[Buzz]

Mac - Ouch! That's just painful. These guys are both playing hands that are questionable as starters, especially with this much pre-flop action.

But the main problem is your hand goes straight to Hell on the river.

From your perspective, after the turn 10 cards are perfect, 28 cards are fine, and only 6 are horrid. And then the river is one of the worst cards. Ugh. Painful!

If you think about it, when you have, say, eight opponents, they hold a total of 32 cards.
If you have no aces yourself,
C(44,32) is the number of ways none of them will have an ace. 21.09*10^9
4*C(44,31) is the number of ways one of them will have an ace. 207.66*10^9
6*C(44,30) is the number of ways they will have two aces. 689.73*10^9
4*C(44,29) is the number of ways they will have three aces. 919.65*10^9
C(44,28) is the number of ways they will have four aces. 416.71*10^9.

The total is 2254.84*10^9.

So most usually (71.3%), when you have no aces, your opponents will hold either two or three aces among themselves.

And those holding the aces may raise or not. If one of them raises, it usually means he is somebody with an ace or two. But maybe not.

Then on the very next deal, another opponent dealt a hand identical to the hand of the raiser on the previous deal might not raise with it. It just depends on the person who was dealt the hand with the ace or aces (or whatever).

Some of us will sometimes raise with a given hand and sometimes won't raise with the same hand.

As you know well, poker is a game of deception. People raise with all kinds of crap just to be deceptive.

I like your own reason for raising before the flop best. ("Because it's fun.")

Hope my numbers are correct this time, but never a guarantee. At least you know I'll always post a correction if I catch a mistake.

Regards,

Buzz