Lowball Math - post from Magazine Forum

[Luv2DriveTT]

I posted the following in the Magazine forum in response to David Sklansky's excellent essay on lowball 2-7 math. I'm only re-posting it here for you all to see, please respond in the Magazine forum (if you are up to the challenge.. its a hard one!)

I loved David Sklansky's lowball math post in this month's magazine, I play lowball (2-7 Triple Draw is my personal favorite) and I have found the mathematics behind it to be baffling.

I'd like to present a sample problem that I believe is rather complicated for someone to tackle, its a common scenario in Triple Draw with a rough pat hand against two opponents. What makes my problem different from David's is that there are three draws (David's problem assumed it was the last draw), there are no known discards and the Hero is against two opponents. For simplicities sake lets assume both opponents are drawing one card at the first draw.

The goal is to determine if 87532 should remain pat, or discard the 8 to draw to a better (or equal) hand.
The Hero is in the CO and open raises with 87532, only the blinds call. Both draw 1 card. The hero has 8 outs to improve his hand, plus 3 outs to draw to another 8 (total of 11 outs).

Can anyone (David, that includes you if this isn't an inconvenience) therefore explain how to calculate the probability that staying pat is the best option for the hero?

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

[kmvenne]

You have to give the opponents a hand to make the math worth. You can't do the math here with 2 opponents on random hands. For all we know you could have a donkey on 8763 drawing one dead and a fish on 6543 drawing to 2 cards. Or you could have two drawing perfect.

Just learn to read actions. Most players will pop you back with a super draw to a 7 here. You have to love your chances here. I'd be more worried if a blind drew 2, indicating he's chasing a big draw, then if they draw one, looking for a mediocre hand to come off.

[randomstumbl]

In less they're totally awful players I think we can assume they're both drawing live. Even 8654 is drawing to 6 outs here. Obviously, the range of hands and the probability of their occurence will affect the decision; however, this is still a really good problem to think about.

I've already posted in the Magazine Forum about this, we might as well keep the discussion over there - even though it makes this forum look active by comparision.