Article about "three royals in a row."

[Eduardo]

Don't even get Frank started on those things, New2VP!  So who is closer in the odds of 3 royals in 1000, the author of the article or me?

[rascal]

I had back to back Royals at the old Treasure Bay Casino in Biloxi. After I was paid for the first one and the machine was cleared, the attendant stood by for my first play. It was three to the Royal and I laughed and said something like, "Wouldn't it be wild if I hit it again?" I did. But this time the machine was checked out carefully before they paid me.    Treasure Bay was subsequently destroyed by Katrina and it relocated across the street in a hotel --- nothing at all like it used to be, and on my semi-annual trips to the Mississippi Coast I rarely play there.


 
The article about the three Royals in three days is ridiculous. Not only does the author use the term "I suspect", which means he has no hard evidence of the number of hands played, but he also apparently fails to realize that there are plenty of VP players who have had three or even more in a single day. This ridiculous article sort of confirms my opinion that many so-called expert gambling writers are just whistling in the wind, with no more knowledge or experience than the rest of us have.

[Frank Kneeland]

Don't even get Frank started on those things, New2VP!  So who is closer in the odds of 3 royals in 1000, the author of the article or me?No worries, I'm on holiday epistemological proselytizing sabbatical.  

[Eduardo]

No worries, I'm on holiday epistemological proselytizing sabbatical.  
 I think I had a friend who was prescribed that once. I hope the problem clears up.

[New2vp]

I did what I like to call El Binomial Distributo, and did so without assuming the first royal had already taken place. In
other words, the odds of three royals in any 1000 hands, not the odds
of two following another within that time which wold be even more
common....I guess closer to 1 in 400,000 than 64 billion.

Don't even get Frank started on those things, New2VP!  So who is closer in the odds of 3 royals in 1000, the author of the article or me?I have read Grochowski's columns from time
to time, and although he doesn't purport to be a math wizard, he is
generally above average in that regard.  However, this time he seems to have
missed the mark...by a lot.In this case, I think Mexican math is way, way closer than its Polish relative.  The odds of 3 (or more) royals in 1000 hands, assuming a 1 in 40,000 chance in each hand, is 392,417 to 1 (approximately ).  My Spanish is way worse than my math, but I think I might call it "la distribución binomial" (instead of El Binomial Distributo), but I should defer to a native speaker since I have never taken a math class in any language but English.  Nevertheless, Eduardo, you are right on to employ the BINOMDIST function, however it translates, and with Excel it is not at all hard to do.Sidenote:  In the article from the Wizard of Odds that Frank mentioned, the WoO employs the oft-used Poisson approximation, which is a holdover from the time when people had to use tables rather than computers to compute probabilities.  There is no reason to use a Poisson approximation when with the same effort you can use the binomial distribution to get a more exact answer.  But he is not the only expert that continues to use this "old school" methodology.(Since Frank is on vacation, I thought I would muddy up the brainwaves a bit)

[faygo]

[Frank Kneeland]

Fortunately you don't have to believe in math. It believes in you.

[faygo]

[QUOTE=faygo]

Fortunately you don't have to believe in math. It believes in you.[/QUOTE]
 That is comforting to know.

[Frank Kneeland]

A youth who had begun to read geometry with Euclid, when he had learnt
the first proposition, inquired, "What do I get by learning these
things?" So Euclid called a slave and said "Give him threepence, since
he must make a gain out of what he learns."
~Stobaeus, Extracts