Episode #488 - January 18th, 2018

Live from the Two Plus Two Studios - This week on the Pokercast: The guys review the PCA winners and stories, preview Aussie millions and cover everything in between. To begin, Doug Polk called out crypto scammers on his youtube channel and in turn gets his life threatened and Adam weighs in for his third of eight weeks.
In the news: An exciting finish to the PCA Main Event and other high roller winners from the Bahamas, The largest bad beat jackpot in the history of the USA was won and some interesting revenue numbers from Vegas. We also bust open the Mailbag to answer your emails about a ruling in an all-in pot, the price for Adam to re-gain the weight, email number 4 and more!

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First place -- Please all three of you watch the JP Sears Bit coin episode -- Ross where are the drops

oh fish

Podium

Not a turd

Adam, as a listener of several podcasts including (by your suggestion, gambling w an edge, thanks) I couldn't help but notice your comment on casinos advertising they return 99%. Was this directly correlated to the weekly ad by the south point done by Bob Dancer?

That's a good example, but I was more referring to when you walk into a casino they often have signs that basically say "Hey, you put in $1 in this here machine and we'll give you NINETY NINE CENTS BACK!"

Always makes me shake my head

In the uk, supermarkets often have machines by the entrance that will count and colour up your accumulated hoards of loose change. For like a 7% vig vs the zero a bank would charge.

smh indeed

Really enjoyed the angle shooting question.

There was a billboard on I-80 for drivers headed from the S.F. Bay Area toward Reno. It said "98 percent payback on slots" or something to that effect. I remember that having one hell of an effect on the 12-year-old me, as it was the first time I truly realized there was a house edge at casinos. Even though I was almost a full decade away from being allowed in a casino, it pretty much scared me away from ever wanting to play slots, table games, etc.

Loosely related to this...

When California first started doing a lotto, they did an ad campaign in which different celebrities said which numbers they chose. So athletes might have uniform numbers they wore. (Greg Louganis had one in which the numbers corresponded with his dives.) Other people did the usual kids birthdays, addresses where they grew up, etc. It was always someone famous, with numbers that had significance in their lives.

Steve Wozniak, probably a year after leaving Apple, did his version in which his numbers were 1-2-3-4-5-6. "Don't be fooled," said Woz in the advert, "I have as good a chance as anyone else."

I don't think I've ever seen anything that more clearly illustrated how tiny the chances someone has at winning a lottery. Yet it was an ad for the lottery.

<3 Woz, absolute legend.

Supposedly though, the number of people who play those numbers is so high that if they ever come in the prize will get split multimultiway. I think I saw that attempted to quantify skill in gaming had lottery at like 0.1, not 0, because judicious choice of numbers can maximise the chance of soloing the victory (hence maxing your ev).

Exactly this, the other Woz (wizard of vegas) has said that combinations that have more numbers over 31 has more chance of winning a solo jackpot, because of the birthday thing, and that 1,2,3,4,5,6 would be the worst, 100+ players regularly play those each week.

On the angle shoot how deep was the guy who tossed in the 3 chips? it sounds like Villian had a big stack and if hero was deep is he always shoving pre 200bb or whatever? No...he shoved and disguised it with only 3 chips attempting to trick the guy. Angle all day long.

So what do you think happens if earphones guy flops trips?

It's funny when i first listened to the podcast my first thought was earphones guy was the one angling....that the distraction was all a ruse. How many times have we seen live when a guy is on a monster and he is trying to act disinterested all the while being quite aware. If he hits the flop he plays on, if he whiffs he stops the action and says no no no.....thats probably a reach and when i re listened to the segment i realized it was 3 chips going in which made me say hmmm....if he flops trips does he stop? I doubt it..but it would have been interesting because of course he would want to bet and would also stop the action if he had just called..

i dunno...maybe a double angle ha!

Usually here (In Manila) after an all in and a call the dealer would physically make the pot and then run the cards but i dont know in Vegas. I remember from my Reno days that happening (physically combining the chips) before.

As far as what defines angles, it's vague but one classic one i have seen over here on more than one occasion is when Villian is on a big decision he will push chips over the line towards the dealer and ask to color up....all the while looking for a reaction... That certainly is an angle.

We’re living in a world full *******s.

To me, an angle is using the letter of the rules to take advantage of another player. Say, using "cards speak" to over-rule mis-declaring your hand in a place where that's technically legal. I think that's where TChan was going as he started to try to get Adam to define angle -- if it is actually cheating, it is just cheating and not an angle.
This would be especially true if the flop comes 987 vs his AA and he tries to argue that it wasn't all-in, because the guy with the headphones only called $15 or whatever. Even without, he was using the rules to get the other player to unknowingly commit a huge stack. I don't play enough NL to know if this is technically OK, but it sure seems like "dude, I'm going to punish you by tricking you into putting your whole stack in, when you didn't think you did".
If he's found a way where he can decide after seeing the flop whether he's in for $15 or 250BB, then he's cheating.
Even though this might slow down the game, seems reasonable that the pot is made before the flop is dealt.

To Adam's point, it is possible that they're both angling/cheating. I don't think it is any way unreasonable for the guy's friend to point out that his play is either A) borderline scummy or B) a flat out angle. Tricking the guy about the bet size has to be in some way a little bit wrong, even if he had it coming.

The guy with the headphones who isn't paying attention is a jerk. End stop. He's wrong and he's stealing time from everyone in the game. He's making the table worse for everyone there. Does it then make it OK to trick him out of his stack? IDK. It could be that the custom in your casino makes that frontier justice and well deserved. It is my observation that this is one of the ways small stakes big bet games are unpleasant. The fight over whether he called $15 or $2000 (or whatever the number) is just always going to be ugly, and if they're regulars, it will come up again and again.

Maybe I'm totally wrong about this, but isn't it at least a bit off to force someone to call a huge bet when he thinks he's calling a small one? Maybe it is completely legal and standard? The fact that you have to use the "had it coming" defense seems to admit as much. The fact that it is important for this ruling to include that the villain was a jerk seems to make our hero's action seem angle -- remove all the lead up and tell the story to someone who hadn't hear it... just say, "I put in three chips and say all-in. Villain doesn't hear and says call. Other people at the table heard me, as did dealer. Villain calls with 1 chip." What do people say?

The "Revenue per SF" discussion was tilting since Adam and TChan did not understand revenue vs earning. Revenue = Tournament Winnings Earnings = Winnings - buy ins. Kind of like the whole discussion you had the previous week about Negreanu winning all that money last year (lots of revenue) but still losing money (earnings).
When casinos talk about the revenue / sf you need to subtract out the overheads. That's why slots are such good money makers compared to poker. Slots have above average revenue and minimal overhead costs while poker has below average revenue and above average overhead.
Much like poker players, I do not think the casinos really want people to know detailed figures on how much they make in specific areas.

I think I agree with DougL's point, that both parties can be wrong on the 3-chip all-in. That being said, I'm not sure Scott's move goes to that level.

Does using three chips does make it a bit more questionable? If he threw one chip out there, verbally said "all in" before doing so, is that a more common practice and more acceptable?

Let's be clear here though: it is in no way Scott's responsibility to make sure headphones guy is following the action correctly.

Anyway, not really why I came in. About the "evil Bill Perkins" thing, I had a different idea over the weekend.

Bill calls up Adam, "Hey, I've got a box at the Canucks game on Sunday. All food and drinks included. You and twenty friends."

Day before weigh-in. Does Adam go? If so, can he resist the temptations, especially if his buddies are indulging?

Wow. Mind = blown.

This article by the DailyMail (take it for what it's worth) takes way the over on 100, too.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-windfall.html

I think this is more of a thing of the past in the UK since everyone lucky dips nowadays

Yikes! Daily Mail. But still, I can believe it is over 100, but 10,000? I would imagine that the kind of people who believe the lottery is a way out would think that 1,2,3,4,5,6 is less likely to be drawn and so not pick them. Maybe that is not the case if its 10,000 people.

It's also easier to remember their numbers.