I decided to do some calculations on some of the hypothetical variants of mahjong that shows up in the Gambling Legend series. From the story as described, one guy gets to play basically twice as much hands, and I don't know much about mahjong so I decided to see what happens if you can play twice as many hands in say, Texas Hold'Em. Let's say you get 4 cards in the hole instead of 2, then you have 9 choose 5 hands versus 7 choose 5 hands, which if my math works out correct is 6 times the number of possible 5 cards hands. So the guy with 4 cards has a 6/7 chance to win every hand (his advantage is bigger earlier the rounds but that's if it goes all the way) or about 85%, which is pretty close to starting every hand with pocket aces.
So let's say you're supposed to write a story or direct a movie or whatever that involves some premise like this. Can you even do it if you know the subject you're talking about even on a rudimentary level? I don't know much about Texas Hold'Em besides what they show on ESPN but it's hard for me to imagine how you could possibly write about such ridiculous odds like that. I mean if I get paid a lot of money for doing this sure I can make some stuff up but there's no way I can take this seriously.
And yet let's say you losing 3 All-ins causes you to lose, that's like losing equivalent 3 pocket aces in a row. I'm sure that's got to happened to somebody in the main event in WSOP (not drawing 3 pocket aces in a row, but losing all 3 of them) and nobody would think that'd be outrageously unbelieveable. Ignoring the fact that someone who plays with 4 cards will probably never go all in on anything that looks remotely dangerous, the odds needed to overcome such an advantage probably happened in WSOP main event all the time. After all every year you see someone win the main event that looks at best above average out of a field of thousands and winning some ridiculous hands, and that's clearly real. So why is it you can watch something like WSOP main event which in some sense is more unbelievable than the fakest story out there? I guess you can say truth is stranger than fiction, but seeing these incredible beats in WSOP main event isn't something nobody would believe in the first place. It might be strange but clearly people do believe what they see.
Maybe authors should look at the real thing (or at least equivalent of) and see where all the freak incidents appear, and then fiction might sound less, well, fiction. Why is it we can believe Reggie Miller score 8 points in 9 seconds but if you see it in a movie or a book you'd say no way this is real? I guess that's stranger than fiction indeed and hard to believe without seeing it in person, but then let's take say LeBron scoring 25 points in a row in one of the playoff games to beat the Pistons. That's definitely something that's possible for a playe that looks downright unstoppable at times so it's not a 'stranger than fiction' deal and we believe that, but we won't believe it in fiction? Or maybe it's just because most people who write about these things do a very poor job at convincing us of these environments? Everyone knows in real life Lebron is in some ways more ridiculous than the generic manga supervillian (Shaq says playing with Lebron is like playing a video game) so nobody is actually surprised to see people just bounce off him like dominoes. Yet in the world of fiction where technically you can have people of arbitrary power you want, you'll be hard pressed to find someone who dominates his profession as much as Lebron does in real life!
So let's say you're supposed to write a story or direct a movie or whatever that involves some premise like this. Can you even do it if you know the subject you're talking about even on a rudimentary level? I don't know much about Texas Hold'Em besides what they show on ESPN but it's hard for me to imagine how you could possibly write about such ridiculous odds like that. I mean if I get paid a lot of money for doing this sure I can make some stuff up but there's no way I can take this seriously.
And yet let's say you losing 3 All-ins causes you to lose, that's like losing equivalent 3 pocket aces in a row. I'm sure that's got to happened to somebody in the main event in WSOP (not drawing 3 pocket aces in a row, but losing all 3 of them) and nobody would think that'd be outrageously unbelieveable. Ignoring the fact that someone who plays with 4 cards will probably never go all in on anything that looks remotely dangerous, the odds needed to overcome such an advantage probably happened in WSOP main event all the time. After all every year you see someone win the main event that looks at best above average out of a field of thousands and winning some ridiculous hands, and that's clearly real. So why is it you can watch something like WSOP main event which in some sense is more unbelievable than the fakest story out there? I guess you can say truth is stranger than fiction, but seeing these incredible beats in WSOP main event isn't something nobody would believe in the first place. It might be strange but clearly people do believe what they see.
Maybe authors should look at the real thing (or at least equivalent of) and see where all the freak incidents appear, and then fiction might sound less, well, fiction. Why is it we can believe Reggie Miller score 8 points in 9 seconds but if you see it in a movie or a book you'd say no way this is real? I guess that's stranger than fiction indeed and hard to believe without seeing it in person, but then let's take say LeBron scoring 25 points in a row in one of the playoff games to beat the Pistons. That's definitely something that's possible for a playe that looks downright unstoppable at times so it's not a 'stranger than fiction' deal and we believe that, but we won't believe it in fiction? Or maybe it's just because most people who write about these things do a very poor job at convincing us of these environments? Everyone knows in real life Lebron is in some ways more ridiculous than the generic manga supervillian (Shaq says playing with Lebron is like playing a video game) so nobody is actually surprised to see people just bounce off him like dominoes. Yet in the world of fiction where technically you can have people of arbitrary power you want, you'll be hard pressed to find someone who dominates his profession as much as Lebron does in real life!
