This is short and random, but in my opinion, one of the rudest and most annoying things one can do in poker is to critque other people’s play and make other comments while sitting at the table. We all do it quietly as we play, but to say things out loud is just plain rude. I say this because I just finished a SnG on Pokerstars that featured one of the most talkative players I have ever encountered – “Bong2eho”. Every single bit of action was met with a comment like, “medium PP, huh?” and “I just bluffed you good, Johnny” and “Bad, Johnny, Bad! You need to learn to play shorthanded.”

Wouldn’t you know that we ended up heads up? And at one point I finally managed to get him all-in with a dominated hand (T3 v T8) and yet he hit is bottom pair on the flop. That hand generated the comment, “Ho… HA HA! Take that!”.

I was pretty much crippled after that pot and just gave up because it was so unpleasant.

Also, I won’t name names, but there was a player at our home tourney two weeks ago whose running commentary pretty much earned him the label of, “Mr Tool”.

Seriously, people, keep it to yourself.

A friend pointed me to this site:

http://www.awheeloffortune.com/PokerChips115.html#suited

Perhaps this is a good starting point for G Money’s quest for chips.

A sort of bad beat story

Champ Canonico and I have played fantasy football together for the past 6 years and every year we end up in a very competitive league on ESPN. We also tend to game the schedule in such a way that we end up playing against each other only once a year and this year our head-to-head matchup happened to occur late enough in the season to be quite relevant to the playoff chase in our league – going into this past weekend, we were both hanging on the cusp of qualifying for the playoffs and needed a win to stay alive.

Chris started strong with Marvin Harrison’s big game on Thanksgiving day, and he stayed strong with a couple of huge games from both of the Cincinnati Johnsons, Rudi and Chad. I got strong performances from Donovan McNabb and Willis McGahee on Sunday (I DRAFTED McGahee back in August, btw) and was able to keep it close and the whole thing came down to last night’s MNF game and my last remaining player, Isaac Bruce. Going into the game last night, Chris had me by 20 points, which, according to our FFL rules, is the equivalent of 140 yards and a touchdown, or 80 yards and two touchdowns, both of which would be slightly better than any game Bruce had played this year, but not necessarily an impossible outcome to expect.

If you watched the game you know that Ike had his best game of the year – 170 yards and a touchdown – 23 pts! (17 + 6) Unfortunately, he had a fumble earlier in the game and a second fumble with less than a minute to go, and even more unfortunately, our league deducts 2 points apiece for turnovers. Voila, my 23 points turned to 19 points and Chris defeated me by one point. I went to bed before the end of the game last night and I was rather disappointed when I saw the results this morning. I was eliminated from playoff contention, and, thanks to tiebreakers, Chris was also eliminated, even in victory.

That’s the bad beat narrative of this post, but the more interesting part is that in the resulting trash talk this morning, Chris and I got into an argument over who was more “lucky”, and that’s what I want to share here. Specifically, while the underlying stats themselves don’t mean anything to this discussion, our respective point totals of 125 and 124 were both significantly above our weekly averages this season, and as my weekly average was 10 points higher than Chris going into this weekend, my position is that Chris was the lucky one, and in fact, when I applied all of this to a “normal”* distribution, this is what I got:

*(I couldn’t use a normal distribution because my sample size of 12 weeks isn’t large enough, therefore I had to use the less accurate t-distribution)

The meaning of all of this is that, based on my team’s performance throughout this football season, I can expect to score 124 (or more) points only 15.2% of the time, and accordingly, Chris can expect to score 125 (or more) points, 9.6% of the time. Based on these results, it would appear that we were both quite lucky this week because we were both significantly higher than our respective weekly averages, but Chris was slightly more lucky because his weekly mean was lower to begin with. The really interesting part of all of this is that the odds of us both doing as well as we did was only 1.5%! (.152 x .096)

Well, I pointed this out to Chris and he made a keen observation – that perhaps the statistical significance of our teams is not as important as the statistical significance of the individual players – specifically, he was quick to point out that Willis McGahee was the top rated running back on Sunday and that his performance had been “lucky”. I retorted that Rudi Johnson was the 2nd best back and that his performance compared to previous weeks was much more lucky than McGahee’s, and so we were back to the statistical analysis.

One of the few points We agreed that 4 players were significantly better than their average performance and thus affected the results of the FFL game: Rudi Johnson (Chris), Chad Johnson (Chris), Willis McGahee (JohnnyMac) and Ike Bruce (Johnny Mac).

And this is what we got:

Hmmm… Who got luckier?

Chris, whose running back was a 97% longshot to score as many points as he did, or me? Similarly, was Chris not “lucky” in that the Browns gave up 58 points and thus gave up enough points that two players on the same team had multi-touchdown games? Which, incidentally, in my opinion, is a violation of an unwritten FFL rule of starting a WR and RB from the same team and is thus analogous to taking insurance in Blackjack?

Now, I will admit that the stats above for McGahee only count from weeks 6 onward, because he wasn’t the full-time starter until Oct 17 against Miami, and, when I showed these data to Chris, his first remark was, “Willis McGahee’s average is too high,” so the grounds for dissent are sown. That said, I went back and calculated these results using McGahee’s stats for the full season, and while they certainly push his t-stat back in the direction of Rudi Johnson, McGahee is still better and I will repeat that Johnson has been starting all year and McGahee was having to share time in September and October with Travis Henry… so OF COURSE his averages should be lower. So even with a bigger sample size and a better team, Rudi’s performance was STILL more unusual than Willis’s.

I think we know who got lucky, and it wasn’t me.

But then again, just like poker, the winner is all that matters in the end.

Also – in the interest of full disclosure, this link will take you to a page that has links to all of the relevant data discussed here. If someone can do a better job of this analysis, or if you find an error in mine, please send me an email and I’ll be happy to post your comments. I am not at all a statistical guru and freely admit it.

=============================================================

From: G Money

To: Dr Fro

Subject: Re: Chips

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 19:56:29 -0800 (PST)

I had a question for you that I’m confident you have an opinion about. I want some poker chips, but nothing that outrageous. THere are tons on ebay, and some look about right. Other than color and size am I missing anything. Do I want 11.5g? CHeck out the following as an example of something I may get. Thanks for the insight, and also thanks for sucking me into this underworld of gambling, deceit, sex, drugs and longhorn dissapointments.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=19085&item=5938600674&rd=1

G Money

=============================================================

My short answer: I suggest 11.5 grams. I think the prices on the net are nice, but you can save $ on shipping by going B&M. I have a feeling Junell has a long answer to G’s question…

To briefly answer Junell’s question, whenever I sit down in a poker game with people I don’t know I am very keen to observe them and make a judgment of their play and their likely ability. This is what I pay attention to:

1.) I listen to what they have to say. If someone says, “I played 20-40 at the Top Hat last night,” I will be much more respectful of him, at first, compared to someone who says, “Ooh! Texas Holdem! I love watching the World Poker Tour!” or “I don’t normally play Deuce-Nine but deuces are hot tonight!”.

That said, just because someone talks a good game doesn’t necessarily mean that he plays a great game, either, and sometimes silence is the best indicator of all. If someone sits down in a game and appears comfortable and experienced but doesn’t say a word and intensely pays attention to the game, I’m going to respect that guy the most.

2.) How does someone look “comfortable” and “experienced” in a game? A few ways come to mind: he removes his chips and doesn’t try to play from a rack; He buys in with old $100 bills and not stiff new $20’s from the ATM; The dealer doesn’t have to ask his name and he knows where the drinks and snacks are and that he’s welcome to get up at any time; he’s comfortable handling chips (chips tricks come to mind here) and usually bets confidently with stacks of chips without counting chips one by one.

(The last one is kind of hard to verbalize, but if you have ever played with the River Chief, the way he nervously kind of picks up his chips one by one is the image I am driving at)

3.) One of the biggest physical traits I pay attention to is that most poker types like to wear jewelry, especially big watches (see A. Alvarez) and rings on fingers other than wedding rings (especially pinky rings). This doesn’t necessarily mean that they are good players, but it does at least usually mean that they play a lot and spend a lot of time in a casino and thus warrant a little more respect until I can watch and get a better feel for their play. Certain types of shirts and buttoned/unbuttoned styles also make a difference here, as does the presence of all 10 fingers and tatoos.

4.) In general, Mike Caro’s book is quite correct in the ways it stereotypes players versus their appearance (clothing, race, sex, hair, cigarettes). As I have stated before, and as Caro emphasizes, it’s OK to stereotype in poker because it’s all you’ve got until you watch someone play. Even better, somewhat unlike normal society, poker inherently punishes you for sticking to stereotypes once you know they have been disproven. Most Asian women are wild gamblers and poor poker players but you will eventually lose your money if you don’t adjust against an Asian woman who only plays the nuts.

4.) I am a little bit ambivalent about guys who sit down with their freeby jackets and hats from Louisiana. On one hand, this signifies that they have played a lot of poker and somewhat fit into the “comfortable” definition above. But on the other hand, the boats usually only give those prizes away for making straight flushes or royal flushes and typically the cards needed to make those types of hands are not great starting hands (go ahead, flame me and I’ll explain) and thus the hat might be an indicator of poor play. Ambivalent.

5.) But I agree with Fro as to what I think the most significant indicator is, and that’s seeing someone’s cards at the showdown, as this is probably the best and most accurate indicator of someone’s skill level and style of play. It’s important, though, to recreate the action on a particular hand because there are circumstances when what appears to be bad cards or a weak hand can be easily explained (ie starting in the blinds), and even more importantly, you can sometimes recognize that the cards may have been bad but the play was good and therefore significant of a skilled player.

Here are some of the things I look for to make a judgment of a players skill after I have seen his cards:

- Calling raises and not reraising or folding, regardless of the cards held.

- Calling raises cold with weak hands like AQ or AJ or medium or small pocket pairs and then playing all the way to the end against an aggressive opponent and with no significant help from the board.

- Playing sucker hands like AT, KJ, J9, or any Ace, especially from early position.

- Calling with bottom pair and going all the way to the end with it.

- Overvaluing AK from early position and overplaying it when no help comes from the board or when it’s apparent that it’s been outdrawn by the flush or the player holding a Q or J. Similarly, putting in the 3rd bet with AK any time before the flop is also a good indicator of poor play.

- The obvious situations like playing any two suited cards or drawing with unsuited medium connectors, from any position.

In answer to Junell’s question, the following list is what I pay attention to in other players, listed in order of importance / how much I pay attention:

1. If someone preflop raises, I like to see what they had, if they show it at showdown. Most people always play the same starting hands the same way. This can be an extremely useful piece of information later on when you are trying to narrow down the range of hands your opponenent might hold.

2. On a similiar note, I make note of the size of the raise and see what hands get what size raise (this is why you should vary the size of your raises!)

3. Whenever someone is known to have just bluffed, either because they show off their cards after a successful bluff or because they got caught stealing, I immediately replay in what situation they bluffed. This is because most people, whether they realize it or not, bluff somewhat ’systematically’. There are certain situations when some people bluff, like:

- they were betting on the come and are now bluffing on a busted draw

- they have nothing but the board is absolutely frightening (AAKKx, with a flush)

- on a previous round, the betting checked all the way around

- etc

It seems to me that some people are very willing to bluff in some scenarios but are very unlikely to bluff in other scenarios.

4. I pay attention to their propensity to put out false tells, which are almost always verbal. Small minded people always state that they have the opposite of what they have. Once you figure that out, it is fairly simple to figure out what these people have.

5. When I go long periods of time in between being involved in hands, I count how many hands people see the flop on. Sometimes I use my chips to help keep count. I am often surprised when I learn that Player X played 8 of 10 hands and Player Y played 0 or 10 hands. Without actually counting, your perception will often be influenced by how loud or obnoxious or otherwise memorable a person was in a hand.

6. Last, I look for tells. The tell-tale-tell is the one mentioned by one of our guest commentors – sudden interest in a hand. I also look for: shaky hands (good hand), standing perfectly still (bluffing) and looking at chips immediately after checking hole cards or seeing the flop (meaning they saw something they liked).

Thats all I can think of for now.