[Buzz]

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in the movie What About Bob: Baby Steps towards understanding Buzzian analysis.

[/ QUOTE ]Mack – That’s one of my all time favorite movies.
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I was interested more in the worst combos than in the best,

[/ QUOTE ]I was almost as interested in the worst as the best. I think you want to make certain you’re only coincidentally playing the worst combos.
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Now, I'm going to fire up my sim, Poker Calculator, and run a hand containing A2s against eight opponents playing random hands......and we see that As2sxx has a win% of 21.26, where, for a random hand in nine-way action, we would expect a random hand to achieve 11.11%. A2s is good to have. But we knew that.

[/ QUOTE ]But it’s good to have your back-up data anyway. Thanks for the sim.
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If good 2-card combos make win% go up, shouldn't bad 2-card combos should make win% go down? To test this hypothesis (with the role of Beaker being played by PokerCalculator), I'll add 77, the worst 2-card combo, to the A2s and see if the win% goes down......and lo and behold, the win% goes down from 21.26 to 16.54!

[/ QUOTE ]Good back-up data. Thanks.

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Now we have to step forward to the December issue. But before we do, I have another aside: assuming that we play O8 not to win pots, but to win money, is it possible that while the addition of 77 to A2s lessens its win%, it adds to its money-winning potential?

[/ QUOTE ]Good question. I don’t think it does, because there are better two-card additions to the A-2 combo. (I think there may be worse two-card additions but I think there are more two-card additions that are better than 77 than additions that are worse).

I’ll run a sim using Mz. Marple (the Wilson advisor for loose games) as Hero playing against a typical mixture of mostly too-loose opponents. Then I’ll run another sim using all C. Chans (the Wilson advisor for tight games).

As simulated with Mz. Marple against eight mostly loose opponents with random hands,
________no call___high___low___scoop___net dollars
Ah2hXY___416___478.50___1040.25___1386___$198,523
Ah2h7s7d__297___399.25___764.00___1074___$111,603

As simulated for C. Chan against eight Chan opponents with random hands,
________no call___high___low___scoop___net dollars
Ah2hXY___2473___558.67___853.08___1355___$94,444
Ah2h7s7d_2187___489.63___717.46___1126___$54,249

We could run some other mixes of opponents, but these are, I think, close enough to the two extremes.

Conclusion: The pair of sevens detracts from the earning potential of an average ace-deuce-X-Y hand – and probably in most any field.

I ran the sims for a suited ace-deuce, but I think the values would just be lower for a hand with an off-suit ace-deuce. The pair of sevens would still detract from the average hand value.

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Q1: If we are adding points for good 2-card combos, why aren't we subtracting points for bad 2-card combos?

[/ QUOTE ]Excellent question. I did that originally, but decided to not involve any subtractions in the interests of simplicity.

But the last time I played (yesterday), I did subtract a point for a middle card and I think that’s better if you can easily handle it.

Buzz