A bad beat jackpot winner... NOT!!!

So, I was sitting at a 2-5 game at Caesars with Alex on Friday. The Bad Beat Jackpot was around $118k and creeping up.

Yet, another statistical puzzle...

I limped in MP (Seat #9) with two black Q-Q, and the girl to my immediate left (Seat #10) limped in as well with unknown cards. To her left (seat #1), the aggressive Asian guy pops it to $30 (my plan worked… I'm gonna 3-bet smash this guy when it gets to me!!!). But, the next action, to his left, is a rock, in LP position, whose VPIP and PR %s are probably <>

The girl next to me is a regular at Caesars, and cried out… "This is why the bad-beat never happens at a 2-5 game!"***. I nudged her, and she showed me 7h-8h, suited mid-connectors. I smiled, thinking, what a crock, she's crying about 7h-8h? She's disgusted and mucked. The rest of the action is largely irrelevant --- I think it folded around preflop, and the rock took the smallish pot.

But, the questions lingered --- her statement contained an ounce of truth. In a 2-5 table, AA, KK, QQ will nearly always push out the other bad-beat elligble hands: baby pairs, suited 1 or 2 gappers, etc, thereby making it that much more difficult to hit the BBJ. What's the likelihood of hitting the BBJ in Holdem? What's the likelihood of having a table with at least 2 or more BBJ qualifying hands to start with? (eg. Pair vs Pair vs suited connector, Pair vs suited connector, etc.).

What if you play $2 / $4 Limit Holdem with a crew of 10 players, and everyone limps who have BB elligible hands, pocket pairs, and suited connectors to crack the BBJ. A-A will not raise the pot, and the crew will behave in ideal conditions. Check the flop, turn, and river, and only bet the river to fulfill the mandatory $20 pot requirement.

What are the odds? On average, under "checkdown" conditions, how many hands will it take for your crew to crack the $120k BBJ? And, how many hours / days?

So, I created a poker holdem simulator - one that randomly deals 10 hole cards, and runs a board (flop, turn, river), and determines if there's a "bad beat" b/n any two players.

On average, after a run of over 1/2 billion simulations:

>>> assuming the minimum requirements are any Quads

>>> 49% of the time - nearly half the time, the table has a BBJ elligble starting hand, preflop; at least 2 pocket pairs, or suited (1-2-3 gapper) connectors.
>>> if it goes all the way to the river, the BBJ will happen in 1 in about 200,000 hands.

>>> note, however, the cost of playing 200,000 hands even on the cheap side, requires you to pay the BB-drop, and occassionally a dealer tip on $7-$9 pots (SB + BB + limp + limp + maybe another limp)
>>> if your 10-person crew played 24 hours a day, at 50 hands an hour, it would take you about 166 days.

>>> the most common form is Quads vs Quads

But, what if your 10-person crew tried to crack the BBJ online, with the help of an auto-folder software? Running 16 tables each? At a rate of 80 hands per hour, it would take you only 7 days!!! Who wants in? Hahahaha. PartyPoker's BBJ is currently $167,916!!! That's $16k per person for 7 days of work…. Who wants in?

*** Note that the BBJ at the Borgata was hit at a 2-5 table, recently.

Thought I've seen it all...

Thought you've seen it all? Here's a new one … I wasn't involved in the hand, but here's the tale of the tape…

I was at the 1-2 table killing some time before heading back from AC, yesterday (Sunday, Nov-15).

The profile, full table:
Seat #1: cocky middle-age (COMA) person who loves to talk about how good he is in poker, and yet he's playing 1-2. provides unsolicited hand analysis about poker hands for the table -- endlessly. real prick, and all. He's got about a $600 stack in front of him, apparently cuz he flopped top set, and our co-neighbor had the nut str8 on the turn, and COMA called anyways to fill up on the river.
Seat #3: me, bored and drinking, killing time, and rolling my eyes at every trash that comes out of COMA's ego. really sir, you play 5-10 huh? ok, buddy.
Seat #4: short buy-in (SBI) guy who managed to build a $100 stack to about $300-$350, passive aggressive
Seat #6: hard-nosed, blue collar, middle age, rock (MAROCK). Construction worker / painter, a general labourer.
Seat #7-10 are largely irrelevant.


Keep in mind, this is a $one-$two game. Not sure what the action was PF, and on the flop, but on the Turn, there's a huge pot building in the middle, and the board reads:
9-9-K-Q (no flush, but presumably 2-cards to a flush)

COMA has the button, about $600 deep
SBI is first to act, about $350 deep
MAROCK is in MP, about $700 deep

SBI leads the betting with $40, MAROCK calls. After some hesitation, COMA raises to $250. SBI tanks… I nudged his elbow… encouraging him to show me his cards, and sweat the action… SBI flashes me 9-7o, trips with no kicker. He reluctantly mucks, and shows a smile, knowing he made a good lay down. MAROCK thinks for a moment, and eventually calls. A large amount of chips is now in the middle, and the frail-Asian dealer is struggling to stack and count/match the chips, it took almost a full minute for her to sort out the pot.

To the river we go... each remaining player nearly $300/$450 deep.

The dealer peels a meaningless 4 that does not complete the flush. And, immediately yells out, "Showdown!". And, MAROCK, out of position, turns over his cards, J-T for the nut str8. COMA starts thinking, and, rightfully stated, "I haven't acted". MAROCK recognizes his mistake, and now has a worrying look about him. The dealer has the Oh-Sh#t / WTF look!! I do what I can, though it's questionable whether I should've interfered, I called for her, and stated, DO NOT DO ANYTHING, and DO NOT SAY ANYTHING, just call the floor over, and she did.

It took 2-3 minutes with everyone trying to explain what happened to the floor person. It was too controversial, she called the head referee and her co-judge, so to speak. Another 3-5 minutes of explanations, we have 3 floor managers at our table, and a buzz and railbird section is building… what's the call? The floor ruled that it's the "player's responsibility", and the option is available to act by either player. A fair ruling, but I'm somewhat disgusted that a major eff up by the dealer, could now cost MAROCK a $500 pot.

So MAROCK checks, and COMA tanks. Lots of talking now comes from MAROCK --- "Listen, if you check, and you win, the pot's yours (afraid that he's beat with a boat). If you go all-in, I'll call", repeats it again after 30 seconds….

COMA pushes his $300 all-in, and MAROCK guffs, and says, "I call". COMA says you win, and shows A-9o, trips with an Ace kicker, and a foiled bluff.

Drama unfolds!!! MAROCK, a gentle giant, now upset that someone tried make a play at him like that, says I DO NOT ACCEPT THAT pointing to COMA's 300 stack about to be shipped to him. He sends it back, and the table goes wild!!! You can't ship the chips back. You can take it, and give him $300 in cash off the table, etc… this goes on for about 2-3 minutes, and the floor, still hovering from the previous incident, ruled that COMA can keep his stack. WTF?!?!

The next hand is dealt, and before any action occurs --- everyone is still heckling MAROCK about the stack, he changes his mind and decides that he wants his money back!!! That's my money, I want it, ship it - says MAROCK, repeatedly. All hell breaks loose! COMA gently holds onto the stack, and froze… the floor was involved again. This time, they instructed COMA to send the chips over, or he will be escorted out of the casino. COMA didn't comply, he got off the table, and spoke to the two senior floor personnel, arguing his case. No dice, fella!

COMA eventually conceded, and asked for the count. They counted the chips in front of him, $293 to be exact. I supplied the chip rack, and they stacked his chips, and sent the rack over to MAROCK. The floor personnel allowed him to stay. COMA dropped 2 C-notes to rebuy, and took a break from the action.

Thought I've seen it all...

2009 WSOP Main Event

"Hard to believe 5-2o could cause that much damage to pocket Aces!"

Norman Chad, ESPN, 2009 WSOP Main Event coverage.

Preflop
Ah-Ad raises UTG
5s-2d (offsuit) re-raises on the button
Aces cold-calls

Flop
9h-2h-5h on the flop
Aces checks
5-2o (two pair) bets
Aces (with the nf draw) raises
5-2 goes all-in
Aces snap calls

Turn - brick
River - brick

The time value of money in "live" poker

Here's another installment of my mind-bending statistical anomalies in poker: the time value of money in live poker.

Consider this…

In a live game, with a full table, you average about 30 hands an hour.

At 2-5 stakes and higher, the table charge is typically around $5 - $8 pph (per person, per half), and some charge a "Bad Beat" fee. Let's omit for the moment that some rooms elect to implement the "time-pot" based system, and others are "time-charge" based - an entire discussion on the topic can be devoted to argue which is more egregious to the player. Also, further assume, albeit a bad assumption, that dealer tips are not included in our calculations

So, on average, a player loses $13 to $18 per hour at the table --- let's round it off to $15 per hour for our discussion.

Take a sampling of 100 hours which equates to about 3000 hands; A winning online player is considered beating the game if he is rated at 0-3 BBs / 100 hands, 4-7 BBs is crushing the game, and is "running hot" if he is rated at 8+ BBs.

Say, in live play, you managed to track your P&L for 100 hours, and got yourself a rating of 10 BB / 100 --- by internet definition, you're playing God-Mode, and destroying the game, right?

In 100 hours of 2-5 play, you racked up 10 x BB (of $5) x 30 = $1,500 profit. Note, that this equates to an hourly rate of $15/hr.

** But, wait, during that time, you paid out nearly $1500 in table charges!!! Your gross profit is really about $3,000 --- which gives you a BB/100 rating of nearly 20, that puts you into Super-God-Mode.

Was pondering this anomaly, and asking the question, is the 2-5 live game really profitable? Should one consider dropping down to 1-2 stakes to avoid the higher rake per hour? Play more low/mid level home games with a low or no rake at all. Or, jump up to a steady 5-5, 5-10, 10-25 diet. A higher BB will obviously yield a higher net profit -- assuming your skill level is a winning one, and scales linearly at those levels (probably another bad assumption).

** addendum - if you were to consider poker as a profession… try to draw a parallel to your current job. Would you ever pay $50k in commuter, license, etc costs, only to earn a net salary of $50k, and claim that your gross income is $100k?

Why do you play poker? As a form of supplemental income? Do you enjoy it, as a social event? A forum to inflict jedi mind tricks, and engage in psychological warfare with the tourists? As a time killer? To get away from the spouse, and hang out? The simple enjoyment of looking down at pocket A-As every 120+ hands? Is there another hobby/activity that you can enjoy that yields a better hourly rate than $15 / hr?

Having problems sleeping?

If it's alcohol, stop drinking
If it's health, take a pill
If it's financial, the markets are closed
If it's personal, let fate decide
If it's poker, stop playing
If it's work, there's always tomorrow

If it's the weekend, sleep in!

The beginning...

This stuff is easy!!!

Easy setup, then you know it, you're spewing your thoughts on a piece of electronic paper.