blonde poker forum

Open plea for some help, and promise no comments about maths geeks!

I'm trying to tie down the odds for a VERY specific bad beat situation and could do with some pointers on how to run the maths.

The qualifier is quad twos through eights being beaten by a queen high straight flush or better. Both players must use both hole cards, the losing hand must contain a pair.Full ring game with a minimum 4 players being dealt in. I'm trying to work out the odds on it happening on a single deal and my brain is about to explode.......

Anyone able to point me in the right direction? All help appreciated!

What are the odds of getting my total reward card back? About the same odds?

Hi George- been back a week let me catch up!!! You know I'll sort you out anyway.....

Come back when you have it worked out. Everyone is looking forward to the story...

Lol- not setting up a bad beat story, this is for a bad beat promotion where an obscene amount of cash will be given away. Need to work out the maths of it before I get the go ahead though.

This is a decent place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker_probability

ANY straight flush is 72000:1

ANY quads is 4000:1

Both happening at the same time is (4000 x 72000) : 1

Add in all your other qualifying criteria and no matter how obscene the amount is it really doesn't matter as it just ain't going to happen mate.

The DTD bad beat jackpot struggles to get won and that's only AAA88 or better getting beaten by anything else.

If you run this as anything but a free promotion you're taking the piss to be honest.

Just stumbled across this:

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XunAlp2azhA

Think you should insist that Ray Romano is sat at the table as well just to be safe.

Those are the probabilities for a hand made up of five cards only. Assuming this is Hold em the odds shorten when we have seven cards to play with.
Royal Flush is now 1 in 31,000
Quads is a massive 1 in 594

The bad beat scenario envisaged in OP is still pretty unlikely though.


Btw whoever it is that keeps saying " it's really hard to make a pair" should study these pages. It's actually harder to not make a pair.

If you hit quad 9s and lose to a royal you don't win? Also you have quad 2s and lose to a 10 high straight flush you don't win?

Seems a bit over complicated.

It can't be that complicated. You've just explained it perfectly.  :P

As a rough guide to how unlikely this is, if you were to deal out 9 cards it would be nearly 29 million to one to deal a qualifying 4 of a kind plus a qualifying str8 flush from the 9.

So as others have said its so unlikely as to be a complete rip-off if extra rake is being charged - and if it comes up almost def it's as a result of cheating  :D

Live poker is rigged

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XunAlp2azhA

Btw, the Wizard of Odds looked at the specific case of quad Aces v RF and arrived at 1 in 439million.
If we accept that then can we just extend the case to seven different sets of quads, and three different straight flushes that's 21 in 439million, or 1 in 20,904,762

http://wizardofodds.com/ask-the-wizard/215/

Thanks for the pointers-  FYI it is for a free promotion and the obscene amount is £1,000,000. I just need to convince someone how unlikely it is to get the go ahead!

I know it sounds ridiculous but 20,000,000-1 might not be long enough and they may want the criteria tightening. If you divide by the 10,000 qualifying cash hands per month expected, and the fact they want to run it for 3 months, we suddenly get down to as low as 666-1 which is pretty low to give away a million for nothing!

Any other input gratefully appreciated!

Why don't you just insure against it?

A policy would be relatively cheap, then you don't have to worry about it.

No chance of getting that insured due to moral hazard.

That's the route I'm trying, and you'd be surprised at how expensive it is- I know I was! They're talking about 20% of the sum insured as a premium. If I can't get them down significantly then I have to convince a few people that it's worth us taking the risk.

I'll do it for 10%. :D

They are charging so much because of the possibility of insider collusion - presumably the entire hand would have to be on camera and taped?

Why are you doing the promo?  If it's to increase player numbers you must have some idea about the extra profit generated?  Do you really think that you will get significantly more players by offering a £1m prize than a £100k prize?

There's other things to take in to account as well as the insane one off odds. For example the calculated odds don't take in to consideration the fact that when the perfect hand occurs player A might have folded his pair of twos, threes or fours without even seeing a flop.......

Also, the number of players that take part in each hand is rather important.

This is the key question surely rather then what the odds are.  If we are talking a £200k insurance premium then you need to generate at least this in extra rake for a freerole.  If you predict an extra £250k rake then you are in profit by £50k and if you only predict £150k extra rake then you are down £50k.  I am calculating this all in reference to the cost of the policy as I don't see any business wanting to take this risk uninsured unless you are talking significant extra profit (i.e. rake increases by at least half the cost of the BBJ).  When you start to look at it like this we are talking some significant numbers.  

Also, I'm not sure of your role in this but reading between the lines I am assuming you are the card room manager/supervisor.  If you do convince your employers to assume the risk uninsured and the BBJ drops (despite the apparent long odds these things can happen!) what sort of heat this will bring to you and your position?  Worth considering when you put your neck on the line.  That's not to say don't take risks, but always consider the risk v reward for you personally.

I'm managing to get the cost of the quote down so it's looking a lot more likely. Personally I think we should accept the risk- we are in the gambling business after all!! Getting the odds worked out is all to strengthen my negotiating position.

My only nightmare would be if the BBJ dropped quickly. The positive publicity generated both locally and nationally would be valuable but it would be hard for me to argue it was a million pounds worth! It wouldn't cost me my job but it would make it a lot more difficult- I'd struggle to get another promotion off the ground and I'd probably have to start filling in paperwork if I gave away a cup of tea!

surely your boss also knows how odds work?

oh wait, he works in gaming, so probably not.

Surely if you are risking a million, you need to do a bit more due dilligence than asking on here.  Which was the key word in the phrase "gambling business" again?

What happens when the players miss the small print and get something close?  Can you imagine how grouchy they will be after hitting quad 9s vs the j high flush. Have you consider the potential for negative publicity as well as the potential for positive publicity?

I will have an even grand with you it will cost you your job if it cops without you insuring it.

There's a lot more due diligence Doobs, but my head was exploding with the maths and I know there a lot of very smart people on here that can give me pointers. In order to even get the insurance considered I have to be able to demonstrate the odds and there simply aren't 'charts' out there for underwriters to consult. They'll take my workings and no doubt pull them apart so we can come up with some figures. The due diligence in other areas- extra cameras, staff checks, mikes, cards etc- are extremely easy compared to the maths!!

If I get it off the ground the promotion will be widely publicised and the criteria explained clearer. 'Near Misses' are part of it and would happen no matter what the qualifying conditions were. I've been at a table where a guy thought he had won a BBJ losing with quads because he didn't realise his kicker didn't play and both cards had to. He caused a hell of a fuss, and maybe the casino lost one customer, but it was a minor blip in the greater scheme of things.

Taken