What\'s My Play?
 

10-20 NLH at the Commerce last night. I'm in the BB when UTG limps, two others limp, SB calls. I check holding the 4c7c, five to the flop. Pot is 100. Flop comes Tc9c7h. SB bets 70. I call. UTG raises 130 more, limpers vanish, SB calls. I call. 700 in the pot when the 4d hits the turn. SB checks, I check, UTG moves in for 950 more. SB calls instantly.

UTG is a bit of a novice but not a total fish: in this spot, he's very likely to have two pair. The SB is much less predictable but generally solid. The SB has another $4K behind the $950 he called on the turn; I have him covered by a shade.

What's my play? And should I have bet the turn card?

The same night, I related the Hellmuth prop bet to the table, where Philly-boy bet Matusow that AK off beat AKs in a heads-up race. A guy offered me a prop: he gets two black nines, I get AhKs and we run it 101 times. First one to fifty-one gets the money, but he's willing to lay me 9:5. I offered to take it for $100K, but the guy would only take it for what he had on him, which was $3600 against my $2K. I had people coming out of the woodwork for a piece of my action. I laid off $1000 to ensure that I wasn't gonna get taken off in some stranger's hotel room and we ran it. Our side lost, 51-48.

More freakishness: at the adjacent 20-40 table, a local pro laid a guy $15K to $14K on a blind race, winner take all. Unhappy, apparently, that he lost that, the local pro did it again with someone else a while later -- this time at even money for $19K. He lost that, too. Niiiice.

Re: What\'s My Play?
 

As it stands I fold the the turn.

Re: What\'s My Play?
 

Bottom two is no good here IMO and your flush draw does not give you enough odds to call with one card to come.

Re: What\'s My Play?
 

[ QUOTE ]
A guy offered me a prop: he gets two black nines, I get AhKs and we run it 101 times. First one to fifty-one gets the money, but he's willing to lay me 9:5. I offered to take it for $100K, but the guy would only take it for what he had on him, which was $3600 against my $2K. I had people coming out of the woodwork for a piece of my action. I laid off $1000 to ensure that I wasn't gonna get taken off in some stranger's hotel room and we ran it. Our side lost, 51-48.


[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, that's an awful bet. I'm glad for your sake he didn't have more cash.

Re: What\'s My Play?
 

Yes, well, after he won he was willing to run it again. But I couldn't take rapidfire shuffling and dealing for another half hour in a stranger's hotel room.

Still, it was a memorable event.

Re: What\'s My Play?
 

Why would anyone want to give you a bet like that unless they had a special edge?

Re: What\'s My Play?
 

The black 9's are favored to win 52.4 % of the time. But the guy was offering 9:5 odds. So the math works out great in your favor. But given the choice of someone being that stupid vs cheating I'd have to assume that they were cheating.

Re: What\'s My Play?
 

[ QUOTE ]
The black 9's are favored to win 52.4 % of the time. But the guy was offering 9:5 odds. So the math works out great in your favor.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, the nines are a 55% favourite.

But even if they were only 52.4 my guess is it's still not a good bet to take ('cos it's run 100 times not once.)

Re: What\'s My Play?
 

Ooops sorry you are right about the 55% - thought the AK were suited. Oh I get the idea now - if you run it once the 9:5 odds are good. If you run it a billion times then the 9's will always win. So where does 100 times fall. Interesting math problem...

Re: What\'s My Play?
 

Of course; now I see the trick. I'll run some sims on Probe and see what the distributions look like. This is a sucker bet, but man, you could fool a stack of people with it -- seriously, I could have laid off $20K in action in a heartbeat.

I feel like an idiot. Live and learn.

Re: What\'s My Play?
 

This problem got my interest. I spent a few minutes working on it and got an answer of the probability of you winning this prop bet at 14%.

Just to clarify the problem, you said that it was 101 games, first to 51. Except with ties, nobody might get to 51 before you hit 101 games. I'm guessing you meant first to 51 regardless. For my program, I assumed every game had a win/lose outcome, with a win% as given by the EV % on twodimes. I'm sure it doesn't change the outcome too much.

The probability of, in 101 games, of winning 0 games, losing 101 (with the nines, p = 0.553 per game) is:

(1-p)^101

The probability of winning one and losing 100 is:
(n choose r) * p^r * (1-p)^(n-r)
where n = games = 101, r = games won = 1
---- (n choose r) = n! / ( r!*(n-r)! )

Probability of winning 51 to 101 games is:
SUM r=51 to 101: (n choose r) * p^r * (1-p)^(n-r) = 0.8579

Probability of AK winning 0 to 50 games should be:
SUM r=0 to 50: (n choose r) * p^r * (1-p)^(n-r) = 0.8579
where p = .447
which checks out.

Public Function PropBet()
Dim n, r As Integer
Dim prob, sum As Double

n = 101
prob = 0.553
sum = 0#

For r = 51 To 101
sum = sum + Factorial((n)) / Factorial((r)) / Factorial((n - r)) * prob ^ r * (1 - prob) ^ (n - r)
Next

MsgBox sum

End Function

Re: What\'s My Play?
 

FYI, if the AK is suited, p=.476, then your odds of winning the bet increases to 31%.

Re: What\'s My Play?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Of course; now I see the trick. I'll run some sims on Probe and see what the distributions look like. This is a sucker bet, but man, you could fool a stack of people with it -- seriously, I could have laid off $20K in action in a heartbeat.

I feel like an idiot. Live and learn.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sounds great at first doesn't it. I can imagine a lot of ppl going for it, especially if this guy was clever about how he offered it.

Re: What\'s My Play?
 

Thanks for posting that calculation iversonian. I suppose then that the next hundred times I go all in for the "coin flip" scenareo of unsuited AK vs a pair I'd much rather have the pair.