This is an interesting subject. In the real world, VP included, things that
truly have a zero probability are not very interesting. Like, who cares what
the odds are of holding a pair of sixes and hitting a Royal? Zero, right? Not
very interesting. Or the chance of being hit by lightning while on the Moon?
Still zero. Not very interesting. Meteor, maybe!
So, at what point do you doubt or completely disbelieve an account of an
unlikely event? At what probability level? We're talking low-but-NOT-zero here.
We all have had, or know someone who has gotten a dealt Royal. Since this is a
one in 649,740 event (for each hand, 52-card deck), to be at all interesting
it must be at least in the millions to one range.
A pro I know, who is an upstanding guy (to the best of my knowledge)
reported a few years ago that he was playing $2 DB 5-play at Rampart, held a lone
Ace, and hit quad Aces on THREE lines! This is about a one in six BILLION shot.
I believe that it actually happened, and this is the most unlikely VP event
that I accept anecdotally.
Another pro, who I don't know at all, told an acquaintance of mine that he
was playing JOB 50-play, held a low pair, and got paying hands on ALL FIFTY
LINES!! This is a one in a billion billion billion shot (actually 1.2 * 10^27),
and I don't believe it happened. I find it MUCH easier to believe that the
person is lying, mistaken, or that there was some sort of machine malfunction.
To put this probability in perspective, if all 7 billion people on earth
played 50-play at 500 hands/hour, 24 hours/day, 365 days/year, for the lifetime
of the universe (let's call it an even 20 billion years), there is less than
a 50% chance of this occurring. So, yeah, sure, Joe did it just last month at
Suncoast! 
I suppose whether you believe a story depends on how well you know the
person telling it, and your assessment of his/her character, in addition to the
unlikelihood of the event. And certainly, as is mentioned below, the more you
play, the more low-probability events you will witness. Greater sample size.
I'd like to see posted stories of unlikely gambling occurrences, and whether
you believe that they actually happened. If you say it happened to you, we
all can decide if we believe you! Tons of fun, right?
About three years ago, I was dealt a sequential Royal on $2 DB at GVRS.
Chances of being dealt a sequential (either direction) is one in 38,984,400 for
each hand dealt. Based upon the total number of hands I have been dealt,
lifetime, I only had about a 23% chance of having a dealt sequential. As Tomski
likes to say, I beat the odds!
Brian
ยทยทยท
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In a message dated 3/10/2006 10:33:49 PM Pacific Standard Time,
rgmustain@att.net writes:
Non-zero as I stated. Note the use of "practical" in the second
sentence.
Within "practical" boundaries you will never come across a veteran VP
player that has lost every VP hand. That does not mean the same thing
as impossible.
Understanding that random results are a continuum of possible results
can be helpful in feeling comfortable with seemingly strange
occurrences. It helps us remember that just because something is
unlikely does not equate to impossible.
To make it worse, the more you gamble, the more strange events you will
see.
Dick
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Curtis Rich" <LGTVegas@...> wrote:
"The probability of ALWAYs getting heads is 1/2^number of trials.
Since the '1' never goes away the probability IS non-zero....As
the number of trials increases the value gets very, very low. In fact,
it quickly becomes zero for any practical application."So, is it non-zero or zero?
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