Poker Articles

Among my family's favorite TV shows is NBC's "Deal or No Deal," hosted by comic Howie Mandel.  My son likes playing a game where it's easy for him to figure out the rules, combined with yelling along with an audience.  My wife loves the interaction between the player and the family members & studio audience telling him or her what to do.  Me, I'm a big fan of watching people incapable of solving rudimentary math problems. I could also mention the gorgeous case-carrying models, but my wife might accidentally read this.

The premise of the game is simple, as is true for most successful television programs.  Twenty-six cases contain dollar amounts between $.01 and $1,000,000.  The player selects a case to start the game and eliminates others from play one at a time, revealing the monetary values no longer in play.  As the game progresses, the show (represented by a "Banker" character, hidden in shadows) offers the player money to quit the game.  The more high-dollar cases in play, the higher the offer.  The game ends when the player takes an offer or eliminates all cases to reveal how much money they won in their selected case.

The mathematics behind "Deal or No Deal" are easy.  At each point in time, the selected case has an expected value, which I'll write as EV(case).  EV(case) equals the sum of all dollar amounts still in play, divided by the number of cases remaining.  If there are five  cases left, with dollar values of $100, $500, $50k, $200k and $500k, EV(case) is a little over $150k ($750,600 / 5).  Typically, the money offered by the show lags 15-25% behind EV(case), getting closer to true value as the game proceeds.  In a game theory world of infinite trials, you quit whenever the offer is larger than EV(case), which usually happens when 4-5 cases are left with big money in more than one.

The point of what I'm calling "The Howie Mandel Principle" is that these are real people, playing a real game.  Game theory provides a perfect strategy, one that shouldn't necessarily be followed when the bright lights of network TV are shining.  Yes, the player may be taking a loss by quitting when the offer is $68k and EV(case) is $77k.  So what?  The housewife from Enid, Oklahoma or plumber from the Bronx will never get another chance to make $68k in one shot.  The fact they're leaving nine thousand dollars of theoretical value on the table is as irrelevant to their decision as their ability to do the math in the first place.

The HMP comes into play in many poker tournaments, particularly when it's time to chop (or not) the big money amongst the last few players.  Like many P5ers, I've made the final table of a major tournament, in my case, one of the monthly $250k events that Paradise Poker used to run.  I'm not a full-time or professional player....making the top 3 in any tournament doesn't happen to me very often.  Paradise didn't offer the ability to make deals, but when we got down to the final three or four, I would have certainly been willing to make the deal.  After the chop was done, I'd like to think I wouldn't worry if I was giving up a little based on chip counts or my poker skill compared to the others left in the game.

The more interesting application of the HMP occurs in an event with a bigger buy-in than a player is used to.  Someone wins a satellite to a WPT event, a P5s rebuy to the WCOOP, or a FPP freeroll to a Sunday Major.  This special event is far beyond anything their bankroll allowed them to play before.  They play the tournament, do well for awhile, but then lose a big pot as the bubble looms in the horizon.  They've got 10 BBs left....do they continue to play super-aggressive, willing to go broke to rebuild a big stack?  Or do they tighten up to hang on until the money?  $15,000 for cashing in the first level of the WSOP Main Event is small change compared to the millions available to first, but considering the alternative of leaving Vegas with nothing, it's a great return on the $123 you spent in a $30 rebuy to get there.

I'm not here to tell you which approach to take: you can either follow the Principle or play your special event like it's any other tournament.  The only advice I can give is to know ahead of time what you're going to do, and execute that strategy with no regrets.  Don't get extremely tight down around the bubble and then complain that you were getting run over by nutjobs who were willing to sacrifice it all for chips.  Don't start out with a win-at-all-costs mindset, only to question yourself and wimp out when it comes time to make the tough decision for all your chips. 

Screw your head on straight before the cards get in the air, do your best, and walk away with your head held high, regardless of the results.  Howie'll be so happy he may blow up a rubber glove on his head, and you will be too.