Not An Ethics Question

David Sklansky · #1 06-11-2004, 02:16 AM

You are in a nine handed 10-20 holdem game against seven mediocre players and one other expert. Your hourly rate figures to be $20. Except for one thing. You notice that the other expert, on your immediate right, is looking right into the hand of the player on his right. He is seeing it perfectly evey time and is using that information perfectly. For the purposes of this question we will stipulate that none of the othe players, besides you, has any idea this is going on. Furthermore we will stipulate that none of them starts to suspect anything even though hands are being played funny. In other words the other expert can alter his strategy with impunity unless you rat him out. (He doesn't know you know)

For some reason you choose not to rat him out. Perhaps you have the old school belief that "you snooze, you lose". Perhaps this guy is dangerous. Who knows? It's not relevent to this poker question. In spite of this you also choose not to quit the game, but rather to simply play your best under the circumstances. Perhaps you believe you still have a positive EV or that the poor soul who's cards are being seen will bust out quickly. Again it doesn't matter.

I just want to know one thing. Just one number. And PLEASE only give me that number for an answer, without an explanation. I want to get people to think for themselves.

What I want to know is how this unfortunate situation will impact yor theoretical hourly rate. Normally it is $20 an hour. While this is going on it figures to become what?