Select Page
Poker Forum
Over 1,291,000 Posts!
Poker ForumTournament Poker

unfair chop?

Results 1 to 19 of 19
  1. #1
    Eric's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Posts
    3,458
    Location
    California, USA

    Default unfair chop?

    Chopped last night's home game tournament heads up. I had a huge chip lead but the cash game looked tempting. It was supposed to be but $180 1st and $93 2nd but we agreed on $168 and $105.


    Everyone said I didn't give her enough. How big does my chip lead have to be for this chop to be fair?
  2. #2
    Last edited by Keith; 06-17-2015 at 02:55 PM.
  3. #3
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    Using the above site and setting total chips to 100 gives the percentage of total chips for each player.

    Using nice round numbers, if Eric had 86% of the chips, leaving 14%, then the numbers come out close to $168/$105.

    14% is roughly 1/7.
    So 86% is roughly 6/7 meaning that you'd need to be dominating her in chips by about 6:1 for the split you used.
  4. #4
    Eric's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Posts
    3,458
    Location
    California, USA
    Thanks, MMM.

    Cool, maybe we did it about right. I had more than 4x as many chips as her but less than 10x.
  5. #5
    Eric's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Posts
    3,458
    Location
    California, USA
    Keith, that calculator is pretty cool. I'll have to use it next time...
  6. #6
    Renton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    8,863
    Location
    a little town called none of your goddamn business
    Poker donks are notorious for being terrible at chop math. Your best bet is to just negotiate what they will agree to and don't humor them with actual discussion about fairness and equity.
  7. #7
    Looks pretty fair considering you said you had a massive chip lead, congrats!
  8. #8
    chardrian's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Posts
    5,435
    I agree with Renton. But in a homegame like this one where you will be playing with the same (really bad) players over and over again, it is ok to give up some equity in a situation like this so you can be seen as a "good guy," avoid drama, and to have them keep playing with you in the future.
    http://chardrian.blogspot.com
    come check out my training videos at pokerpwnage.com
  9. #9
    Eric's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Posts
    3,458
    Location
    California, USA
    chardrian,

    You should come up and visit. Bill doesn't have his games anymore but we still have the ones on Tuesdays.
  10. #10
    If she agreed to it I don't see why other people are complaining that it's not fair. She was obviously fine with it.
  11. #11
    Yup, any chop that is agreed to by all parties is fair.
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  12. #12
    Eric's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Posts
    3,458
    Location
    California, USA
    Quote Originally Posted by givememyleg View Post
    If she agreed to it I don't see why other people are complaining that it's not fair. She was obviously fine with it.
    Yeah, I talked to one of the guys at the next game. He said it was actually pretty fair but he just felt like giving me shit for fun.
  13. #13
    nice calculator.. saving to favorites :P
  14. #14
    Often with chops there's factors that you can't put a figure on, like tiredness and perhaps work in the morning. I've held my nerve in negotiations to bag a £2.5k chop in my biggest win, knowing my opp's were more tired than I was and were likely to accept my terms, which favoured me without getting greedy. I think first was in the region of £3.2k and I had just surrendered the chiplead. Third place was happy to take anything better than third prize, he was up way later than he should've been and just wanted it over. He ended up winning the all-in fest after we chopped!

    Point is, there's legitimate reasons why someone might be happy to take an "unfair" chop.
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  15. #15
    There's a lesson hidden in that anecdote... don't talk in the chat about how normally you're in bed hours ago and you have work in four hours. I might cost you equity in future negotiations.
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  16. #16
    Eric's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Posts
    3,458
    Location
    California, USA
    I'm reading The Unfinished Game by Keith Devlin and it made me think about this:


    Pacioli, the man who first wrote about the problem, considered a version in which the game is played until one player has won six rounds, but play is abandoned when the score is 5 to 2. He suggested that the solution is to divide the pot according to the current state of play, namely 5 to 2, but this reasoning is incorrect. The flaw in Pacioli's reasoning was demonstrated in 1539 by the next person to try to solve the problem, his countryman Gerolamo Cardano.

    Cardano noted, correctly, that the appointment of the pot depended not on how many rounds each player had already won (as Pacioli thought) but on how many each player must still win in order to win the contest.
    [pages 16 to 17]
  17. #17
    isnt the second method just inversely proportional to the first method .
  18. #18
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    So the player with 5 needs 1, the player with 2 needs 4?

    The payout goes 4:1 instead of 5:2,?

    Obviously, the player with 5 gets the lion's share.

    ***
    What was the work that Gerolamo Cardano did to come to his conclusions?


    EDIT:
    Oh snap. Here's his wiki.

    The guy was legit with the math skills.
  19. #19
    Eric's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Posts
    3,458
    Location
    California, USA
    Quote Originally Posted by Keith View Post
    isnt the second method just inversely proportional to the first method .
    Not sure. I haven't noticed the book mentioning that as being the case at least through page 60.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •