ESPN goes 0 for 2 on its "facts" this week

A few weeks ago, I had an out-of-town visitor who was watching other things on TV during ESPN's World Series of Poker broadcasts, so instead I downloaded them from an online site of questionable legality. Since then, I've taken to doing it that way every week. I don't have a fancy, modern HD television set, so watching the shows on my computer gives me higher resolution (and the wider screen version). Also, my computer speakers are better than my TV speakers. (In case you couldn't figure it out, I spend a lot more time in front of the computer than in front of the TV.) And as an added bonus, somebody else has already clipped out the commercials this way! It's just better all around.

However, until tonight, I was unable to do screen captures of the "poker facts" that ESPN has been inserting lately. Tonight I discovered the key: you have to disable "hardware acceleration" in the video player. Then screen capture software works normally. (This is another of those baby steps toward something like actual technical competence for me.) So with that overly wordy introduction, here's the first of this week's ESPN poker "facts":





But, as with most of the previous ones in the series, this turns out to be wrong. There are 1326 different starting hands in hold'em (because C(52,2) = 1326). (I'm giving them the assumption that they're talking specifically about hold'em here, because the number is obviously different for Omaha or stud-type games.) How many of them have one ace? Well, each of the four aces can be combined with any of the 48 non-aces in the deck, so there are 4 x 48 = 192 starting hands that contain one ace. 192/1326 = 14.48%. Not 14.93%

It seems clear that once again ESPN just isn't being careful about matching its statements with its numbers. Apparently they included the 6 additional starting hands that contain two aces. That makes a total of 198, and 198/1326 is indeed 14.93%.

But you can see for yourself that the wording of the statement is "one Ace," not "at least one Ace." Furthermore, the voiceover accompanying the graphic explicitly said "just one ace."

That makes ESPN 0/1 so far for the week.

But viewers were treated to another "poker fact" in the second hour:



Apparently my previous critiques have sensitized some readers to be watching out for errors, because before I got a chance to watch the shows tonight, two people had already emailed me, pointing out that ESPN got this one wrong, too. One of them even posted it in his own poker blog, giving me a little shout-out for having started the trend: see here.

(Incidentally, "Mr. Subliminal" wonders why I wasn't all over this the instant it hit the air. Because there are tourists to be fleeced, that's why! I like poker on TV as much as the next guy, but it ain't my highest priority in life. I'm usually in a poker room when the show is first on, and often don't watch it until a few days later in the week. You might notice that the first post on this subject was done on a Saturday. I get to it when I get to it. If that means somebody else scoops me on ESPN's screwups, well, I'll double my Prozac dose and keep the sharp knives out of reach, lest the shame overwhelm me.)

Fortunately, I don't have to do any work on this one, because I tackled the whole "worst hand in poker" myth reasonably thoroughly last year. See this post, as well as the comments attached to it, where another important point on the subject is made.

This time, ESPN's claim isn't so much demonstrably wrong as it is incomplete. The Reader's Digest condensed version of that old post is this: Deuce-seven offsuit is the worst starting hand in hold'em against a full table of random/unknown hands. But it's not the worst hand in heads-up play (and may not be the worst in other short-handed situations, such as three players--but I haven't checked the math on that), and even at a full table is often not the worst against specific hands that opponents might have.

Nevertheless, it would have been plenty easy for ESPN to add a little more specificity to its statement, and thereby change it from being questionable to being definitely correct. For its failure to do so, and what I think is a clear error on the problem noted above with the "fact" in the first hour of the show, the network gets a solid "F" for this week in my grade book, going 0 for 2 attempts.