Date: 06/21/1999
From: Jim Geary
Newsgroups: rec.gambling.poker
Subject: Re: 80-160 Bellagio Tale
Original post from tk: As misfortune would have it, I accidentally ended up in Vegas in June. Since I haven't been in any casino built after (and including) Stratosphere, I figured I'd make the rounds and pick up a matchbook or two from the newer places. Naturally I made a point of playing poker at Bellagio. I signed up for the 80-160 Omaha/8, but by the time I got my seat, most of the fish were gone, and the one that was still there picked up a round after I sat down. As soon as that fish left, a well-known poker authority to whom I will refer as "David S" starts racking up his chips. A few hands later, "David S" is under the gun, and is practically cradling his chips, so ready he is to flee. He looks impatiently at his hand, pauses, then calls. I put him on what else but A2xx, probably with a suited ace. There's one late position caller, I call in the small blind with A963, all hearts. Big blind checks. Flop is Th 5c 4h. A pretty good flop for my hand, were it not for my belief that A2 was out there. I check, BB checks, DS bets, a call, I call, BB folds. Turn is 2s. I assume that DS is not going to push his A2, so I go ahead and bet. DS raises. Late position folds, I make it three. DS makes it four. I make it five. DS's demeanor goes from confident to crestfallen. He picks up his hand and starts shaking his head, muttering something about "It's just unbelievable his hand could be that good." Then he calls. River is the magic 7h, I bet out. DS says something like, "If that were the seven of diamonds, -I'd- be getting three quarters of the pot." He calls. (He has A368, dunno about suits) I thought that comment was a bit out of character...I mean, sometimes good players play the "if only" game, but not when the "if only" hypothetical consists of three outs. So, as the chips are being stacked and divided, one of the players next to DS makes, surely for the last time, the mistake of misinterpreting DS's disjointed complaining noises as bad beat moans and says, "Well, David, his hand -was- better than yours" and DS throws a minor exasperated hissy fit, saying, "Yes, I know -that-, it's just incredibly unlikely that it would be!" Perhaps I'll write a column for Card Player titled, "How to adjust probabilities when your opponent is someone who never loses at Omaha" or "The 5th Raise and other clues that your chances of having the best hand have gone from 'Incredibly Likely' to 'Slim at Best.'" Or maybe someone will beat me to it. On 21 Jun 1999, Topset wrote: > >"If that were the seven of diamonds, -I'd- be > >getting three quarters of the pot." He calls. (He has A368, dunno > >about suits) > > Didn't DS get three quarters anyway. Nut low and nut high (eight high > straight) or am I missing something here.? No, the flush made it. Still, I don't think he's very far off in his comments. He had nut-nut with draw to other nuts. Just his opponent had better nut-nut draw. His hand was probably worth the 4th bet, tho there may be something to be said about, (deep breath) "Given the reraise, my 4-betting exposes me to a 5-bet when I might be getting freerolled. This must be weighed using Bayes' Theorem against his having exactly that hand given the distribution of hands he could have to 3-bet it." I think opp would 3-bet with nut-nut and no redraws, or maybe nut low with the flush draw, so the times he goes to 4 he's probably a favorite in 2/3 scenarios, tho it might be argued that the times he is getting freerolled for the heart he's a worse dog than the times he's freerolling for just a 7, so the benchmark for reraising must be moved from the 2/3 magic line for the reraise. One slight downtick is that there was a 75% chance DS had no hearts in his hand and thus might want to be a little extra scared of that draw. Like DS said, it was pretty darn unlikely that that exact hand was what he was up against given the domain of possible hands. I think his comment was accurate, and without any other context wouldn't be considered moaning. JG
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