How can YOU make this call?

Alex Italics · #1 10-03-2007, 04:32 AM

Can you turn down pot odds of $1,000,000 to 1? While discussing E.V. concepts with some of my poker buddies, we came up with this situation.

You are playing in a high stakes no limit cash game in a casino cardroom. An aggressive pot is contested by you and a lone opponent with lots of betting and raising both pre-flop and on the flop. On the turn, you push the remainder of your chips into the pot and your opponent calls. The pot is now exactly $999,999. As river is dealt, both you and your opponent notice that you have forgotten to bet a single, lonely $1 blue chip. Your opponent, who is first to act, bets the $1 and exposes his cards. His holding is better than yours.

The challenge is this: How can you find a way to justify making a $1 call into a $1,000,000 pot with a holding that is unequivocally worse than your opponent's holding? Try and come up with a clever (albeit fantasitc) stretch of the definition of "E.V." that allows you to make the call.

Okay, so this question may test your sense of humor a little more than your poker skills, but after discussing it with some friends with some hilarious results I thought I'd pass it on for you to ponder.

Here are some of my favorite answers so far:

IT IS THE CORRECT PLAY TO CALL BECAUSE...

...it may be discovered immediately after you call that your opponent has been cheating with the aid of the dealer and you will be awarded the pot.

...there may be an off-chance that you actually don't understand poker at all (and haven't up until now), and whatever ostensibly inferior holding you have may actually beat your opponent's hand.

...you may, in fact, be dreaming this entire event (no matter how real it may seem), and we all know that crazy and nonsensical things happen in dreams.

I'm dying to hear some creative new responses.

Yours truly,
-Alex Italics

geo8o2 · #2 10-03-2007, 05:51 AM

call if it's a bad beat jackpot hand

CrustyFace · #3 10-03-2007, 06:51 AM

There is a chance that your oppoonent has misread his hand and you do have him beat.

Andynan · #4 10-03-2007, 10:58 AM

call and announce : flush !

PantsOnFire · #5 10-03-2007, 12:07 PM

[ QUOTE ]
...it may be discovered immediately after you call that your opponent has been cheating with the aid of the dealer and you will be awarded the pot.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is -EV since you would be awarded the pot even if you didn't call. You risked that $1 for nothing. Send the author of this to the showers.

Here is my answer:

If you call, your opponent may be so impressed by the fact that you called with an inferior hand that he may split the pot with you.

Alex Italics · #6 10-03-2007, 02:57 PM

[ QUOTE ]
call and announce : flush !

[/ QUOTE ]

That's awesome. Two points.

AaronBrown · #7 10-03-2007, 08:27 PM

What! We're not playing lowball?

You definitely call. There are several circumstances in which the pot can be awarded to the losing hand, all you need is a one in a million chance. You can ask that the deck be checked, there might be 51 or 53 cards (it happens). He might kill his hand through some action. He might die (in traditional poker, dead players cannot win the pot, although casino rules allow it). You could try to unobtrusively grab two random cards from the muck (okay, you only have to succeed once in 10,000 tries; then figure there's about 1 chance in 100 those new cards will win).

Or how about this? Call, then fake a heart attack, sweeping your cards to the floor and killing your hand. On the way to the hospital, call the local news and tell them you had the winning cards in a $1 million pot, but didn't collect due to your heart attack. Sell your story for $10 grand.

Perestroika · #8 10-04-2007, 02:00 AM

Nice post. Call because I have personally witnessed dealer's making errors giving the chips to the wrong player and the cards being shuffled before anything can happen.

shark steak · #9 10-04-2007, 08:19 AM

lol...you should call because money cant buy you love.
and a doller cant buy you a prostitute.....
atleast not in most countreys.

Xanthro · #10 10-04-2007, 02:27 PM

Call, because there is a one in a million chance both the dealer and your foe will misread your hand and award you the pot.

Call for bragging rights that you were bet $1 into a ONE MILLION dollar pot. When relating the story to others you must put your pinky finger to the corner of your mouth when you say ONE MILLION Dollars.