Student Seminar Series - July 21, 2006
University of Minnesota
School of Statistics
College of Liberal Arts
Simulating
Quantities of Interest for Five Card Draw Jackpot Poker
Scott
Jackson
Friday, July 21, 2006
1:00 PM, 170
Ford Hall
Minneapolis, East Bank Campus
Refreshments at 12:30 PM
300 Ford Hall
Abstract
In a form of five card draw poker known as Jackpot, the jackpot (a
prize for losing at showdown even though one has a very strong hand) is
opened when any player has a pair of Jacks or better. Redish and Ross
(1967) simulated the probability of the jackpot being opened for a game
of 2-5 players, and using R we run a check on their results. Then using
R we also run simulations to estimate several probabilities of interest
to a player in the game, which can be checked for accuracy by comparing
to known exact probabilites of being dealt various types of hands. Also
discussed is how these results can be adjusted for real life, where the
play of human opponents is not usually formulaic enough to be precisely
predicted by a computer program.