MATH Recap, and Bayes Rule in a Poker Context

Nineteen runners came out for the Labor Day edition of Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt, creating a $456 prize pool to be paid to the top three finishers in a field that included two first-time MATHers, one of whom complained about what I think was a pretty fatty turnout for a fucking holiday. Maybe it's just me. Anyways, I got no good starting cards over nearly two hours, receiving pocket Queens and pocket Tens once each, and an AQ and a bunch of JackAces but not even an AK on the night. It was pretty sick. But pretty usual for me, while also usual was me getting to watch pocket Aces and pocket Kings flipped up by my opponents again and again throughout, including a couple of times like on my one pocket Queens of the night which naturally ran into Wes's Aces. Not that I haven't sucked out on Wes and knocked him out of tournaments doing it, don't get me wrong, but when you play for two hours, get exactly one hand better than pocket Tens on the entire night, and that hand runs into pocket Aces, I think anyone has the right to act pissay. Anyways I ended up restealing with 65s in my big blind against Wes's button open-raise with my small stack after we sat with 11 players left for probably a good 30 minutes, which ran into Wes's AK and IGH in 11th place.

Another unspectacular performance for me as my good streak of the past couple of months is now officially totally gone and a thing of the past. The past few days have been among my most frustrating on full tilt for some time. The setups are downright silly, the beats are recockulous. And both plentiful. My one QQ in two hours in the big blind, against the button's AA. That is rich. In the Labor Day 100k on Monday evening, I busted in the first hand when I reraised allin on a K♠Q♠T♥ flop with my J♠5♠, giving me 8 oesd outs and 7 more flush outs for 15 outs twice and therefore making me the favorite in the hand. Still, as I am racing here I do not at all like to call allin in this spot on the first hand of a big mtt, but I love the allin raise since I get good fold equity and am the favorite if called. Unsurpisingly my opponent called with top two pair, unsurprisingly for my luck of late my favored hand failed to make one of its copious outs, and IGH very very early in that one. I ran flopped two pair into a flopflush as well in the 28k to round out what was my third or fourth consecutive super-frustrating night on full tilt. I even started thinking about putting some more money into pokerstars for a bit this weekend, taint-hound that that site is.

Btw did KOD really delete his entire blog? Is that really possible?

Anyways, back to the MATH. In the end it was first-timer Wormmsu ending the night in 3rd place for $91.20 and his first entrance onto the 2007 MATH moneyboard (if you have a blog please leave a comment, you know the drill). In second place was host of the biggest regular weekly blogger tournament out there, Mookie himself, who won $136.80. And winning the MATH this week, fresh back from Tunica for some mtt goodness there was perennial blonkament killer Surflexus.

Here are the updated 2007 MATH moneyboard standings, including the Labor Day MATH tournament this week:

1. Bayne_s $1175
2. Columbo $1168
3. Hoyazo $1162
4. VinNay $775
5. cmitch $774
6. Iggy $745
7. NewinNov $677
8. Pirate Wes $672
9. Lucko21 $665
10. Waffles $650
11. Astin $616
12. Tripjax $561
13. IslandBum1 $527
14. RaisingCayne $522
15. Julius Goat $507
16. bartonf $492
16. mtnrider81 $492
18. PokerBrian322 $490
19. Chad $485
20. scots_chris $474
21. Fuel55 $458
22. Mike_Maloney $456
23. RecessRampage $434
24. Otis $429
25. Surflexus $402
25. Miami Don $402
27. jeciimd $382
27. Jordan $382
29. Blinders $379
30. lightning36 $371
31. ChapelncHill $353
32. Zeem $330
33. OMGitsPokerFool $324
34. oossuuu754 $312
35. leftylu $295
36. Emptyman $288
36. Wigginx $288
38. ScottMc $282
39. Fishy McDonk $277
40. Irongirl $252
40. Manik79 $252
42. Wippy1313 $248
43. swimmom95 $245
44. Byron $234
45. wwonka69 $216
46. Omega_man_99 $210
47. katiemother $209
48. Pushmonkey72 $208
49. Buddydank $197
50. Gary Cox 194
51. 23Skidoo $176
52. Santa Clauss $170
53. Iakaris $162
53. Smokkee $162
55. cemfredmd $156
55. NumbBono $156
57. lester000 $147
58. LJ $146
59. Heffmike $145
60. brdweb $143
61. Mookie $137
61. DDionysus $137
63. Patchmaster $135
64. InstantTragedy $129
65. Ganton516 $114
66. Fluxer $110
67. hoops15mt $95
68. Gracie $94
68. Scurvydog $94
70. wormmsu $91
71. Shag0103 $84
72. crazdgamer $82
73. PhinCity $80
74. maf212 $78
75. Alceste $71
76. dbirider $71
77. Easycure $67
78. Rake Feeder $53

So that's 78 different bloggers and non-bloggers alike now who have cashed at least once in Mondays at the Hoy during 2007, through by my calculation approximately 32 MATH tournaments, give or take probably 1 tourney. This week Mookie and wormmsu enter the moneyboard for the first time, while Surf jumps into the top 25 with his win in addition to previous cashes this year in the Hoy. No movement in the top few spots or even in the top 25 at all this week, so that virtual tie for the top spot between myself, Bayne and Columbo will persist for at least one more week. Congratulations again to all three cashers and I look forward to another fun time next Monday in Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt.

I kinda want to get this post up for today, but I know I talked a lot about Bayes Theorem last week and a number of you have been asking about the promised discussion about how this relates to poker. I'm thinking I will write some more about this later in the week, but I will start that discussion here today with a quick example poker problem for you all to chew on. I'm going to try to give a hypothetical that applies somewhat to my own style of play to illustrate a point from The Mathematics of Poker that I've been reading for the past week or two.

So we're talking about a typical aggressive player here. What percentage of the time is such an aggressive player dealt what most of us would consider a "strong" preflop raising hand? Let's assign a 0.45% chance to being dealt each of AA, KK, QQ, JJ and TT, and 1.2% chance of being dealt AK. That totals to 3.95%, so I'm going to go ahead and use 4% just to make that calculation easier. So let's say that this aggressive player is dealt a "strong" raising hand 4% of the time in nlh, and he will put in a preflop raise 90% of the time when he does receive such a strong raising hand preflop. Now, of this aggressive player's 96% of hands that are not the strong raising hands, assume he will also raise with those hands about 20% of the time (probably somewhat typical of an aggressive preflop player).

The question is, then, if this aggressive player puts in a preflop raise, what are the chances that he actually has one of those six "strong" raising hands? I suggest that you re-read the assumptions above, and make an estimate based on the percentages you see as to what you think the correct answer is, and then read on below where I will use Bayes rule to come up with the mathematically correct answer.







OK if everyone has come up with their estimates or answers to the question, here is how to solve it by using Bayesian mathematics. The chances that a preflop raise from the aggressive player we described above actually indicates one of the six strong raising hands TT-AA and AK are:

90% x 4%
(90% x 4%) + (20% x 96%)

This equals:

.036
.228

Which equals 15.79%. So there you have it, even though an aggressive player raises 90% of the time with his strongest raising hands, those strong hands occur so infrequently that a preflop raise from such an aggressive player only generally means a 15.79% chance, or less than one-sixth of the time, that he actually has TT-AA or AK. In other words, if you understand the theory of conditional probability sufficiently, then there is a more than 5 in 6 chance that when such a player raises preflop, he still does not have a "strong" hand.

That's the lesson for today on Bayes theorem in a poker context. I plan to write more about this later in the week, but it is my contention that without a doubt most players do not appreciate the significance of Bayes' rules on conditional probability, and that most players I play with with some regularity do not properly make this calculation, even if it is only being estimated subconsciously. In other words, most people do not respond to the aggressive preflop players by treating their preflop raises as a more than 5 in 6 chance of not really being among the top hands. Most players fold far too often for that. It's just something to think about -- later in the week I will write some more about the implications of Bayes rule in this context, as well as some other areas where it can be used to make useful conclusions based on conditional probabilities in the world of poker.

Work Tilt and Blogger Luckboxery

OK so as most of you can probably tell, I really did not have time to get up Tuesday's or today's post until much later in the day than usual. Sorry about that. I hate writing a post but not being able to get it completed until most of you have left from work or whatever it is you degenerates people do during the day, but sometimes work tilt just takes over and I have no choice. Right now my already small legal department in my company is basically falling apart, with one of our two legal assistants getting ready to leave for another job, and the other two lawyers other than myself really not around or available to do any work, one of whom is also getting ready to leave for another job. My boss doesn't even know any of this stuff yet, but I do, and let's just say that the amount of work being done by those people right now is nowhere near sufficient to keep me from going absolutely apeshit at the office. It doesn't just feel like I'm doing four people's jobs right now; I am doing four people's jobs right now. It's sad when it's only the middle of the year and I already know that my company could not pay me enough at year's end to make me feel fairly compensated for the sacrifices I have made this year. Seriously. The amount of money it would take for me not to be fucking pissed off at year's end at this point is so far above and beyond what I've made in the past here, it would not be possible. This probably does not bode well for my future at this company, but que sera sera, that's not my problem.

All I know is that at the very beginning of this year (literally on the last day of last year), the ranting maniac lawyer from my group (that's actually not me, if you can believe it!) was finally fired at long last, and I was "asked" to take over his job responsibilities "temporarily" until we could find a replacement. Keep in mind here, this is not a 100-person group where I was just taking over a few deals from the guy or something. This is a 3-lawyer group, and suddenly I was asked to do 2/3 of the work in the entire group that was normally handled by three people. Not good. But, I wasn't really given a choice, and of course the implication was made to me that I would be rewarded for my loyalty come year end, so what was I gonna do? Quit on the spot? So I took this guy's work. Anyways, fast forward five fucking months later, when we finally hired someone to replace the asshole maniac guy, and I was finally allowed to transition his responsibilities back to the new lawyer. This is where the story gets really good.

Some ho in another continent in my company gets pregnant and takes maternity leave. Someone from another division of the company in the U.S. decides to move out to the other continent to take the pregnant ho's job. And before we know it, one of our three lawyers is "asked" to sit in for this chick in the other division, for three months (the entire summer). This is not me, and not the brand new lawyer we hired to replace the maniac, but our other lawyer who is currently doing the other 1/3 of the work in our group while I had been 2/3 for the past five months. He basically has no choice, and plus it was a good career opportunity for him, so he left and took the 3-month job helping out in the other U.S. division of my company. This was exactly two weeks after we hired the new lawyer, which meant that I had had two weeks of training and transitioning the new person where I technically was not doing two jobs in this entire year. Two weeks. Then my boss calls me into his office, tells me that our third lawyer is leaving for three months, and "asks" me to take on her job responsibilities for the summer. Yummy. So, for precisely two weeks through the first 9 months of the year, I will have done just my job and no one else's, and for the other 8 1/2 months, I will be working two full jobs. Not my job and a couple of things from another job. Two. Full. Jobs. Two salaries, two bonuses, two full sets of responsibilities. All being done by me, for one salary and one bonus. Good deal for my company, huh?

The kicker to all this is that, as I alluded to above, the other lawyer from my group, who is now approaching halfway into his 3-month "temporary" assignment in this other division -- just as I predicted was going to happen all along, even though everyone here said I was crazy -- has now decided to accept an offer of permanent employment by the other division, instead of coming back to us at the end of the summer. The glorious thing here is that when he doesn't come back, there is literally zero doubt who will be keeping his work on an "extended" basis, and let me just tell you, it ain't fluxer and it ain't Waffles. It's me. And given the time it has taken to find a new attorney for our group in the past, we're probably looking at 3-4 months before we have someone new after August, and that my friends means I will spend this entire year working two full jobs for one job's pay. Delicious. As I said, the amount of money these clowns would have to throw at me at year's end to make me not be really effing pissed about the sacrifices I've made this year is so far off from anything they would or could ever offer me, it cannot be good for my likelihood of staying here for the long term. Which is too bad because I had a nice thing going here for a while, but I would look at some point within the next year or so for word that I am switching jobs to somewhere else that won't shit all over me and take advantage of my talents and my willingness to chip in and "be a team player". God I hate corporate speak.

Anyways, now that I've gotten that off my chest, let me get to a few announcements that I just did not have time to mention in my abbreviated post from yesterday. First and foremost, and I know this is old news now, but our own Dr. Pauly cashed bigtime in Event #38 at the WSOP, a $1500 buyin nlh event. Out of 2778 entrants, Pauly finished in 119th place, taking down $4740 and change for his incredible effort. Is that fucking incredible or what? This brings the number of people in our blogger crew cashing in a WSOP event this year to at least three, with myself, LJ and now Pauly ringing the bell and bringing home some bacon after surviving through very tough fields. I am probably missing somebody but this is all that comes to mind right now. Add to that that we have at least Fuel55, Lucko and KOD already having won WSOP ME seats -- and KOD you had better be playing in that thing -- the chances are aplenty that there will be more cashish to come for our group. Which to me is a glorious thing to say the least. Cashing in the WSOP, who'd a thunk we could produce so much of that out of relatively few entries this year? Not me, that's for sure. Especially when I see how you blonkeys play in the blonkaments. Dam do we suck.

And speaking of blonkeys, I also did not have time to mention yesterday that fucking Chad a.k.a "KOD" (King of Donkeys) won the fucking nightly 26k guaranteed tournament on full tilt again the other day! That is I think two wins in this friggin unwinnable tournament in a month, to go along with two more final table finishes in this event, which is not only unwinnable but also unfinaltableable. I do not know the funk he does it. But Chad was cool to give us this post the other day which gives away just a few of his secrets on how to bet these large minefield mtt's. Nothing much new in there for me, but then again I am already the king of the resteal so there's not much surprising there. I basically do everything that Chad mentions in that post already, but even these days when I play the 26k I am usually lucky to make it past a couple of hours. Some shitdonk calls my allin reraise with my A9 and his AJ on a board of A92, and then turns a Jack to send me home. I get in ahead way, way too much to survive in that thing. Chad, I honestly don't know how the fuck you do that. Four final tables in a month in the biggest donkey tournament I've ever heard of. Unreal. Go read his strategy post if you haven't yet, as it is fairly rare for the KOD to give tips like this on his blog.

I also want to link to this post from Astin, where he gives an honest and humble recount of the card rack that smacked him in the face all through this week's MATH tournament. I got to hear about these hands as they were happening on the IM, but to actually see this stuff verified in screenshots it is really just sick. It was a couple of weeks ago now that I wrote about Astin's amazing card rack abilities, and the funny thing is, that commentary from me was based on my own personal experience of months and months of playing pretty regularly with him. Now, FWIW I definitely do not believe in luck over the long term, let me get that out of the way first. But I have got to say that Astin has me thinking about it. As I said, it's been months that I've been joking with him that he gets unbelievable starting cards, so this has been based on many many many tournaments where I have seen a number of his starting hands that were awesome. Well, take a look at that post I linked above, where you can see Astin's one AA, three KKs, one QQ and two AKs from this week's MATH tournament. What's that, you say? 7 premium hands isn't that much for a guy who lasted all the way to 10th place in a tournament? OK.

It turns out that was just during the first hour of the MATH. Impressed now? I guarantee you I haven't seen 7 premium starting hands in all 28 BBT tournaments I have played in this year, and this guy gets 7 premiums just in the first hour on Monday? Sheeeeeeit. And I'm not even mentioning the two flopped 3-of-a-kinds, the flopped nut straight with J8 or the turned flush that Astin also mentioned in that post, which you really should read for yourself if you want to get a good experience of what being on a rush of cards is really like. And if you really enjoy this stuff, then go check out this post by Astin about his first round of starting hands from the Riverchasers HORSE tournament this past Sunday, which included AKo, QQ, 22, AQs and 66 all during the first eight hands he saw in that tournament. That has got to be nice. And let's not forget this post from last week's Mookie tournament, where Astin details the starting cards he saw in that event as well:

"Mookie - I don't think I've ever seen cards like this. Pocket Aces 3 times, Cowboys at least 4 times, Hiltons twice, AK at least twice, and more medium pocket pairs than I can count. JJ turned into quads on the river to beat pocket Kings at one point. Hoy might be on to something. Then again, I had pocket kings totally counterfeited with quad 9's with an A kicker on the board."

Wow. That is at least 11 premium starting hands in one 3-hour tournament, plus quad Jacks and "more medium pocket pairs than I can count". Just wow is all I have to say. Obviously Astin knows how to play with these big cards, as he has been on quite a run lately in the BBT tournaments, but...I mean...damn. 11 premiums in last week's Mookie, all those good starting LHE hands in the first round of HORSE, and 7 premiums (plus at least two other pocket pairs) in just the first hour of the latest MATH? Have I said "wow" enough times yet? Wow.

Bayne is a luckbox too, by the way.

Do not forget the Mookie tonight, at 10pm ET on full tilt. Password as always is "vegas1". For once I am an early registeree for that event, and last week saw a new record of 82 entrants. Also don't forget to listen to Buddydank's live radio show during the Mookie, which I say again IMO is the coolest new thing in the poker blogiverse in a long time. The BBT is coming right down to the wire here with this week's Mookie, Riverchasers and Big Game tournaments all on the slate to finish up the 3-month poker tournament series, and with a number of players still vying for the top 50 spots on the leaderboard and/or the 20 events played threshold, participation should be up tonight in the Mookie as well, which is always fun. And lastly, don't forget tonight's 9:45pm ET token frenzy on full tilt, the $14 buyin tournament that awards $75 tokens to the top 18%+ of finishers, which you can then use to buy in to Sunday's Big Game, the BBT finale and one of my favorite blogger tournaments every month due to the higher buyin and generally higher quality of play.