11-02-2001, 04:56 PM
Dear fellow forum members,
In his book "The education of a poker player" Herbert O. Yardley discusses the clumping card phenomena. ( which is the tendency of cards (ie pairs or suits) that are discarded at the end of a hand to stay in close proximity of each other on the next deal) Yardley as most of us know, was the director of the US army's code breaking department. Which department went on to break the original Japanese codes back in the 1920s.
Because as he states almost all code breakers have a photographic memory, and consequently a love of card playing.He explains in his book, (pp 112) how one of his assistant code breaker was able to use the tendency for cards to clump to predict the increased probability of a card being dealt allowing him to call a bet and go on to win a large pot. The specific example given ,in this case, was that as his assistant was memorizing the order of cards, by rank and suit, of the previously hand as they were discarded, his assistant had observed that the Ace of spades had been discarded on top of the Ace of diamonds. Now since, as we know, it takes approx 15 well preformed riffles per shuffle to truly randomly redistribute a deck of cards, and since the dealer in Yardley's example, (similar to what our dealers in the casino do) had not preformed a quality shuffle. ]
Therefore as the next hand that was dealt,Yardley's assistant being heads up in a hand of 7 card stud, when his opponent was dealt the ace of spades as his sixth street card.Yardley's assistant correctly anticipated that there was a significantly increased in the implied odds that his next card would be the ace of diamonds.This allowed him to go against the pot odds, and call the hand, draw the Ace of diamonds, and drag the pot.
I think that many "old time" players are subconsciously aware of this phenomena when they make statements like "Doc, when baby cards start coming out on the flop they just keep coming" or "Doc, I don't care what your math tables say about flush probabilities, trust me when hearts start coming ,hearts keep coming.Or "Doc, as the game progresses I get a feel as to what cards are going to come out next."
If you take a deck of cards (as I have done) place the four aces in the middle,where they might have been returned to the deck by the dealer. And then shuffle them, you will find that there is a tendency for the aces to stick together by twos, or to be separated by one different card on each or every other shuffle.
You may be asking yourself (For the love of God, Doc why are we going over this) And the answer is this, if discarded cards tend to stay in sequence or near to sequence, and big cards tend to be discarded together last (ie pairs of Kings, Aces, and Queens) Wouldn't there be a modest but significant increase in the probability that the second card dealt to one particular seat position would have an increased tendency for cards of the same rank and suit to come out on the flop? My question is this if this phenomenon is a reality the second card dealt to the player in one particular seat should have a modest but significantly increased probability that the card dealt to him would have a greater than usual chance of of having cards of that same rank and suit appear on the flop. And that this should give a modest but real advantage to the player sitting in this particular seat. Do you believe in this phenomenon? And if it is true which position (chair) at the table do you feel should have the greatest probability of benefiting from it?
In his book "The education of a poker player" Herbert O. Yardley discusses the clumping card phenomena. ( which is the tendency of cards (ie pairs or suits) that are discarded at the end of a hand to stay in close proximity of each other on the next deal) Yardley as most of us know, was the director of the US army's code breaking department. Which department went on to break the original Japanese codes back in the 1920s.
Because as he states almost all code breakers have a photographic memory, and consequently a love of card playing.He explains in his book, (pp 112) how one of his assistant code breaker was able to use the tendency for cards to clump to predict the increased probability of a card being dealt allowing him to call a bet and go on to win a large pot. The specific example given ,in this case, was that as his assistant was memorizing the order of cards, by rank and suit, of the previously hand as they were discarded, his assistant had observed that the Ace of spades had been discarded on top of the Ace of diamonds. Now since, as we know, it takes approx 15 well preformed riffles per shuffle to truly randomly redistribute a deck of cards, and since the dealer in Yardley's example, (similar to what our dealers in the casino do) had not preformed a quality shuffle. ]
Therefore as the next hand that was dealt,Yardley's assistant being heads up in a hand of 7 card stud, when his opponent was dealt the ace of spades as his sixth street card.Yardley's assistant correctly anticipated that there was a significantly increased in the implied odds that his next card would be the ace of diamonds.This allowed him to go against the pot odds, and call the hand, draw the Ace of diamonds, and drag the pot.
I think that many "old time" players are subconsciously aware of this phenomena when they make statements like "Doc, when baby cards start coming out on the flop they just keep coming" or "Doc, I don't care what your math tables say about flush probabilities, trust me when hearts start coming ,hearts keep coming.Or "Doc, as the game progresses I get a feel as to what cards are going to come out next."
If you take a deck of cards (as I have done) place the four aces in the middle,where they might have been returned to the deck by the dealer. And then shuffle them, you will find that there is a tendency for the aces to stick together by twos, or to be separated by one different card on each or every other shuffle.
You may be asking yourself (For the love of God, Doc why are we going over this) And the answer is this, if discarded cards tend to stay in sequence or near to sequence, and big cards tend to be discarded together last (ie pairs of Kings, Aces, and Queens) Wouldn't there be a modest but significant increase in the probability that the second card dealt to one particular seat position would have an increased tendency for cards of the same rank and suit to come out on the flop? My question is this if this phenomenon is a reality the second card dealt to the player in one particular seat should have a modest but significantly increased probability that the card dealt to him would have a greater than usual chance of of having cards of that same rank and suit appear on the flop. And that this should give a modest but real advantage to the player sitting in this particular seat. Do you believe in this phenomenon? And if it is true which position (chair) at the table do you feel should have the greatest probability of benefiting from it?