Statistical (ahem) question

growler

i am amazed by the nefarious ways my brain works sometimes...but

You may have seen the Bad Beat Jackpot thats running on party poker , basically if you lose a hand while having 8888 or better then you win 50% of the jackpot , currently a not insubstantial $193,000, to qualify for it you have to be playing in at least a $2/$4 game of Hold 'Em. So with blinds at 1 and $2 , I was wondering how many hands you would have to play if there were 10 players , none of whom were raising ( due to a coincidental desire not to for some reason) but played only hands that might result in a decent hand , before you should hit such a hand.

Anecdotally I've seen enough 4 of a kind or straight flushes in the couse of playing both online and off to guess it may not be too extravagant, more importantly in the case of these hypotethical players , would the cost statiscally justify such a thing.

Btw, I enjoy reading ye're poker adventures , when I get out of London one of these days I'm looking forward to a few games in the Fitz and down in Cork.
Cheers,
Dave

TwoShedsJackson

Get Dev in here to tell us the chances of quad 8s being beaten by higher quads or a straight flush, STAT!! It has to be miniscule.

cormie

If you get 10 people you know to play at the same table, everyone see's every flop and check it all down, all your losing between you is the rake. Could be worth it, then just redistribute whatever amount of money back to the players at the end.

Hyzepher

Well considering that it hasn't been won with millions of hands being played on many tables, I would imagine it woun take several years to hit it on a single table

Hyzepher

growler

it's been won many times already, they just up the ante i.e next time it'll be quad 9's etc. Think it started with a house of A's and 5's or something.

Also, if all 10 players were to see every hand in full , that may make a *significant* difference to the potential for quads to happen.

cormie

eactly, if all 10 players were in the pot there wud be a poker within an hour I'd say, wether it will be beaten is another thing. But if every player is in the pot and they check the turn and river every hand, rake wont be too much and they have a pretty nice chance of getting a big wad of cash between them! The rake will then be divided between 10 players so it won't hit them too hard.

DeVore

The problem is that the hands would be doubling each other up so each hand adds less and less to the probabilities. Each hand would have to have a possibility of reaching 8888 and then being beaten so the odds are considerably worse then just hitting the quad 8's. In omaha that might be more reasonable but the odds are so astronomical that its hardly worth calculating. I'll have a think about it in the morning but its pretty much an exercise in stats rather then any viable plan, imho.

DeV.