Would Appreciate Some Help

Hello:

First of all, I enjoy your site and am glad to have the opportunity to consult it; I'm here for book research and have found it very helpful.

Now I have a question that doesn't seem answerable by the posts here. I have a character holding a Dead Man's Hand. He loses to a straight flush after committing an unusual and extremely valuable item to the pot. What I would like to know is how real players regard a Dead Man's Hand so I can evaluate the actions my character (loose-agressive) might realistically take. I understand that many people prefer not to play the Dead Man's Hand because of its associations but, that aside, is it generally considered a strong, middling or other type of hand? My knowledge of poker is still quite thin so I don't know, for example, how often better hands (full house, three of a kind, etc.) usually present themselves in a game. Also, how often a person wins with two pair.

Many thanks to anyone who's able to give me some help with this.

Bookworm

The Dead Man`s Hand (Two Pair, Aces and Eights) is only a middling hand. A straight flush would be much stronger and much more rare.

It is not very likely your character would risk something of outstanding value on Aces and Eights unless he were a reckless player, or in some way misled as to the strength of the opponent`s holding.

Also, I'm assuming the game is 5-card Draw. If it was other games, it would also make a difference.

Thank you both. This is exactly what I was looking for.

Bookworm

btw...... the true deadmans hand, ie: the one WB Hickock was supposedly holding when he was shot was black aces, black 8s and 9d

That`s interesting, Wachin. I knew it was black As and 8s, but didn`t know what the 5th card was.

We determined (actually, I posted a guess, and somebody thought about the same) about 18 months ago, that the average winning hand was something like a pair and a half. So as hands go 2 pair is not something a sane player would usually want to bet the house on. However, poker involves quite a bit of the calculated insanity we all possess and so a 2 pair bet of the house occurs fairly often.

On a scale of 1-100, I'd say 2 pair will win in the 65% range. There are actuary charts of its exact likelihood of winning all over the place, but I don't think I'm too far off.

The game being played will be important, and the read your character has on his villain will play into it as well.

I got all kinds of useless information

aces up is pretty strong in any 5 card game, stud or draw

+1

in a 5 card stud game, I'd be betting as much as I could on aces up

5 card draw..... think 2 pr is a winner 75% or more