Turing's demon (VI)
Apparently, on line bad beats are the devil’s work. Al may be about to explain.
“I can see how it would be feasible for you to manipulate bad beats online. After all it would just be a matter of tweaking the random number generators at critical moments. But it’s so obvious, the whole ‘online poker is rigged’ thing is very much the province of the tin foil hat brigade.”
“Hang on,” said Al, “I didn’t say that we laid down a bad beat on every hand did I? That would be much too obvious. The other side may be subtle, but the big guy is not too far behind. Funny you should mention tin foil hats though. They actually work, but not in the way that people think. It’s not signals going in that they block, but the ones coming out, which we can normally read. Of course, those of you who actually wear them are so predictable that we can do without the signals, so it’s a bit of a non event in any case. Look, rather than explaining the whole scheme directly, it would probably help if we went back over the hand that led to your summoning me here.”
“I guess that does make sense.”
“So why don’t you tell me all about it – just summarise the situation and the hand first time around. We’ll go into it in more detail when you’ve finished.” A look of consternation crossed Al’s features “I can’t believe that I’m actually asking someone to tell me a bad beat story. Anyhow, do it in narrative form – no hand histories.” He ducked his head furtively and continued sotto voce “Felicia doesn’t like it, and even the big guy’s a bit scared of her.”
“I remember it like it was only yesterday.”. “Wait a minute,” said Al, “it was only about an hour ago – I know we’ve been messing around with the timeline in this narrative, but do try to concentrate or else we’re not going to get anywhere. Now, carry on.”
“We were down to about 90 players from something around 250 starters. Blinds were 50/100 and my stack was at about 2600 chips. I was in the small blind with 5♦3♦. Fairly normally for the table there were three limpers and I decided to complete in the small blind. The big blind checked, and the flop was T♦5♠3♠. With bottom two pair I bet the pot (500). The big blind, whom I covered by about 500 chips went all in and the limpers folded. I called, he had K♦T♠ and hit runner runner spades to cripple me.”
“Very nicely summarised and obviously you’ve had a chance to calm down a bit about it. Let’s start at the beginning of the hand: what was your position in the tournament and what were you thinking about?”
“Well, obviously I only had about half the average stack. I still had more than 20 big blinds so there was room to play poker, but I knew that I needed to build some chips soon. I’ve been trying to loosen up a bit with speculative hands, which can hit the flop hard, so getting 9:1 odds and with little fear of a raise from the big blind (the table had been quite passive), decided to take a punt with 5♦3♦.”
“Excellent, excellent. Now what about post flop?”
“Of course I was delighted to have hit bottom two pair. But the two spades on the board were a bit of a worry. Besides, bottom two pair isn’t as great a hand as people think. I decided to lead out big to kill the odds for anyone on a flush draw. Also, I’ve seen people take a big bet from one of the blinds on a relatively dry flop as a bluff, and make moves over it with some weak hands. I would have been happy to collect the chips on the table which represented almost 20% of my original stack.”
“Good, good. And when the big blind moved all in?”
“I thought for a while about what he might have. I didn’t fancy a set of tens, or fives or threes for that matter, since most people at this level would slow play those.”
“Yes, tardiludus is a very common affliction in the games you play. Can be a very painful condition when there are flush draws about.”
“Two pair seemed possible, but unlikely – very few card combinations left. I suspected that he probably had a good ten, either with a flush or a backdoor flush draw, though I’m not sure he would have worried about that. The call seemed pretty clear cut.”
“And when you saw his cards?”
“Well obviously, I was delighted. He did have the big ten, and only a backdoor draw to the flush.”
“And what were your odds at that point? I’m sure you know, or have worked them out.”
“About 70:30. Though it feels like only 5 outs for my opponent (kings and tens), the runner runner flush, or runner runner pair possibilities make more of a difference than people realise.”
“By all that's unholy, do you actually think about those things? Never mind, now we’ll get into my side of this whole affair.”
Not so fast, time for another break.
“I can see how it would be feasible for you to manipulate bad beats online. After all it would just be a matter of tweaking the random number generators at critical moments. But it’s so obvious, the whole ‘online poker is rigged’ thing is very much the province of the tin foil hat brigade.”
“Hang on,” said Al, “I didn’t say that we laid down a bad beat on every hand did I? That would be much too obvious. The other side may be subtle, but the big guy is not too far behind. Funny you should mention tin foil hats though. They actually work, but not in the way that people think. It’s not signals going in that they block, but the ones coming out, which we can normally read. Of course, those of you who actually wear them are so predictable that we can do without the signals, so it’s a bit of a non event in any case. Look, rather than explaining the whole scheme directly, it would probably help if we went back over the hand that led to your summoning me here.”
“I guess that does make sense.”
“So why don’t you tell me all about it – just summarise the situation and the hand first time around. We’ll go into it in more detail when you’ve finished.” A look of consternation crossed Al’s features “I can’t believe that I’m actually asking someone to tell me a bad beat story. Anyhow, do it in narrative form – no hand histories.” He ducked his head furtively and continued sotto voce “Felicia doesn’t like it, and even the big guy’s a bit scared of her.”
“I remember it like it was only yesterday.”. “Wait a minute,” said Al, “it was only about an hour ago – I know we’ve been messing around with the timeline in this narrative, but do try to concentrate or else we’re not going to get anywhere. Now, carry on.”
“We were down to about 90 players from something around 250 starters. Blinds were 50/100 and my stack was at about 2600 chips. I was in the small blind with 5♦3♦. Fairly normally for the table there were three limpers and I decided to complete in the small blind. The big blind checked, and the flop was T♦5♠3♠. With bottom two pair I bet the pot (500). The big blind, whom I covered by about 500 chips went all in and the limpers folded. I called, he had K♦T♠ and hit runner runner spades to cripple me.”
“Very nicely summarised and obviously you’ve had a chance to calm down a bit about it. Let’s start at the beginning of the hand: what was your position in the tournament and what were you thinking about?”
“Well, obviously I only had about half the average stack. I still had more than 20 big blinds so there was room to play poker, but I knew that I needed to build some chips soon. I’ve been trying to loosen up a bit with speculative hands, which can hit the flop hard, so getting 9:1 odds and with little fear of a raise from the big blind (the table had been quite passive), decided to take a punt with 5♦3♦.”
“Excellent, excellent. Now what about post flop?”
“Of course I was delighted to have hit bottom two pair. But the two spades on the board were a bit of a worry. Besides, bottom two pair isn’t as great a hand as people think. I decided to lead out big to kill the odds for anyone on a flush draw. Also, I’ve seen people take a big bet from one of the blinds on a relatively dry flop as a bluff, and make moves over it with some weak hands. I would have been happy to collect the chips on the table which represented almost 20% of my original stack.”
“Good, good. And when the big blind moved all in?”
“I thought for a while about what he might have. I didn’t fancy a set of tens, or fives or threes for that matter, since most people at this level would slow play those.”
“Yes, tardiludus is a very common affliction in the games you play. Can be a very painful condition when there are flush draws about.”
“Two pair seemed possible, but unlikely – very few card combinations left. I suspected that he probably had a good ten, either with a flush or a backdoor flush draw, though I’m not sure he would have worried about that. The call seemed pretty clear cut.”
“And when you saw his cards?”
“Well obviously, I was delighted. He did have the big ten, and only a backdoor draw to the flush.”
“And what were your odds at that point? I’m sure you know, or have worked them out.”
“About 70:30. Though it feels like only 5 outs for my opponent (kings and tens), the runner runner flush, or runner runner pair possibilities make more of a difference than people realise.”
“By all that's unholy, do you actually think about those things? Never mind, now we’ll get into my side of this whole affair.”
Not so fast, time for another break.
Labels: fiction
posted by Michael Albert at 1:09 pm
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