Epistemology and the subjective nature of probability

[peterbirks]

"In The Beginning, Everything Was Even Money".

So begins the hypothetical "Gamblers' Bible". However, as with many bon mots it hides a greater truth. Because, of course, in the beginning, everything was even money. Either something was, or it was not. Since there was no "law of probability" or, indeed, law of anything, the chance of something happening or not happening was, as far as any observer could know (although, of course, the existence of the observer would change the situation, a la Schroedinger's Cat) 50%.

I mention this because many unsophisticated poker players have a kind of problem with this when it comes to cards. You see, cards are not like dice. The state of affairs (the order of the deck) is decided before the hand begins. This isn't the case with craps, where the state of affairs is decided by a future event.

Most poker players, even the dumbest ones, have no difficulty with coping with the idea that the "chance" that, say, the club that they want will come on the river is still about 18%, even though the order of the deck has been determined. After all, no-one knows what that card is, so it makes no difference, does it?

But here's where Schroedinger's Cat comes into play. Suppose the dealer peeks at the card. Suppose he knows what it is?

Our dumb player can probably just about carry on here, but already his head is going into a spin. How can something be an 18% chance when the dealer knows whether it is a club or it isn't? Surely the chance is now 100% or 0%?

And what if another player gets to look at the card. Indeed, what if everyone in the hand knows what the river card is, apart from the poor guy who has to decide whether or not to call?

At this point, many a poker player goes into some kind of existential cataclysm. As far as he is concerned, he should call on the basis of pot odds. But, for God's sake, everyone else knows. Either it is a club, or it isn't a club. 100% or 0%. Hell, let's split the difference. It's 50:50. Let's call.

OK, I have taken a hypothetical case, but you'd be surprised how many intelligent people take this kind of approach to important decisions in life. If something has already happened, but we don't know what the result was, many people take the "it either is, or it isn't" line, rather than taking the correct line that, it doesn't matter whether something has happened already or not. All that matters, if we do not know the result, is the probability .

++++

I have to post this. The Stars 10 billionth hand took place last night. All participants in the hand were guaranteed $10,000, while the winner of the hand got $100,000. The hand occurred at a 1c-2c table.

Here's what ensued. I pass no comment, but I do highlight the parts which are rather interesting.

PokerStars Game #10000000000: Hold'em No Limit ($0.01/$0.02) - 2007/05/19 - 16:51:40 (ET)
Table 'Venusia' 6-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: Rechargeable ($4.83 in chips)
Seat 2: inwooke ($1.73 in chips)
Seat 3: The_Moog ($6.43 in chips)
Seat 4: XTedForrestX ($2.95 in chips)
Seat 5: Ferius ($3.10 in chips)
Seat 6: justine0003 ($0.82 in chips)
Ferius: posts small blind $0.01
justine0003: posts big blind $0.02
*** HOLE CARDS ***
HostJeff [observer] said, "Guess what?"
justine0003 said, "?"
The_Moog said, "wowowow"
HostJeff [observer] said, "Don't leave your seat -- you're all winners."
The_Moog said, "YES"
MktgScottY [observer] said, "Let the best hand win"
The_Moog said, "gl table"
MktgScottY [observer] said, "Here we go"
Rechargeable: raises $4.81 to $4.83 and is all-in
inwooke: folds
The_Moog: raises $1.60 to $6.43 and is all-in
XTedForrestX: folds
Ferius: calls $3.09 and is all-in
justine0003: calls $0.80 and is all-in.


Marvellous.

PJ

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

bots. obviously

Aksu

Donktastic

[(Anonymous)]

Second folder was a decent player multitabling microlimits to hit the bonus hand. His plan worked perfectly right up to the point where he forgot to turn off the autofold.

Turing late to the party, again

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

I do agree that this is marvellous. It would have been even more marvellous if everybody had folded. Suddenly, an attempt to gain PR points ("only another ten billion hands to go, and you could share in, er, well...) becomes an embarrassing revelation of the number of 'bots out there. ("They're not all bots. Some of them are just total morons, waiting for you to rip them off." Yeah, right.)

(Well, obviously, everybot bar the last bot, which would only fold because of a software glitch. Which would be even funnier.)

That would have been difficult to explain away.

What is quite interesting, to an idiot like me, is how all the "real" players (which I'm afraid brings to mind episode 2 of series 2 of HHGttG) reacted to HostJeff's news. Obviously, it's now a meta-game (if you could describe it as a game at all). Obviously, no matter where you start from, every sane individual is going to go all-in. (I suppose you could start by checking, or raising the minimum, on the grounds that your stack is almost certainly irrelevant, but somebody is going to go all-in at some stage, at which point the prisoner's dilemma aspect of it becomes irrelevant.) And, of course, because it's a meta-game, the fact that the "winner" gets ten times the amount that rewards everyone else in the pot is completely irrelevant.

Rather badly thought-out, I feel.

Of course, context is all. The only information you present is that the table is told "you're all winners!" Yes indeed. If I'd got a lock on the "real" pot, and the actual "win" was $5, I might be a tad miffed. I therefore assume that these guys had some clue what "you're all winners!" meant. Equally, it might not refer to money. What if everybody who stays at the table gets a free tee-shirt? Or maybe HostJeff is a born again Muslim fanatic, and everybody who stays at the table gets a couple of virgins and seventy shop-soiled demonstration models? ("I'm sorry, sir, demand is heavy and there's a bit of a shortage at the moment. I could recommend a couple of pubs near Victoria where the trade-in value is pretty good, though.")

I think I'm more perplexed now than when I first read this. No surprise there, really.

[countingmyouts.livejournal.com]

I'll pass a comment. The two folders are morons. There are absolutely no excuses for folding here. If the one player actually did have auto fold on, that is even worse. Spend hours 12 tabling for the one chance, get it, then completely blow it. As you say, marvellous.

If you get a chance and have not done so, read the entire chat transcript of that hand. One of the folders spent his time trying to lobby Stars for a 6-way chop on the $100,000. I guess folding was his solution once it was denied. Humorous.

Michael

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I read the chat transcript Michael, but I just posted the most interesting bit here. Yes, I saw the lobbying:

"Can we chop?"

"No."

Excellent.

I thought it was intersting how the 2+2 crew said nothing about blatant collusion attempts, setting up six players to autofold (thus defrauding the honest "ordinary" players at other tables), and yet these self-same cheats are up in arms about bots. 2+2ers perpetually weaken their own case by seeing anything as okay if it benefits them, but wanting to ban it if it doesn't.

PJ

[countingmyouts.livejournal.com]

At the risk of pissing off some of your readers, that is exactly part and parcel behavior with the 2+2 crowd. Frankly it is a generational thing, in my opinion.

Here's is what XTedForrestX had to say about all of this on another message board (posted to my blog by a reader). Enjoy:

“might at as well explain what happend here about that 10billionth hand before I get swamped with questions about it, really annoying by the way. I was on 50 tables, with 5 different cpus, and 5 different star names, the only way i could manage them all was by using a bob and weave strategy of automatically clicking the gold ‘fold to any bet’ option, when I had realized one of my tables was the winner i quickly noticed i had 24o, and thought it would be a wise idea to lobby for a chop, i was confused at first because the guy in charge was not in red, also i was overwhelmed knowing i was going to receive a quick 13k and a wcoop ticket regardless of the outcome, the guy told us there would be a 10 minute waiting period, it was more like 4 or 5, i was still asking questions about the chop, when he suddenly goes here we go, I said “I have Aks, but don’t think it’s worth to risk it”, meaning I don’t think it’s worth to have the fate of 100,000 by dumb luck, and said i had aks to fear the other players into thinking a chop would be a good way to go considering the strenth of my hand, and i though if i said i had aa, kk, etc, they might not believe me, when the hand was dealt I assure you I was more than distraught to see my cards go into the muck, you see I, and 7 other people watching my computer at that moment, had failed to notice, that this table had already had the gold ‘fold to any bet’ option checked. It was checked already of course, because I had already clicked it when i was trying to fold all the tables as fast as possible. Dumb mistake, I know, but not like the action actually came to me and i pressed fold. I did not protest, because my hand was 24o with a finishing hand of 4 high. I couldn’t imagine how I would feel if I had the winner, but am still 3 dollars richer.
XTedForrestX is online now Report Post Reply With Quote”

http://forum.neverbeg.com/showthread.php?t=102375