[franknagaijr]

I read the article and it made sense at the time, and then I just revisited and crunched the numbers to come back with the judgement that it was a borderline losing gamble, but a great way to establish a table-image as a total jack-in-the-box and to put all the solid players on tilt if it worked out for him.

There were four players who really liked their cards, 20 out of the deck. Safe to assume the four aces are accounted for, possibly three deuces, and a whole bunch of baby/wheel cards. 28 black box cards.

It cost MM two big bets to see the flop, and for the sake of argument, let's assume there will be about 20 big bets in the pot apart from what MM requires to continue to the river. That's 10 to 1 odds if he scoops, 5 to 1 if he chops.

Also for the sake of argument, let's say that of the 20 cards in play, distribute as follows:
4 - Aces
8 - 2 to 5
2 - 6 to 8
2 - 9 to K

I think the ace/wheel guesses are reasonable, but we have no way of knowing how many of the 6 to K cards are accounted for.

MM's ideal flop is trips, or TJx rainbow. If all of the Ts and Js are live, he's about 13% (C1) to flop those two cards, but more likely about 9.5% to flop that desireable outcome. If all Ks, Qs and 9s are live, he's about 7% (C2)to flop trips, which is potentially enough to take the high pot. That's an optimal 20% chance of seeing a flop worth continuing on. (It drops for every 9TJQK that is not live.) Can he continue for an inside straight? Can he continue on two pair on a flush draw board? Even with so many babies accounted for, I don't think there's a mathematical justification here for these lesser draws.

Without digging deeper into post-flop probability, let's give him a 50% chance of taking the top half of the pot, and a 50% chance of no low being awarded. He needs a 5 to 1 return on the initial investment to consider getting involved, which he is almost getting preflop, and post flop, he is probably getting the odds he needs to continue on any favorable flop.

I think if we dug deeper into the flush possibilities, his straight draws drop in value, and also his flopped trips drop in value as well. By the time you plunge into the math here, he cannot have been 'correct' to cap the pot here, but he was probably not ridiculously incorrect either.

It helps that MM was playing with tight, knowledgeable players. In the average Lo8 donkament, MM would have no way of guessing how many low cards were accounted for based on the action so far. You've seen people get excited about KKT5, so don't try this at home, kids.


C1 - ((8*4*26)/(28 *27 *26)) *3 =0.0146
C2 = ((3*2*26)/(28*27*26)) * 3 *3 = 0.0714