Question from Poker, Gaming, and Life

gmcarroll33 · #1 07-11-2007, 05:07 PM

On page 123 dealing with possible hand combinations and all David presents the following question for us to figure out on our own. Help me out and tell me if I did the problem correctly.

You are dealt QQ. Flop comes Q-J-10 leading you to believe your opponent has either a big pair, jacks or better, an AK type hand, or AQ suited. What is the chance I flopped the best hand.

With a Jack on board there are only 3 combinations of JJ in his hand he can have. There are still 16 AK combinations. 6 AA combinations, 6 KK combinations, and only 1 AQ suited combination left. So that totals 31 total combinations he could have.

So of the 31 combinations he could have I can beat 16 of them. All except AK, making me a 16/15 favorite, or 4/3 favorite. Is this correct? If not explanation on where I went wrong is appreciated.

Basically is this a coin flip situation. I came up with 31 divided by 15 equals about 48% so it's almost a coin flip.

gmcarroll33 · #2 07-11-2007, 05:24 PM

Sorry everybody I turned the page over and saw that David answered the question for us and I was right except I discounted an combination some how making 32 combos, with 16 I beat and 16 that beat me. So it was 50/50.

Help me out with something else if you can. Say I have KK and the flop comes Q-7-10. If I bet and get raised are the odds that my opponent could have AQ 12/16 or 75%. The odds that he has Q-10 9/16 or 56%. The odds that he has a set 3/6 or 50%. Let me know if I'm getting this stuff right.

Also could anybody please explain how I use these percentages that he has a certain hand to my favor? I'm not the greatest at math but I can see that if my opponent has AQ I'm a big favorite to win this hand because I can see that I'm ahead of an AQ, but when it becomes possible he has a set or Q-10 and the odds of it are 56 and 50% I get confused as to what this actually means. Partly because my head is spinning right now about all the math I've been going over and over since reading this chapter. If it's 56% likely that he has Q-10 what does this do to my strategy and all, I mean how do I use this information?

drzen · #3 07-12-2007, 12:26 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry everybody I turned the page over and saw that David answered the question for us and I was right except I discounted an combination some how making 32 combos, with 16 I beat and 16 that beat me. So it was 50/50.

Help me out with something else if you can. Say I have KK and the flop comes Q-7-10. If I bet and get raised are the odds that my opponent could have AQ 12/16 or 75%.

[/ QUOTE ]

Where are you getting that from?

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The odds that he has Q-10 9/16 or 56%.

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Erm, no. Obviously not. He can't be 75% to have AQ and 56% to have QT, because he can only be 100% across all his possible hands!

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The odds that he has a set 3/6 or 50%. Let me know if I'm getting this stuff right.

[/ QUOTE ]

Intriguingly, you're getting it completely wrong but it doesn't seem possible to work out how!

It's all player dependent. If my opponent is Mr Lagtard, the chances he has KQ are greater than if he is Mr Nutpeddlar.

[ QUOTE ]
Also could anybody please explain how I use these percentages that he has a certain hand to my favor?

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You bet preflop. He calls.

You think to yourself, this guy is pretty loose. He could have [a fairly wide range of cards]. Or he's tight, so you think, for the amount you bet, he probably has [a narrower range of particular types of cards].

Say he's fairly tight. The flop comes. You bet, he raises. You think he will raise with TPTK but nothing less, and would not raise a draw, so you narrow the range to maybe AQ/QQ/TT/77. If he would raise with a draw, you need a wider range: he's too tight to have called you with KJ preflop, but 98s might be possible. You can probably discount AA if you feel that he would definitely reraise that pre.

You can then figure out how likely he is to have each type of hand by combinatorics. He can have AQ 12 ways (four aces by three queens), and each set three ways (combinations of the remaining three queens -- say the Qd flopped, then he could have QcQh, QcQs, QhQs). So it's 12/9 that he has AQ.

You use this figure to guide your decisions. Any bets offering you more than 12 to 9 are good for you. Any that don't aren't.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not the greatest at math but I can see that if my opponent has AQ I'm a big favorite to win this hand because I can see that I'm ahead of an AQ, but when it becomes possible he has a set or Q-10 and the odds of it are 56 and 50% I get confused as to what this actually means. Partly because my head is spinning right now about all the math I've been going over and over since reading this chapter. If it's 56% likely that he has Q-10 what does this do to my strategy and all, I mean how do I use this information?

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Dude, you shouldn't put too much stock in Sklansky's hilarious percentages. To know that it was 56% likely that someone had QT, you'd have to know their range precisely, you'd have to know what they will and won't raise with exactly, and you'd have to know precisely how often they would bluff you. If you can figure out all that precisely, you are going to make a HUGE amount of money from poker.

qpw · #4 07-12-2007, 04:04 AM

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Dude, you shouldn't put too much stock in Sklansky's hilarious percentages. To know that it was 56% likely that someone had QT, you'd have to know their range precisely, you'd have to know what they will and won't raise with exactly, and you'd have to know precisely how often they would bluff you. If you can figure out all that precisely, you are going to make a HUGE amount of money from poker.

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I'm glad somebody else has noticed that.

When I first got a couple of his books they drove me mad with examples that talked about the cards the opponent has.

I wanted to grab him by the lapels and tell him; "If I knew what cards my opponent had I wouldn't need to read books to make money at poker".

There are far too many example based on what your opponent has and advice that included things like "depending on your opponent" and far too little advice about the most important things to observe and how to correlate them to provide useful intelligence about an opponents likely future behaviour.

mr_hanky · #5 07-12-2007, 09:02 AM

"You are dealt QQ. Flop comes Q-J-10 leading you to believe your opponent has...

CHOOSE ONLY ONE:

a)THE NUTS
b)died
c)none of the above, you should use the betting preflop to decide what he might have, not the cards on the flop.

drzen · #6 07-14-2007, 02:28 AM

[ QUOTE ]
"You are dealt QQ. Flop comes Q-J-10 leading you to believe your opponent has...

CHOOSE ONLY ONE:

a)THE NUTS
b)died
c)none of the above, you should use the betting preflop to decide what he might have, not the cards on the flop.

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay, dude, it's limit. I raised from the button, he called in the big blind.

The flop's QJT. What does he have?

mr_hanky · #7 07-14-2007, 07:30 AM

I think it has been answered above- he has a V. wide range.

Sorry, I was just being funny- I was in tears of laughter at the thought of "You are dealt QQ. Flop comes Q-J-10 leading you to believe your opponent has died (and wont pay you off because you are running bad today)"