Burn?

[Turtle]

I see other people asking about poker terminology, so I take a look at the page and wow! There are so many terms I just don't know. I've never heard the term burn.

Burn -to discard; the dealer 'burns' the top card before dealing the flop, turn and river.

I didn't know the dealer discarded.

[pocketjacks]

It's an interesting practice. Did you know the reason that they do that is to fool cheaters - becasue if the cards are marked the person reading the marks can't tell what the next card will be.

[Turtle]

OH dear. That didn't help at all. I get the part about fooling cheaters. That makes sense. I just don't understand how. If the cheaters are marking the cards (how?) how is discarding one card stopping them?

[The Professor]

Well the card on view is the top card - so if it is marked then the cheaters would know the next card to come.

By "burning" the top card and using the 2nd card in the deck as the live card then this makes this pretty much impossible to know the next card coming.

[Sweetness]

It was started in the beginning to stop the card counters. If they burned the first card before the deal, let's say in BlackJack (BJ) then they hoped that the card counters couldn't put an accurate size of the cards coming and also left in the shoe. In fact they used to "burn" the first two cards coming out of a shoe (the shoe is what that mechanism the blackjack dealer deals from).

The marking of the cards can be as simple as using a nail crease on the card you want to make sure whether it is in or out of the game.

The "burn" a card prior to laying down the flop, then again prior to the turn and lastly prior to the river card. Again it is to stop the card counters as well as the marked cards.

If I think of it in future I shall try to explain some of the words used when posting right in the post so that you can relate to it better.

[najdoyza]

I can understand foiling the counters in blackjack, but card counting in HoldEm? I just don't see how it would make any difference. I mean counting is just tracking what's out so you have an idea of what's left and maximising your bets when the remaining cards are in your favor, which makes sense in a 1 or 2 deck game, but you really have to be good to count a 6 deck or bigger shoe.

But in holdem the deck is reshuffled after every hand and you don't get to see you opponenets cards, so how would counting help?

[Turtle]

I really appreciate all that all of you are doing to help me understand this. How can the cheaters possibly get hold of a deck in order to mark it at in any way, shape, or form? Aren't those things kept sacred? How does it help them cheat if only the first one or two cards are marked? How does it help stop them if the first two cards are burned? How does burning cards affect the odds of the game?

Card counting isn't cheating so what's the difference on that end?

[flopmistress]

Marking can be done any number of subtle ways and in a game you get to handle the cards. So you get on a table and start working on the cards as they are dealt to you. A tiny corner folded, fingernail nick on an edge, some guys have even used chemical markers that they can dab in certain spots and that are only seen in certain kinds of light - then they wear sunglasses or colored glasses that allow them to see their marks. They get pretty ingenious actually. But if they can't see the next card they can't read it. Thus the burn.

With counters most systems are merely tracking. The common systems assign plus or minus values cards or to groups of cards, like 2-5 are -1, 6 - 9 are even, and faces are +1. So as you see cards you add or subtract. When the deck gets a high + number you know it's mostly small cards left, high minus number is mostly faces. It's more complicated than that - but you get the basic idea. So the more cards that the counter doesn't get to see the harder it is for him to rank the shoe.

And while it isn't technically cheating - I do NOT advise you to openly do it. It's a quick way to be escorted off the premises by some not very friendly people. Casinos do not like any system that reduces the house odds effectively, and a good counter can cut the houses odds in half or better. Thus they will take the opportunity to excercise their right to refuse you service, and likely let all the other casinos know as well. I've heard there is a database of cheaters and other undesireables available in Vegas - but I don't know how true or how extensive it actually is.

[reno]

I had no idea that anyone could actually count cards in hold em. I knew that there are ways that people could cheat but I didn't know it was like that. I wouldn't be surprised if such a database existed.

[flopmistress]

I don't know if you could count cards in holdem. As I understand it you have to know that the cards you've counted are now out of play and in holdem it's a single deck game and the whole deck is reshuffled. Also since you don't see the cards you'd only be guessing at the values of any cards that are mucked. So I don't see how it could be effective. Marking on the other hand would be very effective except that you can't see the next card coming out until after the betting is complete because of the burn cards. But since I'm no expert - I couldn't say for sure....