SPG said this post was probably a waist of time for everyone except him. Definitely not a waist of time for me. I’m fairly new to poker and love trying to grapple with the stats. Thanks to all the insights.
This is a great thread, and not at all a waste of any contributor’s time. Thank you all.
I have been bothered by the same question and have been looking for some help in wrapping my mind around the math. I would like to be able to conclude that the standard calculations are the best we can do statistically, but like Sun Power Guru, I’m bothered by knowing a priori that a number of cards are not available. If it’s true, as some have suggested, that this (statistical) knowledge evens out in the wash, that’s fine. Or if the practical odds don’t change much, that’s fine also. How can I hope to make a decision at the table on the basis of a 2% difference in probability?
But before I start trying to memorize (or intuit) lots of statistical tables, I want to have some confidence that they are a good general guide.
Thanks to all of you.
The simplicity or complexity with which one approaches poker math in the heat of the game has little to do with weather you will be a winning player or not.
Having said that, the players able to understand the complexities are more likely to win because he/she is probably a little smarter in general.
The math has been done for us a thousand times. Just find a simple single page list of probalities and memorize it.
Go to my profile and watch video I made. Attention part about math.
This is the link ZEN 3 - YouTube
It sounds like people want a game where bets are respected but it’s hard to get that with free chips, even at the higher levels.
If it can be done technically, there is a way to give the chips value so it hurts to lose them
Create gold felt tables where you can only play if you have gold chips
give these chips value by making them hard to get. Everyone starts with 1000 but once you lose them, that’s it, No more free gold chips - ever.
Players can buy them at any time for 10 cents a chip. $100 per thousand .
or once a month, they can buy 100 gold chips for 1 million regular chips to a max of 1000 gold chips in one month…
start with .5 /1 dollar tables, 1 / 2 dollar and 5/10 dollar tables.
There will be an EARNED gold chip ranking.,
total chip, - bought chips (either with cash or regular chips) = EARNED GOLD CHIPS.
Eg:
after 6 months say a player has:
1500 GOLD chips (total bankroll) minus – 2000 chips bought with cash, minus - 3000 chips bought with regular chips = -3500 that right MINUS 3500, we can have a negative earned gold chip account and it will be reflected in our ranking.
Not as Kum bi ya as the free chip play, but does it have to be. It is a choice, no one has to do it.
I support this idea and only add that it would have to be implemented seamlessly and without the usual fanfare. It should be something discovered and not hyped so that it can emerge and become. If there was a staff/player committee to openly discuss this I believe this could also work. I would not want to see this rolled out next week or next month. Great idea Hugo.
Scratch
Very, very interesting idea HugoX.
I like it allot.
I might ration out the 1,000 gold chips to new members. Maybe 200 per month so they don’t blow them all before they understand the system.
Also might have to address existing members opening new accounts just to get 1,000 gold chips.
These chips would be super valuable. I could see someone opening a second account on another laptop and play on both, trying to “lose” the new gold chips to the original account.
Scratch, just think of all those ppl that will complain that everyone was not told @ the same time and now some ppl already have stacks of these chips, creating another imbalance…
Hugo, part of the problem is that a person with 4 million can enter something with a 1k buy-in. This can be “ruled out” to prevent this, but the flip side is worse than what it hopes to fix. Another problem is also that if you look at all the MTTs in 1 day… this a ballpark guess, but its about 70% low stakes, 22% medium stakes, and 8% high stakes… and the frequency of anything over 100k is rediculious to someone who wants to play alot but risk more of thier bankroll as they move up the ladder of BankrollStacks.
The closest MTTs to what you are looking for Hugo… are the Red (League) MTTs ( 6 per/day ). It is mainly due to the fact most of the players are playing for a bigger goal, therefore they play closer to what ppl might expect from a live game… its between a Bar game, and a Home cash game… thats how they seem to play in my book.
Once you implement a system for basically “pay only chips” its like a cash site but ya can’t ever get your money out… Plus any system like this would have to include “gold chip freerols” thus making it even more like a pay site. In the end after prolly less than 1 year, you will have the same imbalance in “gold chips out there” as you do now with fake chips…This will force Replay to make new rules thus piss’n off alot of ppl that paid for those gold chips or earned them thru blood/sweat/tears playing…
Yes there are ways to create a atmosphere of reality Hugo, but it will take an open mind from the staff to listen to such ways, and understand the overall brilliance ( bigger bigger picture ) of such changes… In the end it will still be a free poker site, thus you can’t eliminate 100% of this “alleged” problem.
You are absolutely correct; the fact is it is creating an exclusivity that I am not found of. But Hugo and I have a history with a similar idea and while I support Hugo here I was opposed in the other site. The idea was implemented and it soon failed or more correctly became a bitcoin site under a different name. The free poker site was closed. My point is and the reason for a seamless slow growth is to avoid the rant and rancor.
Hugo also experienced another way of giving value to chips in Poker Academy’s Pax system, which I have written about a number of times here. We both come from a system that truly understood adding value to free chips and Hugo’s variation is a very good start to the dialogue.
Good observation Sassy.
Scratch
Sassy I was thinking more ring games not MTTs
In MTTs especially larger buy-ins the chips have built in value, NO RELOAD, once out you are out. So play loosy goosy at ones own peril.
Not sure moving MTTs to Gold felt level would make much of a difference, But I’m sure some players would like to see if it does or not.
It is the constant flow of free chips into the system that makes them have no value, you can never go broke. Thus no risk. which is good for Play and Fun and the unskilled. But it does not sell chips, Why bother when you get so many for free.
in the Gold felt ring games they will be no FREE chips(except the first 1000) and NO tournaments for winning free chips.
It’s just an area for serious players to play and learn.
It is not exclusive, anyone can play there but the only free chips are 1000, then they need to win with them or they can buy them with regular chips at 100 GOLD chips per million regular chips or pay cash, but only buy 1000 per month, this gives them more value.
The chips must be in short supply and hard to get. but possible to get by anyone, new players can currently buy millions of chips if they want too, or they can earn them.
The only thing even a little exclusive is if you lose all your chips you have to wait 30 days to buy more, again this gives them value. Even without the cash chips, which I doubt anyone will buy except the ones doing it now. Knowing that if you bust out you have to wait 30 days to play at the GOLD tables will make people think twice, but even then a donk will be a donk, They are even with real money.
I’m not saying this will stop LOOOOOOSE play, I just want to see good players show a little respect for a bet. I never expect bad players to do anything but call. see my Hugoism, You can’t push a donk off quads,( or an inside straight draw or a pair of aces and deuce kicker.) Unfortunately you can’t push otherwise good players off these either when they have billions of FREE chips.
I can win free chips, it’s just a different game, Just forget about preflop betting and play a post flop game only, unless you have a few serious players at the table, (not the same as having a billion chips)
I see a good player coming to RP and using his 1000 GOLD chips to move to the top of the leader board in a short time and being able to play some relatively serous poker, instead of having to grind though months of loose play before he can finally win enough to play with the big boys who have been here for years. The play is only slightly better at the elite tables but I don’t have a large enough bankroll to play there. If you have to put more than 10% of your bankroll on the table, variance will do you in, no matter how good you are or think you are.
In a good game, you should never have more that 3 or 4 players seeing a flop, with free chips even at the highest stakes tables it’s almost always 6 or more.
With this many calling and chasing you will see some very bad beats. and very often. Which is what causes mathematically challenged players to call the game rigged. or to think the deal is not random or both.
But I’m not sure anything admin can do will cure paranoia or deliver statistical acumen to the masses.
Just a suggestion, I will play regardless., it’s still fun and passes time.
But I would like to play a more realist game.
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Just thought of another option to add value.
use the bitcoin strategy, limit the total number of GOLD chips to X dollars and only let it grow by the number of new players that joint the site… 1000 per new player, have them read and agree to terms of GOLD Felt play before they get the 1000 gold chips.
so if one goes bust they may not even be able to buy GOLD coins for 1 million or even 10 million regular chips but only with cash, Then they will have value, (not monetary value but real chip value)
have occasional WSOP style tournaments and award virtual gold bracelets. keep them rare and hard to win.
do this and your numbers and revenue may grow.
Hugo, why not switch to SnG/MTTs ( cause they are the same thing really )??? Ring Games are way too easy… problem solved… your chips have value again… 
As often happens, I don’t really understand why any of this is necessary. If players on replay don’t play realistically, it means that they don’t play optimally (they play badly), and that they can be easily exploited (beaten). Strategies like buying chips, bingo, chasing draws, registering late, and going away to avoid getting knocked out, are all really bad strategies!
I don’t expect professional players on replay just like I don’t expect them at $1/2 at the casino. It’s helpful to practice beating players who don’t play well. I don’t see a need to prevent ineffective strategies or to differentiate bought chips from won. I haven’t bought any chips, but I obviously built my bankroll from the 2500 I was given, so in that sense I didn’t win any either. The best way to distinguish the chips you won from those others buy is to win so many that nobody would ever pay to buy that many.
If the pack is randomly arranged (randomly shuffled) I think I can draw the cards from anywhere in the deck, and it should make no difference to the odds.
So deal my hole cards as the first two cards off the top of the deck. The other hole cards come from the bottom of the deck. The flop comes off the top of the deck, cards 3,4, and 5 in the original deck.
Now I have 2 spades, and the flop has 2 spades, and the conventional argument says the next card from the deck (card 6 in the original deck) is a spade 9/47 = 19% of the time.
And this argument seems to apply regardless of whether we actually deal the 16 hole cards from the bottom of the deck or not. The actual deal, with cards taken from different positions in the shuffled deck, can’t be any different, can it? Both dealing methods are random.
I suppose that doesn’t explain why the “new argument” is wrong …
There is another way to make the game more challenging.
there use to a an AI program called Poker Academy Pro 2.5
with it you could practice against bots , you could stake the deck for or against any play,
( see link near bottom Poker Academy Pro - Discover the Features _}
If RP had this feature and someone complained about the crazy play we see with free money at a free money site, Then they could turn their luck meter down to 75% or even 50% to assure they had a challenge.
Of course that would not stop the crazy play, you will see that anywhere, even in live games with real money and even at higher stakes and there you will be happy with it, you want to take their crazy money, you’re not trying to improve your game, just win.
I have found a sight where the games are very very challenging, against some very good bots. Can beat all but the best ones and can win some there but mostly lose, they are very good bots. They even bluff believe it for not.
the gold felt tables would change this site too much. It is a social site not a training site. So to complain about crazy play at a social site is well crazy. My apologies.
I am also playing live tournaments now, played one Saturday, 100 buy in, 61 entry, won it, paid $1800. not bad for 8 hours work… Will use that to play more, but will still play here If I can rebuild my BR, got bored played loosy goosy and dropped 70 million in two weeks,
See you at the tables and don’t worry about the crazy play, just don’t get crazy yourself, It is possible to lose, but thanks to 2500 you get for logging in every day without ever having to win a single hand, you will never go broke and stay broke. Play for the fun and the folks. That is what this site is about. Once you get to the 100 mill level, the play is sa little better, still not the same as cash games but they do play better at that level, (most do anyway), make it worth while. and better than bots, at least they chat.
if you look at the link above click the line that says STACK THE DECK.
I used to set my luck meter at the bottom 25% and play and still win against the average bots, and duck the better ones.
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Can someone tell me how can I find out the probability and payout of hand, and than how to calculate the expected return of each hand?
Let’s say I’ve got the pair of Aces. There are 16215 possible combinations. Is it possible to count it somehow without using any computer or software? My source is this article, so Im not saying these numbers are correct: poker strategy
I’ve tried to play only poker on Facebook and only a few games with mates.
In case of royal flush, there are only 47 possible outcomes. 27 times we won’t hit anything. 8 times we will hit Jacks or Better, 3 times a straight, 8 times a flush and one time a Royal flush. I get it till here… How do I get that ,expected value of the hand?” If I don’t know if someone will raise the bets or not…