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12-to-1 shot misses
Jan. 17th, 2007 09:35 amSo, Gutshot loses. I thought that their narrow line of argument (that poker is a game of skill and therefore not covered by the act) was likely to be on dangerous ground when faced with the mathematical abilities of your average group of twelve good men and true.
Al Alvarez was on Radio Four's news last night, and although he rubbished the verdict, he failed to observe the simple principle that the concept of "chance" when applied to a single event makes no difference to the concept of "near certainty" when applied to 10,000 events. In other words, the 1968 law itself was logically meaningless.
This is not helped when Nic Szeremata blithly informed the judge that the chance of being dealt a pair in the hole was one in thirteen.
OK, let's give Nic the benefit of the doubt. He was in the jury box, a pressure-point at the best of times, and mouth might have engaged before brain. Then again, he also described "gambling" as "betting at unfavourable odds", which is an interesting concept, but presumably means that if I offer you 4-to-6 on a coin toss, and you take the bet, backing heads for six grand, and the coin comes up heads, I can walk away four grand poorer, pleased with myself that I wasn't gambling when I took the bet.
But then our good Mr Galloway pointed out the "12-to-1" error on the Gutshot forum in this thread: http://www.gutshot.com/bforum/showthread.php?t=20205
And just read a few of the responses. Three of the respondents continue to swear that the chances are 12-to-1 against.
It kind of reinforces one's belief in one's own game. If there are people who consider themselves poker players out there who have so little understanding of the basic mathematics of poker, surely there must still be a future.
Simon, I couldn't be bothered to register to post, but I think that the simplest way to explain it to these people is to take the whole deck. (This is how Scarne does it in Scarne On Cards. It's mathematically inelegant, but it enables the non-mathematical to see the truth of the probability.)
There are 52 x 51 possible two-card combinations = 2652 combinations. But this counts As Ad as different from Ad As. Therefore there are 1,326 combinations when the order does not matter.
There are six possibilities of AA. As AH, As Ad, As Ac, Ah Ad, Ah Ac, Ad Ac, when the order in which the cards appear does not matter.
There are thirteen ranks in the deck, from AA down to 22.
Therefore there are 78 (6 x 13) possible pairs as starting hands when the order does not matter.
So the chance of a pair in the hole is 78/1326. This equals 1/17.
Perhaps then they might see it.
Then again, do we want them to?
( piano arrives: Birks knackered )
Al Alvarez was on Radio Four's news last night, and although he rubbished the verdict, he failed to observe the simple principle that the concept of "chance" when applied to a single event makes no difference to the concept of "near certainty" when applied to 10,000 events. In other words, the 1968 law itself was logically meaningless.
This is not helped when Nic Szeremata blithly informed the judge that the chance of being dealt a pair in the hole was one in thirteen.
OK, let's give Nic the benefit of the doubt. He was in the jury box, a pressure-point at the best of times, and mouth might have engaged before brain. Then again, he also described "gambling" as "betting at unfavourable odds", which is an interesting concept, but presumably means that if I offer you 4-to-6 on a coin toss, and you take the bet, backing heads for six grand, and the coin comes up heads, I can walk away four grand poorer, pleased with myself that I wasn't gambling when I took the bet.
But then our good Mr Galloway pointed out the "12-to-1" error on the Gutshot forum in this thread: http://www.gutshot.com/bforum/showthread.php?t=20205
And just read a few of the responses. Three of the respondents continue to swear that the chances are 12-to-1 against.
It kind of reinforces one's belief in one's own game. If there are people who consider themselves poker players out there who have so little understanding of the basic mathematics of poker, surely there must still be a future.
Simon, I couldn't be bothered to register to post, but I think that the simplest way to explain it to these people is to take the whole deck. (This is how Scarne does it in Scarne On Cards. It's mathematically inelegant, but it enables the non-mathematical to see the truth of the probability.)
There are 52 x 51 possible two-card combinations = 2652 combinations. But this counts As Ad as different from Ad As. Therefore there are 1,326 combinations when the order does not matter.
There are six possibilities of AA. As AH, As Ad, As Ac, Ah Ad, Ah Ac, Ad Ac, when the order in which the cards appear does not matter.
There are thirteen ranks in the deck, from AA down to 22.
Therefore there are 78 (6 x 13) possible pairs as starting hands when the order does not matter.
So the chance of a pair in the hole is 78/1326. This equals 1/17.
Perhaps then they might see it.
Then again, do we want them to?
( piano arrives: Birks knackered )
