[2ndGoat]

It's widely accepted that Ken Warren's book "Winner's Guide to Texas Hold'em Poker" is trash. However, it has a section in the back on hold'em odds that, if correct, would be somewhat useful. I've been on a "research kick" lately and decided to take a look at some of these numbers. After all, even if the author had a painfully incomplete knowledge of hold'em strategy at time of writing, it doesn't mean that he is necessarily incapable of running some numbers. It certainly doesn't bode well, though. I attempted to double-check a set of calculations. Here is a set of numbers presented in a table:

Percentage chance that no one else holds:
10 Handed
An Ace 13.3%
An Ace if you do: 25.3%
An Ace if you don't: 15.6%

It just seems goofy to think that the odds of no one else having an ace would INCREASE once I pick up my hand and realize I don't have one.

Here are the numbers I computed:

10 Handed
An Ace 17.1%- (48*47*...31)/(52*51*...35)
An Ace if you do 25.3%- (47*46*...30)/(50*49*...33)
An Ace if you don't 15.6%- (46*45*...*29)/(50*49*...33)

So I agree with Mr. Warren and his arithmetic monkeys on 2 counts out of 3. Do you guys agree with me? If I'm right, it makes me sad, because I wish I could put a bit of faith in the 20 pages of the back of this book instead of having to re-crunch any useful probabilities myself.

2nd