I know that for about 50 years Chuck Sippl, American, has been hoping to get a Royal Flush before the end of a hand. Grandma Sippl taught all us kids that the hand cannot be beaten. It is immune from pain. It almost always wins, asymptotically approaching perfection, and at worst would tie. But in Hold’em, because the player only has two cards and relies on the board for the other 5, there can only be one Royal Flush at a time. There is no room for 3 cards of any other suit. So, in Texas Hold’em, it is the superhero of hands. As if from another planet, it has these special powers.
With this absolute smugness, Chuck feigned confusion and checked on the river, and his opponent pushed all in, with martyr-like futility. What caused this person to do this we’ll never know, because Chuck never even looked at his uniquely irrelevant hand. So Chuck lives in the glow this morning that no matter what happens, he takes this home with him to keep. Also, he survived the entire day. His chips are currently in a keepsake plastic bag with the other 200 or so people left in the 2,200-person field. He is not quite in the money yet, but only 20 or 30 more souls to go before he is. The goal is to make the final table, and achieve television immortality as an ESPN recorded and shown world-class athlete.
Joe went deep into day 1 before finding his end. Neil and I went almost as deep. Our endings were each unjust. There is a near-violent and non-ending debate regarding which of us received the worst beat. I would ponder his bad beat more if my cycles were not completely occupied with background processing on why I am still not in this tournament.
My biggest problem was the large, very large, 3-level dry spell. No cards. I saw a world record number of 10-3 offsuit hands, possibly the same stupid unmatched suits all 112 times in a row. I stole a few pots, with wonderful little artificial monsters like 2-5 suited, while sitting one off the button, because I had to eat to stay alive, and such moves provide a small plate of beans and rice, if one of the guards does not kick it out of my hands before I get it into my cell, by re-raising my bluff. As the blinds and antes got to 200/400 and 50 ante, the 8000 I had built my stack to from the 3000 beginning chips had dwindled, but was still nearly 5000. I still had a chance if I could catch one nice hand, make a move all-in, and win any race against a pair that might confront me. I would take a 48% underdog move at this point, in order to double up and get back to the average stack size. Then a slight run of GOOD cards, and I could be above average stack size as the evening, and the payoff “bubble” approached.
It was a good plan, and began working, as I looked down at my Ace Queen of spades. This was the hand. I was in the big blind, and did have a raise put to me by the big stack at the table. Since I was out of position to him, and had to act first after the flop, I knew I would be going all in no matter what flopped. Should I be more conservative and push all in now, so as to give myself a chance to win a smaller pot right here, and if I get called, then the nirvana of a double up is a coin toss away? Yes, I could get another good hand to finish my double up fairly soon, so let’s try to survive. Let’s push here.
I actually believe that I need to research this to find out if this is actually the most conservative move. I felt this guy was splashing around with his big stack, and playing and raising lots of hands, because everyone was really scared to take him on, given mortality and all. So, I wanted him out, and I would take the 1100 or so in blinds and antes, and the 1200 that he raised me. So I re-raised my remaining 3600, which would be enough to concern him. It was enough chips for him to notice them missing if he called and lost, but he must have had over 50,000, so, with his King-8 of hearts, he figured that if he puts in another 3,600, the pot he’ll drag will be nearly 3 times that much, thus giving him 2 to 1 pot odds. His hand, up against something like a nice A-Q still has a 37% chance to win. For AA it looks like this.
Text results appended to pokerstove.txt
27,396,864 games 0.062 secs 441,884,903 games/sec
Board:
Dead:
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 63.484% 63.23% 00.25% 17324172 68438.00 { AQs }
Hand 1: 36.516% 36.27% 00.25% 9935816 68438.00 { K8s }
In order for him to go with this logic, he must imprudently ignore the very real chance that I have AA, KK, which would make the board to come significantly less hopeful for him.
Text results appended to pokerstove.txt
27,396,864 games 0.062 secs 441,884,903 games/sec
Board:
Dead:
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 63.484% 63.23% 00.25% 17324172 68438.00 { AQs }
Hand 1: 36.516% 36.27% 00.25% 9935816 68438.00 { K8s }
Or for KK, even worse.
Text results appended to pokerstove.txt
20,547,648 games 0.015 secs 1,369,843,200 games/sec
Board:
Dead:
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 88.421% 87.75% 00.67% 18031020 137412.00 { KK }
Hand 1: 11.579% 10.91% 00.67% 2241804 137412.00 { K8s }
When he turned over his rags he announced while laughing too hard that he was looking for a bunch of hearts. The flop had no hearts for him, and did have my Queen in it. I was fearing his King finding a friend on the turn or the river, but it did not happen. However, the Jack and 10 that came on the turn and river allowed my Queen, which sat next to a corrupting 9, to turn against me. He made a straight. A monster hand that he was not even trying to get. It was not one of his goals. This is the ultimate measure of a true “suck out” loss.
So whatever Neil’s story is, can it really matter?
