close plays

[John.G.Zaroff]

I was playing at NYNY 1 - 100 coin 9/6 jacks and got the following hand: Ad Kd 10d 8D 8c. Now, I know with RF3 vs FL4 there are some penalty card situations and I was trying to remember the Bob Rule. I know that there has to be both and Ace and a Ten suited in the hand . If the Ten is paired, you keep the FL4. If there is a high straight penalty card ( Qs, for instance in this example) you keep the FL4. I also thought there was one more part to the rule. Was it if the non royal suited card is paired, you keep the FL4? I wasn't sure.

After about 45 seconds of pondering ( and my wife 'encouraging' me to play the hand already) I decided to hold the RF3 even if it was wrong. I did and Qd Jd popped up for a 4K royal.

It turns out that pairing the lowest of the flush cards doesn't matter and RF3 is the better play by a nickel.

But this did get me thinking about close plays when you aren't positive about the strategy. What I'm going to do on those very few occassions when I don't know the correct play is take the play that will make me happiest if it's successful. In this example, missing or making a flush is no big deal. I know Bob Dancer will strongly disagree with this idea but it will cost me maybe a buck or 2 over my career and will save much more than that in self induced neurotic thoughts. On the hand in question, if I hold Ad 10d Jd 8d and the Kd or Qd pops up, I can't help but look at the hand and wonder what the 5th card would. So 2 out of 47 times I will make myself a little crazy. Even if AKTs is worse by a nickel ( instead of being better by a nickel) to me that's nickel well spent.

This situation will come up much more often with progressives. I'll apply the same rule to those situations.

···

****************************************************************************************

Note: The information contained in this message may be privileged and confidential and thus protected from disclosure. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the message and deleting it from your computer. Thank you.

****************************************************************************************

[Jean-Baptiste_Queru]

In 9/6 JoB at least, choices that involve penalty cards often cost
barely more than 1% of the cost of the hand, i.e. pennies on the
dollar, and all involve a RF or SF (i.e. they all have a lot of
variance on the draw).

I'm not convinced that in the real world the cost of playing
penalty-card hands wrong is measurable against the noise that exists
on those high-variance hands, and I think that your line of thought is
not unreasonable (and certainly if the peace of mind allows you to not
miss an FL4 or a low pair, it's money well invested).

JBQ

···

On 7/9/05, John.G.Zaroff <John.G.Zaroff@delphi.com> wrote:

I was playing at NYNY 1 - 100 coin 9/6 jacks and got the following hand: Ad Kd 10d 8D 8c. Now, I know with RF3 vs FL4 there are some penalty card situations and I was trying to remember the Bob Rule. I know that there has to be both and Ace and a Ten suited in the hand . If the Ten is paired, you keep the FL4. If there is a high straight penalty card ( Qs, for instance in this example) you keep the FL4. I also thought there was one more part to the rule. Was it if the non royal suited card is paired, you keep the FL4? I wasn't sure.

After about 45 seconds of pondering ( and my wife 'encouraging' me to play the hand already) I decided to hold the RF3 even if it was wrong. I did and Qd Jd popped up for a 4K royal.

It turns out that pairing the lowest of the flush cards doesn't matter and RF3 is the better play by a nickel.

But this did get me thinking about close plays when you aren't positive about the strategy. What I'm going to do on those very few occassions when I don't know the correct play is take the play that will make me happiest if it's successful. In this example, missing or making a flush is no big deal. I know Bob Dancer will strongly disagree with this idea but it will cost me maybe a buck or 2 over my career and will save much more than that in self induced neurotic thoughts. On the hand in question, if I hold Ad 10d Jd 8d and the Kd or Qd pops up, I can't help but look at the hand and wonder what the 5th card would. So 2 out of 47 times I will make myself a little crazy. Even if AKTs is worse by a nickel ( instead of being better by a nickel) to me that's nickel well spent.

This situation will come up much more often with progressives. I'll apply the same rule to those situations.

****************************************************************************************

Note: The information contained in this message may be privileged and confidential and thus protected from disclosure. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the message and deleting it from your computer. Thank you.

****************************************************************************************

vpFREE Links: http://members.cox.net/vpfree/Links.htm

Yahoo! Groups Links

[fordscks_jason_c_vp]

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "John.G.Zaroff" <John.G.Zaroff@d...>
wrote:

I was playing at NYNY 1 - 100 coin 9/6 jacks and got the following

hand: Ad Kd 10d 8D 8c. Now, I know with RF3 vs FL4 there are some
penalty card situations and I was trying to remember the Bob Rule.
I know that there has to be both and Ace and a Ten suited in the
hand . If the Ten is paired, you keep the FL4. If there is a high
straight penalty card ( Qs, for instance in this example) you keep
the FL4. I also thought there was one more part to the rule. Was
it if the non royal suited card is paired, you keep the FL4? I
wasn't sure.

John:

If you have a solid math background, then you might understand what
you are doing is sub-optimal (all this high-power math is beyond
me). Rather than focusing on the Bob rule, you should have focus on
Dan's rule of optimal play.

Have a good one.