Why Two Dimes Data Is Wrong (Continued...)

[M.B.E.]

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But what twodimes does NOT do is translate how much MONEY those portions of pots are worth to you. This is because there is a fixed cost you must pay for the right to earn a portion of the pot.

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What you're talking about here is the concept of effective odds, which is applicable to straight high games as well as split games.

There is nothing in the nature of Omaha-8 that makes the twodimes data more "misleading" than it would be for a holdem problem.

[Wolffink]

Awesome thread. I finally got it and it shocked me. Somewhere. Thanks all.

[gergery]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
But what twodimes does NOT do is translate how much MONEY those portions of pots are worth to you. This is because there is a fixed cost you must pay for the right to earn a portion of the pot.

[/ QUOTE ]
What you're talking about here is the concept of effective odds, which is applicable to straight high games as well as split games.

There is nothing in the nature of Omaha-8 that makes the twodimes data more "misleading" than it would be for a holdem problem.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, I'm not referring to effective odds.

I'm referring to the fact that in split pot games you don't get back all the money in put in to call. This is wholly unlike holdem.

ie. let's say its the turn. there are 6 big bets in the pot. you know your opponent has the high side locked up and will check down on the river. you can call 1 big bet for the chance to win low. The holdem, way of thinking would be to say, "I call 1 bet for the chance to win half the pot. the pot is 6, therefore half of 6 is 3. so I'm getting 3:1 pot odds. but that is incorrect. In a split pot game, you'd call that 1 bet making 7 bets in the pot. then you'd get half the pot back or 3.5 bets. then you subtract the 1 bet you put in for 2.5 bets. So you're true odds here are 2.5 to 1, not 3 to 1 as in holdem.

Try this problem out when its heads up on the flop with many bets to come and your opponent is freerolling and you'll see your return is very different than a holdem problem.

the difference is in holdem, if you win you get back the entire amount of money you put in to call. But not so in split pot.

This effect gets larger as more money goes in relative to the existing pot (ie. on earlier streets). This is what i'm referring to.

-g

Actually, I consider the size of the pot *going into* the action on a given street when considering odds. In this case, there must actually be 5 bets in the pot, then you and villain each put in 1. So the obvious math is "I am getting 2.5 (half of 5) bets to my 1." 2.5:1 odds is correct. I would never be so stupid as to watch the opponent put a bet into a 5-bet pot, and assume that I am getting 3:1 odds on that. I also don't think 2dimes encourages this type of thinking, unless the user is very inexperienced.

Now, I don't disagree that this is a non-trivial aspect of split-pot games. However, it should *definitely* not be used as a reason to favor high draws over low draws when the odds are the same.

Also, I agree with you that in situations where there are many bets to come, you have to think carefully, and 2dimes is not the place to go. I have already stated that in this thread, many times.

But that is not what we were ever talking about in the first place; we were talking about two players, each going all-in, in two situations where risk & EV are identical.

[Buzz]

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From a rollout simulation pont of view, winning two half pots is the same as scooping one.

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Mike - Sort of. Winning two half pots is tabulated separately from scooping. If a hand wins 2000 half pots for high, the number used to combine with the number of scoops to get a total would be 1000. Some simulators tabulate the high wins and then divide them as appropriate before showing a total. Other simulators divide the high wins as appropriate but do not add them to scoops and lows to show a total. And I suppose there are some other possibilities with which I'm unfamiliar.

I'm not a computer or simulation expert. I use twodimes.net and Wilson Turbo Omaha High-Low Split for Windows as tools to aid me in deciding whether I should be playing various hands or hands/boards or not. (And I've seen results from other simulators).

[ QUOTE ]
However, when you actually play with betting post-flop, then scooping of greater value. You are much more likely to drive the betting and win a bigger pot, if you have decent chance to scoop, than if you have a low and are worried about being quarted.

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Sort of. There are two ways you can scoop.
• win high with nobody winning low and with nobody wharing high with you.
• win high and low with nobody else sharing either high or low with you.

In the simulations, a high hand making a straight is just as likely to be tied as a low hand making a low. In real life there's a difference. You're more likely to get tied for low than for high, and the better your low, the more likely you are to get tied. Don't misunderstand this and start thinking you're better off playing poor low draws since you're less likely to get tied. (You're less likely to get tied with a poor low, but you're more likely to get beaten by a better low).

(In real life, how often a hand will scoop, win half one way or the other, or tie depends on how loosely your opponents are playing. Wilson allows you to use different characters as opponents. The various characters have different propensities to see the flop and then to stay in a hand or fold, and some are more aggressive than others. I mostly just use Painless Potters as opponents in the simulations, opponents who never fold. Twodimes.net is also a non-folding simulator).

Hope the above makes it clearer for you.

I'm currently adding the high, low and scoop sub-totals together. The high sub-totals shown by Wilson are actually halves/2 + quarters/4 + sixths/6 + eighths/8. Similarly, the low sub-totals shown by Wilson are actually halves/2 + quarters/4 + sixths/6 + eighths/8. Wilson doesn't add the sub-totals together. Twodimes.net does, and shows the totals as "ev." Bill Boston in his book added the sub-totals together, divided by 100, and showed them as "%." (I think that's how).

I'm suggesting there's something misleading with adding the sub-totals together, that the sub-total for scoops is worth more in real life than the sub-total for low. However, I agree the scoop sub-total is not worth more in the simulations.

At any rate, although I'm also doing it, it seems misleading to simply add the sub-totals together. Chaos suggested or implied this in response to a post of mine a while back, and I agreed with him. (I don't mean to drag you into this quagmire, Chaos).

Not sure I'm making myself clear. Some other posters evidently think I'm being completely bone-headed about this. (After I get hammered for a while, I start wondering if I'm not doing something wrong or missing something).

But I'm taking the hammering to try to get at the truth.

Buzz

Buzz, the only reason this thread is a "quagmire" is because of the ridiculously detailed, long posts and convoluted examples. If you could make a brief, concise list of the points you are claiming (which are frankly tough to discern at this point), then it would be easier for folks to either agree with you or point out errors. My list, for example, would be:

1) When you have twice the odds drawing to a split as you do drawing to a scoop, and have to risk the same amount in an equal-sized pot (this is the setup in the OP), then the EV in the two situations is equal.

2) Of these two scenarios, drawing to the split has the lower variance.

3) Using twodimes when there are multiple street of action to come can be misleading, unless you are accounting for potential future action correctly, which is non-trivial.

These three points are incontrovertible fact.

[M.B.E.]

[ QUOTE ]
ie. let's say its the turn. there are 6 big bets in the pot. you know your opponent has the high side locked up and will check down on the river. you can call 1 big bet for the chance to win low. The holdem, way of thinking would be to say, "I call 1 bet for the chance to win half the pot. the pot is 6, therefore half of 6 is 3. so I'm getting 3:1 pot odds. but that is incorrect. In a split pot game, you'd call that 1 bet making 7 bets in the pot. then you'd get half the pot back or 3.5 bets. then you subtract the 1 bet you put in for 2.5 bets. So you're true odds here are 2.5 to 1, not 3 to 1 as in holdem.

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I agree with you that in this example, drawing to low, you have pot odds of 2.5 to 1. But I don't know what you mean by "the holdem way of thinking". And this example doesn't have anything to do with "why Two Dimes Data is Wrong" (or "misleading" or whatever).

I agree with the idea that in actual play, a chance of scooping is usually worth a bit more than twice the same chance of getting half the pot. But the reason for that is simply the one stated by Mikechops a few posts back: "You are much more likely to drive the betting and win a bigger pot, if you have decent chance to scoop, than if you have a low and are worried about being quartered."

[gergery]

[ QUOTE ]
Buzz, the only reason this thread is a "quagmire" is because of the ridiculously detailed, long posts and convoluted examples. If you could make a brief, concise list of the points you are claiming (which are frankly tough to discern at this point), then it would be easier for folks to either agree with you or point out errors. My list, for example, would be:

1) When you have twice the odds drawing to a split as you do drawing to a scoop, and have to risk the same amount in an equal-sized pot (this is the setup in the OP), then the EV in the two situations is equal.

2) Of these two scenarios, drawing to the split has the lower variance.

3) Using twodimes when there are multiple street of action to come can be misleading, unless you are accounting for potential future action correctly, which is non-trivial.

These three points are incontrovertible fact.

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Fatsy-baby,
You’ve been making points 1 and 2 all along. I agree with those and always have. I’m been making point 3 all along. With which you agree. The original example listed here has only 1 further action, therefore twodimes is correct in stating your equity. And yes that was stated in this problem. But people were asking me what the intent of my original post was, and the answer is that

Summary: with more streets to come, and depending on your opponents, the profit you can make in a hand can vary drastically from what the equity that twodimes says you have. The main driver of this variance is the fact that this is a split pot game and that in splitting you will only get half of all money back that goes into the pot from this point forward.

-g

Yeah, I see we're in agreement. That's why the post you quoted was addressing Buzz...

Mixing apples and oranges by discussing whether there's more action to come or not is just going to confuse things though. Maybe that's what Buzz is doing, I really can't tell anymore.

[gergery]

I mean that in ‘the holdem way of thinking’, when you win the pot, you win the whole pot. Essentially, you scoop everytime that you win. But in O8 you don’t.

And it has everything to do with twodimes, because depending on how many bets are still to be put in the pot and how many opponent you have scooping is often worth more than twice splitting and can sometimes be worth as much as 7x more in profit (and that has nothing to do with driving the betting, but instead is due to the fact that every bet you put in will at best return half of it to you).

My point is that how you think about pot odds needs to be very different in O8 than in holdem. In holdem you always get the bets you put in back so its straightforward. Not so in split pot, as half the bet you put in goes to the other guy.
Let's take a simple example. You're the button in a pretty tight game. The cutoff seat immediately to your right bets and you call. The small blind calls and the big blind folds. So there are 7 small bets in the pot. On the flop, the cutoff bets, you call, and SB folds, so there are 9 small bets in the pot. On the turn those 9 small bets equal 4.5 big bets, and cutoff bets and you call so there are 6.5 big bets in the pot. On the river, cutoff bets and you call so there are now 8.5 big bets in the pot. So if you scoop, you win 8.5 big bets, and if you get half, you win 4.25 bets.. Now of those 8.5 big bets in the pot, you put in 2 small bets preflop, 1 small bet on the flop, 1 big bet on the turn and 1 more on the river. That's a total of 3.5 big bets.
So, let's recap:
If you scoop, you win 8.5 big bets, minus the 3.5 big bets you put in yourself, for a profit of 5.0 big bets.
If you split, you win 4.25 big bets, minus the 3.5 big bets you put in yourself, for a profit of 0.75 big bets.
That is a HUGE difference! In that example, scooping is 6 to 7 times more profitable than splitting the pot!!!
If this was holdem, you would be putting in 3.5 big bets for the chance to win 5.0 big bets. But if this is O8 and your opponent was freerolling you, then you’re putting in 3.5 big bets for the chance to win 0.75 bets. Even tho in both of these scenario’s your twodimes equity could be 25%.

-g