Here is a passage from _The Biggest Game In Town_ by A. Alvarez:

'A couple of hours earlier, the poker players had briefly lost their poker faces when there were still fifteen of them left and Eric Drache announced that the three remaining tables would be amalgamated into two. The seats would be allocated, Drache said, by drawing cards: red for Table One, black for Table Two, one to eight of each color for the seat numbers. Frank, the floor manager, shuffled and dealt while Drache called out the players' names. Suddenly, everybody began protesting at once: the first four cards dealt were all red. Someone shouted "It's a fix!" and the rest chimed in, demanding a new deal. Patiently, Frank gatherd the cards, shuffled, and dealt again: ace, two, three of clubs.

"Ain't possible!" cried Stu Ungar. "It's five thousand to one against!"

"I don't care if it's five million to one," Frank replied. "That's how the cards came and that's how the seating stays."

     "Right," said Drache.
     "Right," said Jack Binion, the final authority.'

Now it's time to test your intuition. How reasonable do you think it was for the players to request a new deal? Is it that improbable that the first four cards would be the same color? Let's find out.

Question #1:

What are the odds of the first four cards coming red? What about the first four cards coming the same color, regardless of which color?

Question #2:

What were the real odds on the cards coming ace, two, three of clubs on the next shuffle that Stu quote as "five thousand to one against"?

Question #3:

Are the odds better for getting ace, two, three of clubs as the first three cards or are they better for getting the first four cards coming red, shuffling, and then getting the first three cards coming black? Are the the odds of the first 7 cards coming red better than the ace, two, three of clubs coming?

Scroll down to check your work.

Question #1:

What are the odds of the first four cards coming red?

The "deck" consists of 16 cards, 8 red, 8 black, so the odds of the first four cards coming red are:

8/16 * 7/15 * 6/14 * 5/13 =

0.5 * 0.4667 * 0.4286 * 0.3846 =

0.0385

0.0385 * 100 = 3.85%

(100 - 3.85) / 3.85 =

96.15 / 3.85 =

25:1

The odds of the first four cards coming the same color, regardless of which color, are about twice as good however, since we don't care what the first card is:

16/16 * 7/15 * 6/14 * 5/13 =

1 * 0.4667 * 0.4286 * 0.3846 =

0.0769

0.0769 * 100 = 7.69%

(100 - 7.69) / 7.69 =

92.31 / 7.69 =

12:1

Not terribly unreasonable at all.

Question #2:

What were the real odds on the cards coming ace, two, three of clubs on the next shuffle that Stu quote as "five thousand to one against"?

1/16 * 1/15 * 1/14 =

0.0625 * 0.0667 * 0.0714 =

0.0003

0.0003 * 100 = 0.03 %

(100 - 0.03) / 0.03 =

99.97 / 0.03 =

3332:1

Pretty close there Stu.

For the rest of the Quiz visit www.everythingsbusted.com

Read more about Stu Ungar at Gamble Tribune:

• Poker - Hall of Fame
• The Tortured Champion
• All About Poker from the Coach
• The Inside Straight. Proposition Bet in Stuey Offers Many Lessons
• Best selling movie: STUEY film about Stu Ungar, greatest poker player of all times
• Phil Hellmuth - Life at the High-Stakes Table
• Poker greats. World series of poker champions
• Stu Ungar Odds Quiz from The Biggest Game in Town
• NO LIMITS: POKER’S WORLD SERIES

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