Mean Gene
Mean Gene
Pittsburgh's most decorated poker blogger, which I admit is like being the best shortstop in Greenland



Subscribe with Bloglines

My Articles

Presto, the Arlo, & the Hammer
An Online Code of Conduct
The Ethics of Ratholing
"Moneymaker"
"The Professor, the Banker..."
"Ace on the River"

My Columns

Lose the Shades
If You Can't Say Something Nice
Whither the Kicker
The Lady is a Champ?
Covering the WSOP (or not)
Statistics, Luck, and Poker
Poker and New Orleans
Managing a Bankroll
How To Tell A Bad Beat Story
Telling Lies
The Power of Poker Tracker
Advanced Card-Handling

My Greatest Hits

5 Things To Do Before I Die
Cafeteria Nostalgia
Mean Gene's Dubious Dating Tips
Poker and Business?
There's No Such Thing As Luck?
Isabelle, Je t'adore
No Shirt No Shoes No Service
Well, The Food Was Good
Good Morning, Mr. Matusow!
The Weekend of our Discontent, I
The Weekend of our Discontent, II
Books That Left Their Mark
Ode to a Fish Sandwich
Bill Simmons Ain't the Poker Guy
The Sports Guy Still Ain't the Poker Guy
Again, The Media Tackles Poker
Five Years After 9/11
Hitting Pretty Girls in the Face
Sixth-Graders Suck

Fellow Poker Bloggers

Guinness and Poker
Cards Speak
Tao of Poker
Up for Poker
Boy Genius
Chris Halverson
LasVegasVegas
Anisotropy
Felicia
AlCan'tHang
EvaCanHang
Poker Grub
Maudie
StudioGlyphic
PokErrata
The Fat Guy
Todd Commish
Drizztdj
SirFWALGMan
Poker Works
Bill Rini
Bad Blood
Love and Casino War
Double As
Lion Tales
Paul Phillips
Daniel Negreanu
Ftrain
Poker Nerd
Poker Nation
Ammbo
Poker in Arrears
DonkeyPuncher
Human Head
Sound of a Suckout
Chicks With Chips
TP's Table Talk
Royal Poker
This is Not A Poker Blog
Dragonystic
Daddy
Chick and a Chair
Mourn
Go Be Rude
JoeSpeaker
Poker Cheapskate
Meek
Mr.Parx
Change100
PokerWolf
Haley
Falstaff
Gydyon
Franklstein
Poker & Other Stuff
Seven Two
Musical Poker
Kipper
WPBT Online
Isabelle Mercier
Cardschat Blog
Amy Calistri
BJ Nemeth
Annie's Blog

Poker Sites

Cardschat Poker Forum
PokerMagazine
Barstool Sports
Card Player
PokerTV
TwoPlusTwo
Internet Texas Hold-Em
Poker Pages
Poker-News

Archives

  • 12/01/2003 - 01/01/2004
  • 01/01/2004 - 02/01/2004
  • 02/01/2004 - 03/01/2004
  • 03/01/2004 - 04/01/2004
  • 04/01/2004 - 05/01/2004
  • 05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004
  • 06/01/2004 - 07/01/2004
  • 07/01/2004 - 08/01/2004
  • 08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004
  • 09/01/2004 - 10/01/2004
  • 10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004
  • 11/01/2004 - 12/01/2004
  • 12/01/2004 - 01/01/2005
  • 01/01/2005 - 02/01/2005
  • 02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005
  • 03/01/2005 - 04/01/2005
  • 04/01/2005 - 05/01/2005
  • 05/01/2005 - 06/01/2005
  • 06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005
  • 07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005
  • 08/01/2005 - 09/01/2005
  • 09/01/2005 - 10/01/2005
  • 10/01/2005 - 11/01/2005
  • 11/01/2005 - 12/01/2005
  • 12/01/2005 - 01/01/2006
  • 01/01/2006 - 02/01/2006
  • 02/01/2006 - 03/01/2006
  • 03/01/2006 - 04/01/2006
  • 04/01/2006 - 05/01/2006
  • 05/01/2006 - 06/01/2006
  • 06/01/2006 - 07/01/2006
  • 07/01/2006 - 08/01/2006
  • 08/01/2006 - 09/01/2006
  • 09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006
  • 10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006
  • 11/01/2006 - 12/01/2006
  • 12/01/2006 - 01/01/2007
  • 01/01/2007 - 02/01/2007
  • 02/01/2007 - 03/01/2007
  • 03/01/2007 - 04/01/2007
  • 04/01/2007 - 05/01/2007
  • 05/01/2007 - 06/01/2007
  • 06/01/2007 - 07/01/2007
  • 07/01/2007 - 08/01/2007






  • Powered by Blogger



    Friday, April 01, 2005

    Five Royal Flushes? Not a Bad Hour of Poker

    In the middle of an uberpost Iggy mentioned a brief article on ESPN about a 75-year-old poker player named Allen Hanley, who won one of ESPN's qualifying tournaments by outlasting a field of 1473 players. That's a remarkable feat. But there's an even more stunning fact later on in the piece--Hanley said that, while playing poker in a casino, he oncehi five royal flushes in the course of an hour's play.

    Let me repeat that to make sure you get it--he had FIVE ROYAL FLUSHES. IN AN HOUR.

    Iggy suggested ESPN should hire some fact checkers. I decided to go right to the source and e-mailed Andrew Feldman, who wrote the article. I insinuated something along the lines that he needed to have a new bullshit detector installed because the odds against this were something along the lines of eleventeen gazillion to one.

    To my surprise, Andrew wrote me back, politely informing me that, yes, he knows that five royals in an hour is a bit out of the ordinary. But when asked Hanley insisted that it happened, that every time he turned over a royal flush the casino people gave him a jacket (their prize for hitting the hand) and everyone gathered around to make a fuss. So maybe this is a story that's just strange enough to be true.

    But it's pretty strange. I mean, if I hit five royal flushes the first thing I'd do would be to call the good folks at Ripley's Believe it Or Not:

    ME: "Hello, Ripley's? Mean Gene here. Hey, I was playing poker today and I made five royal flushes in an hour."

    RIPLEY'S: "Sorry, don't believe you". (Click)

    Actually, strange isn't the word. Impossible? Uncanny? Spooky? If I hit five royal flushes in an hour, I'd be pretty creeped out. I mean, all that luck, concentrated in such a tiny sliver of time, would make me fearful for the future. And not just because I'd be afraid that the casino operators and/or my fellow players would think I was cheating and drag me to a back room for a date with a hammer. And I mean the ball-peen sort, not the 7-2 offsuit variety.

    Could you ever, ever, bitch about a bad beat again? Your buddy goes runner-runner to make a flush, you say your goddams and bullshits, and he says, "How can you complain? You had five royal flushes in one hour. Shut the hell up". You could slip into a variance trough three years deep and still not get so much as a sympathtic nod. You'd walk by with that thousand-yard stare after your 397th consecutive losing session and hear someone mutter, "Five royal flushes in an hour...lucky bastard".

    Would that fear spread to life beyond the poker table? Is Luck parcelled out at birth, some of us getting a healthy pour, others merely a splash? How much of that luck would you use up spiking five royals in 60 minutes? Hanley seems to have done all right--he's 75 years old and still winning poker tournaments. But if I got a third royal and then looked down at the ace and king of spades the next deal, I might have to fold that hand. Because the jitters would start coming. What if I make ANOTHER royal flush? Does this insane luck herald my imminent death? Tomorrow, are people going to be saying, "Ah, poor Geno, made five royal flushes in an hour but couldn't avoid that out-of-control Good Humor van. Never got to buy that Scooter Crunch with his winnings...".

    What are the odds of making five royal flushes in an hour? Long. The odds are long. Let me steal some info from Jeremy from Love and Casino War. You'd expect to make a royal flush in Hold-Em every 30,940 hands. Playing in your average cardroom, where they deal about 35 hands an hour, you should see one royal flush every 884 hours. So, to hit 5 royal flushes, you'd expect to wait 154,700 hands and 4420 hours. So, while Hanley hit five royal flushes in one hour, the odds say it would take 185 DAYS playing non-stop to expect the same result. If you extend that to playing a reasonable 8 hours every day (let's see, we multiply by three...) we would expect to turn over five royal flushes in 552 days.

    One hour. Five-hundred and fifty-two days. Stunning. But no matter the activity, if you have a big enough sample size you're going to see some unusual results. If there have been tens of billions poker hands dealt throughout the universe since the game was invented, it stands to reason that a bizarre outlier like five royals in an hour might pop up. And it makes even more sense that, when such a miracle took place, it didn't happen to me.



    Pokernews.com get this widget Please visit Pokernews site for more poker news, poker strategy articles or poker rules.

    Play Poker Online
    Play Poker Online at Full Tilt Poker
    Learn, Chat, and Play with the Pros at the fastest growing Online Poker Room.

    ppa1.gif

    Play Poker Online at Blind Bet Poker. Bonuses and promotions by online poker rooms like Doyles Room, Titan Poker, Full Tilt Poker and Noble Poker. Poker strategy for beginners, advanced, and professional poker players. A poker terminology section, news & online poker tournaments.


    Poker Forums
Online
    Definitive online poker portal, featuring a poker odds calculator, poker forums, an excellent poker bonus code section with deposit bonuses.


    Full Tilt Poker Freerolls
    Party Poker Strategy Guide

    The 2006 WSOP
    Total Coverage
    From the Urinals to the Hooker Bar

    OtisWSOP.JPG


    peytonbanner.jpg


    Poker Savvy