What Is a Burn Card in Poker? Rule, Purpose & Pro Tips

Cards are burned in poker for a few reasons, but it mostly has to do with protecting the integrity of the game.

Broadly speaking, there are three main reasons for burning cards:

• Preventing marked-card advantage – Historically, marking specific cards to make them stand out while face-down is a common strategy for cheating in poker. Burning cards prevents that from happening because it removes the top-most card from play, making any marks or discrepancies useless.
• Stopping sleight-of-hand – Using sleight-of-hand to position cards in a specific order is a cheating method as old as playing cards themselves. Burn cards can prevent that by messing up the order in which cards are dealt from a shoe. Additionally, the practice prevents so-called “second-deal” techniques in which someone stealthily deals two cards instead of one.
• Eliminating “top-card peek” tells – In practice, the top card in a stacked shoe can often be revealed by accident. Moreover, the top card can sometimes stick out from the rest of the shoe, giving dishonest players a chance to peek at it. Burning cards prevents such problems from happening.

It’s also worth noting that burning cards is a matter of tradition and protocol.

For instance, if you’re playing at a casino poker room, you shouldn’t have to worry about how the dealer is shuffling or dealing cards. While the risk of foul play is non-existent, the dealers will still make sure to burn the appropriate number of cards. This shows everyone at the table that the house is open, transparent, and unbiased in how they treat players.

Moreover, poker games have been burning cards for as long as poker has been around. Although we doubt that many actual attempts at cheating are prevented by burn cards these days, the practice is still a sort of ritual that most players want to observe.

How Many Burn Cards & When?

Different versions of poker burn a different number of cards at different points.

For example, Texas Hold’em burns a single card before community cards are revealed for a total of 3 burned cards per round. Of course, specific casinos and tables may have slightly different rules.

The table below shows how many burn cards occur in common types of poker, and at which points.

Step-by-Step Dealing Sequence in Texas Hold’em

To further illustrate how burning cards in poker works, we’ll go through a single round of Texas Hold’em and highlight everything the dealer does.

Note that this guide will focus on the dealer’s actions and what’s happening to the cards. If you need a refresher on how Texas Hold’em works and how it’s played, check out our guide to Casino Hold’em, a casino-friendly variant of poker.

Here’s how a typical round of Texas Hold’em works:

1. Shuffle – The cards are shuffled before every round, regardless of the variant you’re playing.
2. Cut – The dealer also makes sure to ‘cut’ the deck, which is another common anti-cheating measure in card games.
3. Deal – The dealer hands out 2 cards to every player at the table, which are their ‘hole’ cards
4. Burn #1 – This is the point at which the first card is burned for the round.
5. Flop – The first three community cards are placed down on the table face-up, which is typically known as the Flop.
6. Burn #2 – The dealer burns an additional card before putting down any other community cards.
7. Turn – The fourth community card is placed on the table.
8. Burn #3 – The third and final burn card is discarded before the last community card is revealed.
9. River – Dealing the fifth community card is the last thing the dealer does for the round.

Special Situations & Irregularities

While the rules surrounding card-burning are fairly straightforward, there are some exceptions and special considerations to think about.

Burning cards may work differently in specific situations. In other cases, the practice is used to compensate for minor dealing mistakes and accidents.

Here are some additional rules surrounding burn cards in poker:

• If the dealer accidentally exposes a player’s hole card, the exposed card is discarded and replaced by the burn card. According to Robert’s Rules of Poker, a widely recognized and respected guide to poker rules and etiquette, the card that was supposed to be burned before the flop is used as a replacement.
• If the dealer accidentally exposes multiple cards, the round is automatically declared a misdeal. The deck is re-shuffled and the cards dealt from scratch.
• If the dealer forgets to burn a card, the situation is resolved depending on when the error is discovered.
  • If the mistake is discovered before the betting phase, the round is declared a misdeal. The deck is re-shuffled and the cards dealt from scratch.
  • If the mistake is discovered after the betting phase, the round progresses as normal unless the error introduces an unfair advantage. Although TDA poker rules are fairly unclear about what constitutes ‘unfair advantage’, the issue is typically resolved based on house policy.

If you’re playing a home game, it’s recommended that you stick with similar rules. However, participating players can use their own judgment to determine how to proceed. Either way, it’s a good idea to establish the rules and guidelines before starting to play.

Strategy Myth-Buster: Does the Burn Affect Odds?

New players are often confused about why cards are burned and whether this affects the basic odds of the game.

In short, no, burning cards does not affect the odds of poker in any way.

The reasoning is simple – the burned card is not known to the players. As such, which cards are still in the shoe and which are in players’ hands does not change.

Remember – odds in poker are determined by known cards (community & hole cards) and undealt cards. For instance, if you’re hoping that the next drawn card is an Ace, you have a 4 in 47 shot to hit an Ace (assuming you’re past the Flop and no Aces have been revealed so far). Even if the dealer burns a card, you still don’t know which card was burned. As such, the chances of drawing an Ace are still 4 in 47.

In other words, a burned card is the same as a card that was never dealt from a statistical standpoint.

Let’s illustrate with an example.

Say you have a pair of Aces and the flop is showing a Jack, a 4, and a 7. There are two Aces still in the shoe, which means the chances of drawing an Ace on the Turn are 2/47, or 4.25%.

If the dealer burns a card, the chances of the burned card being an Ace are also 4.25%. On the flip side, there’s a 95.75% chance that the burned card is not an Ace.

We should also remember that, after the card is burned, the chances of it being an Ace are 2/46, or 4.35%. We can combine these odds in a simple calculation to illustrate the probability of hitting an Ace even after a card was burned:

(2/47 * 1/46) + (45/47 * 2/46) = (2/2196) + (90/2196) = ~ 4.25%