that if you're at +8 after 20 cards, that can mean that 14 low cards and 6 high cards have come up or that you've had 4 cards of value 7, eight low cards and no high cards or some other combination. It won't be exact because 7's and jokers DO matter but we're not really tracking which of those has come up. I'd say give or take 5% but always above 50 for a + and below for a -.

Either way, the point was really that the odds of getting a significant advantage, say 75/25 instead of 50/50 are phenomenally low. You'd have to go through 12 lows and no highs to get that far. For every two high cards that play, you need to see another low above and beyond that. The odds of 12 consecutive lows are very approximately 1 in 4,000. If you've gotten 12 consecutive lows or 8 highs and 16 lows, you don't need card counting to tell you that you can afford to take a risk. You'll have been feeling the pain the whole turn. Even then I think it would mostly inform a decision to Cheat Fate. If there's lots of good cards left, it makes more sense to cheat a bad card now.

Blackjack card counting is the process of replacing any enjoyment experienced with math in order to beat the house. I'm too lazy to work out the odds of an extreme count occurring in Malifaux but essentially you'd be sucking most of your enjoyment of the game dry for something that will work for you in the back half of one turn every few games. Not like once every two games, like once every 10. Personally, I'd rather tax my brain a little less and leave Pandora in a bad spot once every few games.

How many cards to most people do through in a turn?

[JackRussel]

I was thinking about creating a spreadsheet for each game so that I could keep track of everything that has been drawn and whilst it did give me a very small advantage it takes away the fun, working out what percentage chance someone has in combat really takes out some of the fun and I think one of Malifauxs strengths is how hard is to "math-hammer", it's like Wyrd actually care that people play the game...