4/2/2022

Probability Baccarat

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Criss Cross Poker Introduction Photo taken at 2014 Global Gaming Expo. Criss Cross Poker is poker variation by In Bet Gaming.In 2014, I started to hear reports of the game in several casinos in the eastern United States. Baccarat is a betting game best played using a strategy. There’re many Baccarat strategies to choose from. But if you were to ask me for my top three, I would have to choose Baccarat strategies that are logical, easy & have the best possible chances of reducing the casinos house edge.

Live dealer blackjack is nowadays one of the most popular online casino games. It has the same feel and look of the real blackjack found in land-based casinos, but it’s played through a live stream with a professional dealer sitting in front of the camera. Crazy 4 Poker Introduction. Crazy 4 Poker is a poker variation invented by Roger Snow and is marketed by Shufflemaster. It has been around since about 2004 and one of the more successful poker-based casino games.

On This Page

Introduction


Photo taken at 2014 Global Gaming Expo.

Criss Cross Poker is poker variation by In Bet Gaming. In 2014, I started to hear reports of the game in several casinos in the eastern United States. The thrust of the game is the player bets on two hands, in part using five community cards placed in a cross pattern.

Rules

  1. Play begins with the player making Ante Across and Ante Down bets of equal size. The player may also make an optional Five Card Bonus Bet.
  2. The dealer gives the player two hole cards and places five community cards face down in a cross pattern.
  3. The player may make an Across Bet, based on the Across Hand, equal to 1x to 3x the Ante Across bet, or fold.
  4. The dealer will reveal the two outside cards on the horizontal row of the cross.
  5. The player may make a Down bet, based on the Down Hand, equal to 1x to 3x the Ante Down bet, or fold.
  6. The dealer will reveal the two outside cards on the vertical column of the cross.
  7. The player may make a Middle Bet of 1x to 3x either Ante bet or fold.
  8. The dealer will reveal the middle card.
  9. The player uses his two hole cards and the three cards on the horizontal row of the cross to form the Across Hand.
  10. Likewise, the player uses his two hole cards and the three cards on the vertical column of the cross to form the Down Hand.
  11. The Middle Bet pays according to the higher ranking of the Across and Down hands.
  12. All bets pay according to the pay table below. Wins are expressed on a 'to one' basis.

    Criss Cross Poker Pay Table

    HandAnte
    Bets Pay
    Across, Down &
    Middle Bets Pay
    Royal flush1500
    Straight flush1100
    Four of a kind140
    Full house112
    Flush18
    Straight15
    Three of a kind13
    Two pair12
    High pair (J-A)11
    Low pair (6-10)00
    All other-1-1
  13. The Five Card Bonus bet pays according to the five community cards in the cross pattern and following pay table.

    Five Card Bonus Bet Pay Table

    HandPays
    Royal flush250
    Straight flush100
    Four of a kind40
    Full house15
    Flush10
    Straight6
    Three of a kind4
    Two pair3
    Sixes or better1
    Loser-1
Formula

Analysis

Between two sets of possible hands, four combinations of raise bets, and folding at various stages of the game, there are 975 possible outcomes. I indicate the probability of all of them in my Criss Cross Poker Full Expected Value Table. However, I don't want to scare you off with that gigantic table here. Instead, I summarize the outcome of each hand below.

The following table shows the possible outcome of both the Ante Across and Across bets. The 'pays' column shows the combined win between the two bets. The lower right cell shows that the player can expect to lose 0.600581 units between the two bets.

Ante Across and Across Bets

HandAcross BetPaysCombinationsProbabilityReturn
Royal flush3150112,9720.0000000.000231
Royal flush1501116,7480.0000010.000694
Straight flush330125,9440.0000000.000093
Straight flush11011,141,5360.0000140.001368
Four of a kind312112,167,7360.0001440.017468
Four of a kind1417,601,5920.0000900.003698
Full house33748,800,6640.0005790.021423
Full house11368,414,3280.0008120.010552
Flush3252,101,4640.0000250.000623
Flush19163,550,9760.0019400.017464
Straight3162,451,7080.0000290.000465
Straight16288,484,3080.0034230.020537
Three of a kind310538,234,2240.0063860.063859
Three of a kind141,170,645,1680.0138890.055557
Two pair37811,632,0960.0096300.067408
Two pair133,010,230,4320.0357150.107146
High pair341,170,593,2800.0138890.055555
High pair129,458,722,6200.1122240.224448
Medium pair301,385,409,6000.0164370.000000
Medium pair1011,610,887,1600.1377590.000000
Loser3-41,240,719,9120.014721-0.058883
Loser1-244,512,795,9320.528127-1.056254
Fold one unit0-14,576,521,6000.054299-0.054299
Fold two units0-24,203,010,8000.049867-0.099734
Fold four units0-400.0000000.000000
Total84,284,272,8001.000000-0.600581

The following table shows the possible outcome of both the Ante Down and Down bets. The 'pays' column shows the combined win between the two bets. The lower right cell shows that the player can expect to lose 0.597666 units on the two bets combined.

Ante Down and Down Bets

HandDown BetPaysCombinationsProbabilityReturn
Royal flush3150145,7920.0000010.000815
Royal flush150183,9280.0000010.000499
Straight flush330137,1160.0000000.000133
Straight flush11011,118,7000.0000130.001341
Four of a kind312112,233,8080.0001450.017563
Four of a kind1417,485,0480.0000890.003641
Full house33748,603,8880.0005770.021337
Full house11368,156,8560.0008090.010513
Flush3256,951,4560.0000820.002062
Flush19157,641,2880.0018700.016833
Straight3164,780,9800.0000570.000908
Straight16285,297,5160.0033850.020310
Three of a kind310540,593,1360.0064140.064139
Three of a kind141,160,967,8160.0137740.055098
Two pair37814,576,1760.0096650.067652
Two pair132,988,662,1840.0354590.106378
High pair341,336,724,4960.0158600.063439
High pair129,281,584,6560.1101220.220245
Medium pair301,417,841,5680.0168220.000000
Medium pair1011,550,329,6160.1370400.000000
Loser3-41,450,469,0880.017209-0.068837
Loser1-244,370,555,2880.526439-1.052879
Fold one unit0-15,013,003,4560.059477-0.059477
Fold two units0-23,766,528,9440.044688-0.089377
Fold four units0-400.0000000.000000
Total84,284,272,8001.000000-0.597666

The following table shows the possible outcome of Middle bet. The lower right cell shows that the player can expect to win 1.111675 units on this bet.

Middle Bet

HandMiddle BetPaysCombinationsProbabilityReturn
Royal flush31500259,4400.0000030.004617
Royal flush150000.0000000.000000
Straight flush33002,323,1040.0000280.008269
Straight flush110000.0000000.000000
Four of a kind312039,488,1840.0004690.056221
Four of a kind14000.0000000.000000
Full house336231,865,8480.0027510.099036
Full house11200.0000000.000000
Flush324325,921,0560.0038670.092806
Flush1800.0000000.000000
Straight315375,011,4120.0044490.066740
Straight15199,154,2680.0023630.011814
Three of a kind392,751,292,1880.0326430.293787
Three of a kind13399,927,5640.0047450.014235
Two pair365,494,091,3280.0651850.391111
Two pair121,329,787,3680.0157770.031555
High pair3311,485,872,2400.1362750.408826
High pair114,170,202,7160.0494780.049478
Medium pair3012,309,204,6360.1460440.000000
Medium pair104,837,617,2280.0573960.000000
Loser3-31,789,381,7400.021230-0.063691
Loser1-129,763,340,0800.353130-0.353130
Fold008,779,532,4000.1041660.000000
Total84,284,272,8001.0000001.111675

The next table summarizes the expected win of all three groups of bets.

Summary

Bet(s)Expected Win
Ante Across & Across-0.600581
Ante Down & Down-0.597666
Middle1.111675
Total-0.086571

The lower right cell shows an expected loss of 0.086571 units. Since the player must wager two units at least, I divided that by two to get a house edge of 4.33%.

Considering the raise bets, the average total bet by the end of the hand is 5.86529 units. Thus the element of risk, which is the ratio of expected loss to the total amount wagered, is 8.6571/5.8629 = 1.48%, which isn't bad for a poker variant game.

The standard deviation, relative to the combined initial wager, is 4.802.

Strategy

With all decision points, the only viable options are fold, minimum 1x raise, or maximum 3x raise. Never raise anything between 1x and 3x.

Across Strategy

  • If the hole cards are unsuited, unpaired, and the largest one is five or less, then fold.
  • If the hole cards are suited J/Q or any pair, then make the large raise.
  • With all other hole cards, make the small raise.

Down Strategy

Baccarat Probability Theory

This is a very similar decision to raising on the Across hand. However, the player has the benefit of seeing two extra cards. This can help in borderline situations. I have not implicitly identified these deviations from the Across strategy. However, I can say that knowing them, whatever they are, will increase the expected return by 0.29% the amount of the Ante Down bet, or lower the house edge by 0.15%.

Middle Strategy

With four cards seen, there are thousands of possible situations in terms of a Middle bet strategy. However, a perfect decision can be made by averaging the win over all possible 46 cards left in the deck under both a small and large Middle bet. I can say that if the player made either 3x bet, then he shouldn't fold. I can also say that 4.5% of the time the player will make both a small Across and Down bet and then fold the Middle bet.

Five Card Bonus Bet

The following table presents the possible outcomes of the Five Card Bonus Bet. The lower right cell shows a house edge of 3.53%, which for a side bet isn't bad.

Probability Baccarat

Five Card Bonus Bet

HandPaysCombinationsProbabilityReturn
Royal flush25040.0000020.000385
Straight flush100360.0000140.001385
Four of a kind406240.0002400.009604
Full house153,7440.0014410.021609
Flush105,1080.0019650.019654
Straight610,2000.0039250.023548
Three of a kind454,9120.0211280.084514
Two pair3123,5520.0475390.142617
Sixes or better1760,3200.2925480.292548
Loser-11,640,4600.631199-0.631199
Total2,598,9601.000000-0.035336

Probability Baccarat

Methodology

Baccarat Probability Strategy

The game was analyzed by me in C++ by looping through all combin(52,2)*combin(50,2)*combin(48,2)*46 = 84,284,272,800 possible combinations. The program is about 600 lines of code and takes about six hours to run.

Internal Links

Full expected value table. This page shows the probability and return from all 974 possible outcomes.

Baccarat Probability Chart


Baccarat Probability Distribution

Written by:Michael Shackleford
aclervimor1985.netlify.com – 2021