tracking cards played

[KeithLangley]

noting cards as they're played is doable when playing online; when playing in person only certain people with that talent can remember how many 10s remain in the deck, for instance. Those people do exist, and most people could, with a bit of practice, track for instance 9s 10s 11s and 12s.

Would you say noting down which cards have come up is:
unsporting or cheating, as you couldn't do it in real life?
good sensible play?
more work than it's worth, conferring no significant advantage?
or something that should be implemented as an option, since it's discoverable knowledge and having it be public levels the playing field vs. players with either super memory or quick writing ?

[Purohueso]

I think is a bit of a learnable skill.
At first you go with avoiding flipping with high numbers, then you start getting impressions of the kind 'i have seen the 12 a lot, should be less risky by now', and then you may even start counting what you can. And all of this is playing realtime.
I would say It's basically the learning curve of the game itself, so I don't think providing a counter would be particularly a good idea... unless it's an option. Then you can play by almost pure luck with it enabled, which would work fine for casual play, and you can give it a bit of a skill challenge for a more competitive one.
I do note what remains on turn-based because you can't necesarily hold that over time.

[Iced]

I wouldn't inherently call it unsportsmanlike but it's so easily automated using external programs that I'd agree you may as well include a count of cards remaining for all to see.

[Notello]

There´s not much talent in counting cards - at least the most important ones:
Say "9-10-11-12" at the beginning of the game and reduce the numbers by 1 with each 9, 10, 11 or 12 on the table. So after one 9-card, another 11-card and three 12-cards you have to say "8-10-10-9" - that´s it!
At the end of the pile you have an easy way to compute the probabilities. With 10 cards left and "1-0-2-3" the probabilty for a 12-card is 30 percent which would make me stop immidiately if I have current 25 points (including a 12-card).

My personal opinion is that this technique (or anotehr one) can be seen as a part of the game. Therefore it should not be shown automatically. I am fine with players who note it down on paper (I would be distracted if I did it simultaneously in a real-time game). Counting cards is a main content of nearly every card-game which makes them a bit less lucky (and increases fun - at least for a certain type of players)!

[JorgeBPrado]

I think the game should benefit for tracking the odds. I don't think memory is part of the fun, I think this is fun because is a pure push your luck where you know the odds for the cards. Going to the history or tracking through external means detracts from a quick and simple experience imo

[Suoivax]

if someone were to jot down notes during an in person game of Flip7, I would kick them off my table for missing the point of this light-hearted filler of a game.

[IvanV0867]

I am 1 at the moment in Arena and I haven't counted cards in any game.
I have encountered very slow players who were definately counting. But it didn't benefit them.
So adding a counter is no plus, I think.

[FSKFSK]

I always thought that, if it's public information anyway, the game should count it for you.

It only matters in 2 situations. If the draw deck is almost empty, you can get vastly different bust odds. I.e., you have an 8 and you know one of the last 2 cards is an 8, or you know all the 8s are gone.

Another situation are the 2x card and the 3 second chance cards. Those cards are REALLY VALUABLE. If they haven't been drawn yet, you should hit it a borderline situation. If they've been played, you should stay in a borderline situation.

[samhos01]

@ KeithLangley

Would you play with someone you knew was tracking the cards?

[DrakeStorm]

As a Blackjack card counter (been kicked out of a few casinos), I thought it would be interesting to track cards in Flip7.

So for 75 games I tracked every card in 3P Arena, and knew exactly my chance of busting, whether there were 2nd chance cards still in the deck, etc.

The results

No Tracking =
1st = 30 (40%)
2nd = 28 (37%)
3rd = 17 (23%)

Tracking =
1st = 30 (40%) [Would have been 29 but got super lucky on my 75th game!]
2nd = 19 (37%)
3rd = 26 (23%)

So I actually did worse overall tracking the cards, though 75 games isn't a big enough sample size probably.

The 2 main reasons I think tracking doesn't really help is:
1) In 3P Arena mode you only go through the deck once. And tracking cards only helps you at the end of the deck and only occasionally. Most of the time it doesn't matter at the end because you have already busted/stayed, etc. or the new deck gets shuffled in mid round and all the odds reset basically. Or you are so far behind that getting 10, 15 more points for knowing the cards/odds doesn't matter.

In the mid part of the deck, I don't think it really matters if you know you have a 17% chance of busting vs without tracking you think you have a 19% chance [ie as I learned from other threads, the odds of busting is close to your total for that round, which is a good enough estimator).

If it was an 8 player game and you went through the deck like 3 times, maybe it would be more useful.

2) The game is too short and way too random for tracking to help much. Most games are decided by who gets the x2 and 2nd chance cards, and who doesn't get frozen.

If I feel motivated I will track those stats. How many games are won by the person who gets the most 2nd chance cards, etc.