Nate Silver Poker
Nate Silver is competing the $2 million Aussie Millions poker tournament against the top 20 poker players in the world at Crown Casino, which concludes on Sunday. Originally published as What poker teaches you about life Jump back to top. Silver, a former management consultant and professional poker player, got into the political-forecasting business in 2007, after growing frustrated by coverage of the Democratic primary on cable. Casino Season 2019-2020 1A 800/400-800 Jane Hitchcock vs. Nate Silver Main Tour WPT Maryland at Live! Casino Season 2019-2020 1A 300/200-300 The Numbers Add Up for Nate Silver Main Tour WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Season 2018-2019 2 1,500/1,000-1,500.
Nate Silver Poker
The 2019 World Series of Poker is over. The same night that Hossein Ensan won the Main Event, Carl Shaw won the 89th and final event of the Series, $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em. There were 89 winners at the World Series of Poker (91 if you count the trio that won the Tag Team event separately), but there were a hundred thousand-something people who did not win tournaments. As the Main Event was getting underway, famed statistician, founder of FiveThirtyEight.com, and once avid poker player Nate Silver* tweeted a list of the ten “major causes of death in a poker tournament,” a clever list that spurred some fun conversation.
He described the list as not specifically having to do with a player’s bust-out hand, but rather the hand or condition any time in a tournament “that most contributes to your demise.” Here is Silver’s list:
a. Lose a big flip (i.e. AK vs JJ)
b. Get the money in as a favorite but get sucked out on
c. Get coolered (run your strong hand into an even stronger hand)
d. Make a hero call but the opponent has it
e. Make a big naked bluff that doesn’t work
f. Make a big semi-bluff that doesn’t get there
g. Call with a draw because of pot odds and don’t get there
h. Get pot-stuck over multiple streets (either as bettor or caller) with a medium-strength hand
i. Be card dead / get blinded down
j. Make a big fold to cripple your stack and the lose the rest by one of the other methods
It is possible to come up with additions to the list, but they are almost always going to be version of one of the above or a combination of more than one of the above.
Where the Final Hand of the 2019 WSOP Main Event Fits In
Nate Silver at the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown in April 2019Photo credit: WPT via flickr
If we go back to the final hand of the 2019 WSOP Main Event, Dario Sammartino’s tournament death, in this case his final hand, is option (f) from Nate Silver’s list, “Make a big semi-bluff that doesn’t get there.”
Sammartino had 8-4 of spades and the board read T-6-2-9 with two spades when he made his all-in move. He didn’t have made hand, but instead was on a semi-bluff. Even if he was behind (which he most certainly was, as Ensan had pocket Kings), he still had plenty of flush and straight outs to win the hand; Sammartino had about a one in four shot.
One could also make the argument that the moment was partially point (h), “Get pot-stuck over multiple streets (either as bettor or caller) with a medium-strength hand,” though Sammartino still would have had about 40 big blinds if he did not continue with the hand and a semi-bluff really isn’t a “medium-strength hand.”
Sammartino got into the situation he was in about 80 hands earlier, as he was either close or leading for a while heads-up before Ensan pulled away. It is hard to pinpoint a “cause of death” if looking at it from that perspective.
Pick Your Poison
After his top ten list, Silver followed up with the question, “Also, which is the “best” way to lose? (i.e. the one you feel least tilted about afterward). Which is the worst way?”
That elicited a boatload of responses and the interesting thing is that many of them were polar opposites of each other. For instance, @JonLawson32 said, “Getting coolered always pisses me off,” but @peterthomasgct went with, “KK vs AA preflop is probably ‘best’”
Here is another conflicting pair:
“Worst way is being a 95% favorite when money is in and then getting runner-runnered” (@tafkokints)
“Sucked out on is the ‘best’ way to lose.” (@greggentry1)
A lot of people said that they can deal with making the right move but having a bad result. I suppose I can see that, but for me, personally, it’s nauseating to get it in with the best hand only for my opponent to hit a miracle river. I suppose later I can feel good about how I played, but it’s extremely painful in the moment and I end up playing the “what if” scenarios in my head for quite some time.
I hate getting coolered, too. I know many poker players are comfortable knowing that getting it all in with, say, Kings versus Aces pre-flop is nearly unavoidable, but I when that situation would happen, I would always think to myself that I should have been able to see it coming and fold. It’s so easy to convince oneself that your opponent is raising and re-raising pre-flop with Queens when it should be so obvious that he or she has Aces.
Beyond the shock and vomit-inducing rage that getting two-outed or similarly sucked out on causes, for me the worst is probably just going card dead and/or never hitting flops. You slowly fade away in the tournament and just don’t end up having any fun. I feel like there was nothing I could do, while at the same time kicking myself for not reading my opponents well, making some moves, and creating my own luck.
On the flip side, if someone just outplays me, like my 10-year old did the other night, I can tip my cap, sleep fine at night, and wake up determined to be better.
*For all I know, he is still an avid poker player, but he seems extremely busy with other things nowadays.
Lead photo credit: WSOP Facebook page
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Nate Silver, a former online poker pro, took some serious heat in 2016 because his polling model was off on the presidential election. Entering this year’s Election Day, many called for him to quit his job at FiveThirtyEight on the assumption that he would be wrong again. But it appears that he was, in fact, spot on with projecting Joe Biden to become the 46th President of the United States.
President Donald Trump (Republican) and Biden (Democrat) squared off Tuesday for the right to become the next president. The results, however, are still being calculated, as mail-in and absentee ballots were counted late.
On Election Day, throughout most of the evening, it appeared Trump was destined to claim re-election. He was pulling ahead in nearly every crucial swing state, with huge leads in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. But late in the night, things shifted the other way.
Trump went from a -775 heavy favorite at the online sportsbooks to a big underdog within a couple of hours. That’s because the mail-in ballots, and there were millions of them across the country, began being counted, and they heavily favored Biden.
In Pennsylvania, for example, although Trump led at one point on November 3 by as many as 700,000 votes, many anticipated the mail-in ballots would eventually put Biden over the hump.
Former poker pro sitting pretty
In 2016, Silver gave Donald Trump a 30% chance to beat former First Lady Hillary Clinton. After Trump won, the limit hold’em specialist took a verbal beating from Trump supporters for being wrong (even though he wasn’t technically wrong) and even some Democrats.
This time around, he gave Trump just a 12% chance at re-election. His Twitter feed was flooded with Trump supporters trash talking him, telling him he’s going to have to find a new line of work after his polling model at FiveThirtyEight is again wrong. They continued the harassment during Election Day when it appeared Trump was headed towards re-election.
Nate Silver Poker Hendon
But now it seems like Silver is the one who will get the last laugh. Biden appears to have the election locked up after mail-in ballots put him over the top in Georgia and Pennsylvania, and he’s pulling ahead in Nevada and Arizona. At this point, as of Friday morning, it appears Biden will have a minimum of 289 electoral votes. To win the election, a candidate needs to reach 270 electoral votes. And that doesn’t even include Biden’s likely wins in Nevada and Arizona, good for another 17 inevitably meaningless EC votes.
President Trump, however, doesn’t appear ready to concede anything. In fact, he may never do so. The former reality TV star has publicly accused the Democrat party of committing voter fraud but without evidence. He claims he won the election fair and square but illegal mail-in ballots at the last minute helped Biden secure a bogus victory. There is no evidence of this claim.
Biden hasn’t officially won the election, so Silver can’t gloat just yet. But with the former vice president taking over the leads in Pennsylvania and Georgia with only a few votes still to count, the path to re-election for Trump appears to be closing. Take a bow, Mr. Silver.
Nate Silver Poker Player
Featured image source: Flickr