Most Mathematically improbable event in casino you have been involved with
Quote: ChampagneFireballPlaying 3-card at Harrah's and almost out of money. Bet remainder and have an extra $5 (if I play) so I put it on on the 6-card $1 million shot. Look at first two cards: four and another four. I play and don't bother looking at next card. Pair is good enough. This is the only time I've bet the 6-card or and only time I've looked at less than my whole hand. I have no chips left.
Dealer has a straight with a 4 in it. I'm bummed, but I win with trips on the 6-card. Dealer turns over my cards, knowing I don't know the last card, and slowly spreads it out. The remaining card is the case 4. I win! 6-card wins!
While getting 3 fours isn't that unlikely, doing it when you need it to beat a straight is, and even more unlikely that you bet the 6-card that hand and get the four fours.
That's a very sweet win. I bet it stands out for you for a long time. The most fun on 3CP is to squeeze, and stop as soon as you have a playable hand. I've gotten some nice jolts off of that, but never one QUITE that good.
Quote: beachbumbabsThat's a very sweet win. I bet it stands out for you for a long time. The most fun on 3CP is to squeeze, and stop as soon as you have a playable hand. I've gotten some nice jolts off of that, but never one QUITE that good.
I like doing that in UTH. Once you see that Ace there's no need to look at the 2nd card; just bet 4x.
Quote: AxiomOfChoiceI like doing that in UTH. Once you see that Ace there's no need to look at the 2nd card; just bet 4x.
Yeah, I do that too. Much fun.
Quote: beachbumbabsThat's a very sweet win. I bet it stands out for you for a long time. The most fun on 3CP is to squeeze, and stop as soon as you have a playable hand. I've gotten some nice jolts off of that, but never one QUITE that good.
Never thought about that. Next time I'm gonna bend the cards midi bac style and yell MONKEY!
Quote: beachbumbabsYeah, I do that too. Much fun.
The great thing about doing this is that it really re-inforces why 4x betting is the right move. So often, there is no drama -- you don't care what the other card is because the ace wins on its own.
And of course it's always fun when you are facing top pair and the other card is also an ace :)
Quote: BuzzardI remember a thread here about somebody not really seeing something because it was so improbable. Well, stuff happens. I remember back when AP was the main source of new about a woman during the Korean war who had a baby on the same exact day he husband was killed in Korea. But that's just the start. She remarried, another military man, she had another baby and on that day her 2nd husband was killed in Vietnam.
But this is my most improbable story. A lumberjack ( really ) in the Northwest bought a $1 ticket and won $100,000 in a Canadaian lottery. A bit of money in the 1970's. He bought a farm and decided to buy a race horse. Put aside $15,000 and then had to go partners to buy a horse for $17,500. Didn't get much of a race horse for that price, even then.
But the horse had a front leg that bent slightly outwards. Could not afford a fancy trainer, so he got a guy who was training steeple chase horses mostly. Damn horse was so clumsy the trainer nicknamed him Baby Huey. Now just getting a horse to the race track is a long shot, let alone winning a race. This horse won first time out. I will skip ahead to the Kentucky Derby.
Very few horses get to that race. Well, Baby Huey, lived up to his name. Banged his head against the starting gate hard enough to start bleeding from the mouth. Still bleeding when he crossed the finish line 1st. Of course he goes on to win the Triple Crown. Something only 11 horses have ever done.
But add a few more zero's to the odds of this happening as he is the only horse to have done it undefeated.
Yes, it's SEATTLE SLEW
But not all fairy tales have a happy ending. His son SWALE won the Belmont and died before the year was out.
He had a daughter named Landaluce. She was voted American Champion Filly in 1982 POSTHUMOUSLY.
Not that I don't believe you Buzz (I know nothing about horse racing), but I find it odd that Seattle Slew's Wikipedia page doesn't mention anything about the clumsiness or Baby Huey nickname.
Quote: ChampagneFireballPlaying 3-card at Harrah's and almost out of money. Bet remainder and have an extra $5 (if I play) so I put it on on the 6-card $1 million shot. Look at first two cards: four and another four. I play and don't bother looking at next card. Pair is good enough. This is the only time I've bet the 6-card or and only time I've looked at less than my whole hand. I have no chips left.
Dealer has a straight with a 4 in it. I'm bummed, but I win with trips on the 6-card. Dealer turns over my cards, knowing I don't know the last card, and slowly spreads it out. The remaining card is the case 4. I win! 6-card wins!
While getting 3 fours isn't that unlikely, doing it when you need it to beat a straight is, and even more unlikely that you bet the 6-card that hand and get the four fours.
Forgive me as I have not played much at tables that have the 6 card bet - what does 4OAK pay? I know the big million dollar jackpot is for a 6-card straight flush, right?
Quote: AcesAndEightsNot that I don't believe you Buzz (I know nothing about horse racing), but I find it odd that Seattle Slew's Wikipedia page doesn't mention anything about the clumsiness or Baby Huey nickname.
That's ONE , Ok
One reason the horse was such a bargain was he was born with a right front foot that curved outward. He naturally swayed to the outside when he ran. Slew's new owners turned the horse over to trainer Billy Turner, who found him so clumsy that he nicknamed him Baby Huey.
https://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/Seattle_Slew.html
Quote: djatcI got a back to back 4oak on video poker, but this probably happens a lot.
You forget about this already? *facepalm*
Mine in the casino probably the dealt Royal I got at Flamingo. Then probably a 20X multiplier at double STP at Margaritaville. Then probably back to back quads at McCarran of all places...I get bored...lol
Online, it's easily getting dealt 75432 in triple draw lowball within 16 hands at the table. Details/math discussed in thread below.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=36299004&postcount=17
Quote: BuzzardQuote: AcesAndEightsNot that I don't believe you Buzz (I know nothing about horse racing), but I find it odd that Seattle Slew's Wikipedia page doesn't mention anything about the clumsiness or Baby Huey nickname.
That's ONE , Ok
One reason the horse was such a bargain was he was born with a right front foot that curved outward. He naturally swayed to the outside when he ran. Slew's new owners turned the horse over to trainer Billy Turner, who found him so clumsy that he nicknamed him Baby Huey.
https://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/Seattle_Slew.html
Thanks Buzz. I believe you now.
1. I lost 22 hands in a row at blackjack at Fitzgeralds in Tunica. Henry Tamburin was at the table with me; he was comforting. Truly depressing.
2. I lost 72 turns with the dice in a row in a single week of play at Horsehoe in Tunica (yes, yes, even with my great dice control skills and with many students present --- VERY embarrassing).
3. I threw eleven 8s in twelve throws at Golden Nugget --- my best repeating-number sequence at craps; had Jerry "Stickman" and one student and several people who knew me at the table. I felt like a real big shot!
4. Being on Captain's 147 roll. My most memorable gambling experience.
5. Being on my own roll of 89 at off-strip casino. Damn good day. Got trespassed after that one. (I've actually sneaked back in with change of staff some years later.)
6. My wife the Beautiful AP hitting both the boxman and stickman --- one die for each! She stopped shooting dice after that.
7. With my wife, being threatened at gunpoint in one Las Vegas casino by a security guard --- I write about this, and name the casino, in my new book coming out in May.
8. Being tailed on Las Vegas Strip by (I guess) a casino manager from Circus Circus. Almost ended in fist fight (I was tough in those days.)
9. Seeing pit boss Francis at Claridge in AC jumping onto the table to stop John "Skinny" from shooting.
10. Finding a biased wheel at Rio in the 1990s. Bet table max before they closed the wheel. Others at the table ignored the "hot" numbers which had been hot all day long.
11. Seeing a man lose 1.4 million in less than an hour at Venetian in Las Vegas.
12. Playing at the same table with a sky-high (in every sense of that word) Japanese porno star at Bellagio. He put on a show with three women while he played.
13. Saw "fat-eating alliance" at Rio eating breakfast, lunch and dinner buffet on same day --- continuously.
14. Being banned with 16 other dice controllers at Bally's in Las Vegas. We were spread at two different tables.
15. Having two security guards with me 24 hours each of two days I was doing a television show at Foxwoods. They were outisde my hotel room during the night.
16. Saw Jerry "Stickman" throw 22 (or 23 --- I'm too lazy to check my notes) sixes out of 28 throws at Grand (now Harrah's) in Tunica.
17. Saw Dominator call the exact pips on several throws in a row while being filmed at Golden Nugget for show I wrote for travel channel.
18. Beating three casinos in dice control versus the casinos on A&E show.
There are more but you can see in 25 years of continuous play --- you experience a lot!
Frank Scoblete author of "Confessions of a Wayward Catholic"
Quote: AxiomOfChoiceI think that the key point is that observing an event that is well outside 5000:1 is no big deal. Especially for people who gamble all the time. I once got a dealt royal flush, which is 650,000 to 1. So what? There are people (who play lots of video poker) who probably average several of these a year.
I think that the point of the shuffled deck is that every event that we see is unlikely, even if it's not notable. When I play a video poker hand and I get the 3s4d8h9cKs before the draw, that is an extremely unlikely event. The dealt royal is only special because it pays more (ie, it's more notable, but not more unlikely)
This is why "personally" is in the question because when you add personal experience with mathmatical improbablity...there are some interesting and fun stories. There are people who won 500k on the improbable river card that had only a 5 persent chance of occuring. A one out of 20 hit in itself is not an incredible story....but combining it with the personal experience story behind it.....it is a better story.
Life isnt all about numbers. People who look at life only through the eyes of numbers are generally socially backward. I was looking for personal stories of longshot experiences. Nothing wrong about that.
Like I said...you can chart 52 spins of the roulette wheel and witness it personally, and know that you will never see those same 52 numbers come out in that exact same order for the rest of your life. ...so what. Same with the cards that are in an unknown order in the BJ shoe. Big deal. Thats is a non personal story.Every game of keno....you can look at the board and feel safe that all those exact numbers that came out will never all come out again for a long while. If you did see them all comeout again....you would have a story. But all those examples are a non story...and mathmatical game that has no personality or sense of reality. They are as meaningless as saying that the number of atoms making up the being of the man sitting next to you at BJ is improbable to be duplicated.
It was one of the first times I had ever pressed to the point where I was getting a black chip on every throw. I had $50 4, $75 on the 5 and 9, and $90 on the 6 and 8. Shooter never made the 10 point. Based on what I cashed, it must have been close to 40-50 rolls with no 7.
Quote: endermikeI have been struggling to come up with my own contribution to this thread. I think I have led a rather unremarkable life at casinos. (which may be remarkable in itself)
As I alluded to earlier, the most remarkable thing I've done in a casino is get a new game into it. I'm working hard to make that less improbable going forward. :)
On the other hand, I used to work for a slot manufacturer. Back then I had lots of games in lots of casinos.
There was some sighing going on next to me.
Quote: rxwineCome to think of it, what if two progressive machines hit at the exact same nano second? How are they made to pay out?
Most likely the machines would just roll a die (figuratively) to decide. It will probably never come up since the time tracking on those machines is probably even more accurate than nano second.
When a progressive is hit, the machine communicates with a centralized machine (server?), thus grabbing the amount of $ due for the progressive hit. When two machines communicate with each other, some times there may be an interference (happens with computers on a LAN (local area network)). When that happens, all machines time out for some random amount of time, and once the time out period is over, they try to transmit. If a communication collision occurs again, the time out length increases (exponentially). It's called CSMA/CD.
On the other hand, perhaps the progressive payout is stored locally on your machine. When you hit it, your machine pays you however much $$, then it sends a message to the central machine to reset the progressive to 4000 coins. Or the central machine can check each machine every few ms to see if a progressive has been hit. In either of the two cases where you get paid before the machine communicates with the central machine, both players would get paid the same for the royal. But in the first example, the first and second winner would be based on the number your machine's RNG generated.
Quote: RSPretty sure it's impossible for any 2 machines to tie, although I may be wrong, this is how I imagine the machines work:
When a progressive is hit, the machine communicates with a centralized machine (server?), thus grabbing the amount of $ due for the progressive hit. When two machines communicate with each other, some times there may be an interference (happens with computers on a LAN (local area network)). When that happens, all machines time out for some random amount of time, and once the time out period is over, they try to transmit. If a communication collision occurs again, the time out length increases (exponentially). It's called CSMA/CD.
On the other hand, perhaps the progressive payout is stored locally on your machine. When you hit it, your machine pays you however much $$, then it sends a message to the central machine to reset the progressive to 4000 coins. Or the central machine can check each machine every few ms to see if a progressive has been hit. In either of the two cases where you get paid before the machine communicates with the central machine, both players would get paid the same for the royal. But in the first example, the first and second winner would be based on the number your machine's RNG generated.
I can't imagine they are on the same collision domain for that to occur. With a bank of machines constantly adding to the progressive it would slow things down pretty bad.
Quote: tringlomaneYou forget about this already? *facepalm*
Oh yeah I totally forgot about that.... face palm indeed. I did pull 5oak twice in one session on jokers once.
Jerry "Stickman's" 77 rolls without a seven until he sevened out. This was at Bellagio.
