My E-Mail

I receive a lot of e-mail, about everything under the sun connected with poker. I would like to write about three of the letters I received recently. The first one concerns a column in which I got sloppy and made a mathematical error. The worst errors you can make in print are those concerning math, because if you are wrong, it is not a matter of opinion. You are nailed.

"Sir, I respect your poker advice greatly, but think you made a small error in your recent column. You said: 'A-A: 82 percent vs. A-Q suited, 86 percent vs. A-Q offsuit,' but I find (using HoldEm Showdown version 2003 May16.0 written by Steve Brecher, dealing all possible boards to get the exact win probability for each hand specified) the following:

Expected return, percent of pot: A A – 87.460901, A Q – 12.539099

Expected return, percent of pot: A A – 92.145262 A Q – 7.854738

It appears that you ran K-Q against A-A instead of A-Q. By the way, for hold'em, it is relatively easy to get an exact result for all possible boards, so there seems to be no reason to use simulation."

- Craig

I am embarrassed to say my correspondent is absolutely correct. I accidentally used K-Q instead of A-Q in my simulation. The reader was highly observant, not only catching the error, but also figuring out how I had gotten the wrong result! Naturally, K-Q has a better chance against two aces than does any hand containing an ace, because at least it has none of its cards tied up. I apologize for the error.

Here is an interesting idea from a reader about tournament payoffs.

"Thanks to the WPT, poker is enjoying a major resurgence in interest and participation. I would like to see a flatter payout schedule for poker tournaments. A flatter payout schedule would encourage more players to play tournaments, as well as give them positive reinforcement when they can actually place in the money. I think a payout schedule that pays the top 25 percent of players would still be able give first-, second-, and third-place finishers a nice payday, plus let the other players have a realistic shot at getting into the money. Please consider this as a topic to be considered and talked about in your articles. Also, please advise me of where else I can introduce this idea and help it come to fruition."

- Martin A. Stolbun, M.D.

My first impulse when reading this e-mail was to dismiss the idea, since such a payoff would not interest me in the least – nor would it appeal to any of my friends. However, one should have an open mind. For a group of inexperienced players (not a description of my friends!), it may be exactly what they are looking for. Here is an example of what the payoff might look like. Suppose you had 100 entrants at $10 apiece, creating a $1,000 prize fund. You could have a payout schedule of: first – $200, second – $120, third – $100, fourth – $80, fifth – $70, sixth – $60, seventh – $50, eighth – $40, ninth – $30, 10th – $25, 11th through 15th – $20, 16th through 20th – $15, and 21st through 25th – $10. (As you might guess from the previous letter, if these numbers do not add up to exactly a grand, I will have a full e-mail inbox shortly after this column is published in Card Player.) The point is, we have a zillion tournaments on the Internet every week. Why not advertise a beginners tournament that pays 25 percent of the field prize money and see if the players like it? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Not everybody who plays tournament poker is aiming at a big enough score to retire on.

Here is a series of e-mail exchanges I had with an English poker player who took exception to one of my rules in my rulebook, Robert's Rules of Poker. As you will see, he has a valid point. I have edited our lengthy correspondence quite a bit to stay on message.

"Dear Bob: I have just discovered your Robert's Rules on your website. I was looking for some basis for some house rules, as we've recently started up a no-limit hold'em game here in England. There was one hold'em rule that I didn't quite understand, on which I was hoping you could elaborate. You say that if the dealer accidentally deals the flop or the river at the wrong time (before the betting on a round is over), the exposed cards are shuffled back into the stub and the relevant community cards are dealt again after the betting has been completed. This makes perfect sense to me, as I figure no player who has not yet acted will have any advantage over one who already has. Here is my question. You state that if the turn card is dealt at the wrong time, it is exposed for the rest of the round; and after the betting is complete, what would have been the river card is dealt in its place and the erroneous card is shuffled into the stub as per before, before dealing the 'new' river (after another complete betting round, of course). This seems to contradict everything I thought before about no player having an advantage, and seems to err toward the superstitious school of dealing. Why have one rule for the flop and river, and a completely different one for the turn?"

- John Rixon

I answered him as follows: The purpose of the turn rule is the card that would have come at the river comes on the turn, thus making the final board four out of five cards the same as they would have been without the dealer error, rather than three out of five.

My correspondent was not happy with my answer, replying as given next.

"My mind is still not at ease. First of all, let's play a hand with your rule. Suppose, with two players left in the hand, the flop has been dealt and player No. 1 has acted. Now, before player No. 2 has acted, the dealer accidentally reveals the turn card. Now, player No. 2 knows the exposed card isn't going to come on the turn, and can adjust accordingly. I will be the first to admit that this advantage is usually very slight. But, suppose the exposed card is shuffled back into the stub before a replacement is dealt. Now, no player has an advantage over the other – but the downside, as you pointed out, is that now only three out of the final five boardcards are what they should have been. So, with your rule, one player has a small advantage, but at least the boardcards come out the way nature intended (or as close as possible). With my rule, neither player has an advantage, and the boardcards still come out equally arbitrarily. I find it hard to accept a rule in which the importance of the cards being dealt 'in the same order they should have been' is greater than the importance of all players acting with equal information."

I replied to his second e-mail as follows: First of all, let us rename the system in my rules for the discussion between us, because it is not "my rule," but established poker practice. My personal thoughts are that since the card does not have the same effect when it comes at the river as it does when it comes on the turn, there has been a disruption anyway. I am not one of those people who sees big value in trying to get the cards as close as possible to the "original setting." If there is anything lost whatsoever by trying to replicate the "original," I would prefer to use totally random selection. In short, I agree with you! There are a few places where I do not agree with "established poker law." Yet, in order to ensure acceptability of my rules, my freedom to say exactly what I would like to do is restricted. (The most noticeable example of this is the stupid rule that on a redeal, the dealer does not burn a card before dealing.) Regarding the rule you give, please realize that the superstitious people who play poker have a bigger voice than the rest of us.

A hand illustrating my correspondent's point would be one in which a player hits a gutshot straight-flush draw on the turn, then finds out someone has not yet acted, and there must be a redeal of the turn card. Adding insult to injury, he is told the magic card for him will for certain not be coming on the redeal; it will be kept out of the deck. How would he react if he has not yet called the bet? Do you think he would be able to keep a poker face?

As you can see, if we could start poker rules from scratch, I believe it would be a better procedure to follow my reader's suggestion and put the prematurely dealt card back into the deck immediately than to follow the established procedure of keeping it out of the deck and dealing the card that would have come at the river. But, I cannot put my opinion into my own rulebook!