Hi,

The article says:
"The odds of making a Badugi when drawing two cards on the first draw are 14-1. (16/48 * 10/47) = (.3333 * .2127) = 7.1% (7.1/100=14.1). Therefore, the chances of making a Badugi are three times better when a player only draws one card."

Completely false, are 22/48*10/47=10%, so only twice better, not three times. I did the correct math: if you start with a 3cardhand you finish with a badugi 51,2% of the time. If you start with a 2cardhand you finish with a badugi 42,1% of the time. So it's not that pessimistic as the author says.

Then he says:
"Assuming a two card hand is eight high or better, the chances of it improving to an eight high three card hand on one draw are (4*8=32 , minus 2 cards in your hand =30; 30/48) 62.5% = 100/62.5=1.6) 1.6-1."

Completely false, because you cannot receive a card of the same suit, the correct math would be 12/48 + 36/48*12/47 = 44.15% chance of improving to a 3card eight OR any badugi.

It would be good that articles would be reviewed before publishing...

You are correct.

We actually caught these problems shortly after the Magazine went up. Both the author and I should have caught it earlier, but it slipped through.

The author has already corrected the problems and I've sent a fixed version of the article to Kiera to be uploaded. I hoped the fix was going to be uploaded before anybody noticed.


The February issue is my 30th issue since taking over the Magazine in September of 2006. That's 330 to 360 articles. Out of those, this is just the second which needed an error corrected after it went live on the site. So, I think the review process is working reasonably well when the error rate is being kept below 1%.

Monthly magazines that must comb through everything they publish for inaccuracies often have full time fact checkers on the payroll. I'd say an error rate of less than 1 percent is excellent under the circumstances. As a writer myself, I can attest to how easy it is to let something slip by inadvertantly. I've done it myself and I'll no doubt do it again. Writers live in a constant state of anxiety over such things. I can only imagine how it must be for editors who have to worry about every fact in every article they publish. A writer has only to be concerned with his own.

Of course this is not to say readers shouldn't complain when they find a mistake.

updated.