I've been asked, probably drunkenly, to calculate the odds of an event happening during a particular poker game. Rather than run these numbers by myself, I thought I would share them with the Internet public. Here are the odds that three people playing poker will get pocket aces, kings, and queens respectively. When a player is dealt a card, there are 52 possible cards to receive. After one received the first card, there are 51 possible cards to receive. So,

but the order one receives their starting cards doesn't matter. (i.e. Say one gets the king of hearts for their first card, and the 4 of clubs for their second card. It would be the same result if they got the 4 of clubs for the first card and the king of hearts for the second card.) So we divide the number of starting hands by 2. Thus,

We can represent this in the binomial coefficient for cleaner notation.

This says we have 52 objects, and we choose 2 of them, where the order does not matter. It is equal to the following:

Therefore, for pocket aces there are 4 aces to choose from, followed by another ace. Thus, the probability for the first person to get pocket aces is the following:

or 0.45 %. The odds that the second person will get pocket kings is the following: There are 48 cards left in the deck that are not aces after the first person got pocket aces. We are still choosing 2 kings from a possible 4 kings. Thus:

or 0.53 %. The process is the same for the person getting pocket queens, but with 44 cards now.

or 0.63 %. We must have all these events occur, so we multiply each of these events together to get this percentage:
or
This represents a 0.0000153 % of occurring in our particular Texas hold'em game. If one didn't care about who got what hand (i.e. if one only cared that AA, KK, and QQ were drawn at the same time, but not about which players got particular cards, we would multiply this percentage by 3.) The probability of getting this event would be 0.0000458 %.

In case you were wondering, in a six-person game, the probability of the person holding QQ to end up facing an opponents holding KK or AA are as follows: Since we know that the person holding QQ already has two known cards (The two queens), the calculations are similar to the previous ones, with each probability of getting AA and KK occurring out of the total known hands. Thus,

or 0.980 %. Since there are five opponents, each opponent has this probability of having AA or KK. So,

or 4.90 %. The probability of a person holding QQ to face two opponents having AA and KK in a six-person game is 0.091 %. The probability of a person holding KK to face a person holding AA in a six-player game is 2.4%.

When it comes to the odds of winning, a person holding AA versus any pocket pair has an 82% of winning the pot. When the person holding AA is against two players each holding pocket pairs, it goes down to 67.24%. For the person holding KK, his chances of winning against someone with AA and QQ are 26.86%. Finally, for the poor person holding QQ against players with AA and KK, his chances of winning are just 3.24% with the remaining 2.66% dedicated to various flushes and straights possibilities.

I believe these are correct, but if you have qualms with the results, or believe I made a mistake, then feel free to drop me a line and we can nerd out about them. If you are a girl and find these calculations tantalizing, then you can also email as well, preferably with pictures. 

In an announcement that is sure to please geeks everywhere, 'World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King' was officially released as of last Thursday. If you are a devoted reader of this very fine website, you undoubtedly knew that this was announced over a year ago by our very own Dan. The ironic thing, or a word like that, is Dan doesn't even have the Internets, and thus has no ability to even play this expansion pack. Therefore, the only person I know who was excited for this release can't actually enjoy it. On the other hand, I could be playing it right now, yet I don't care to in the least. Ain't that a shame?

I've gone over this numerous times, but I am completely lacking in the geek knowledge. I only have the most general of ideas about Dungeons & Dragons, and World & Warcraft. I watched Dan play WoW for about five minutes. He had on the full headset and was talking to people. He was either playing WoW or was doing tech support for Dell. Dan and a group of orcs, or mages, or goblins – I forget – were battling a giant flying dragon that consisted of nothing but a skeleton with a fire burning inside it. It kept flying around and kicking ass, and then Dan died. The end. He basically paid fifteen dollars a month to get his ass kicked. Instead of fighting a skeleton dragon head-on, he should have just cut off its calcium and vitamin D supply. Then osteoporosis would have taken care of what a group of mages couldn't have. I'm awesome.

I can say that the one good thing about this expansion pack was that all my classes were empty on Thursday and Friday. And not just because it was Thursday and Friday – there were even less people than usual. I can only attribute this to the expansion pack release, or possibly a kegger. Either way, I'm happy. 

Every so often I feel the need to share some of my favorite links with you. I love links, whether they be chain, sausage, or the Adventures of. Therefore, I present to you for your edification three important links that you must check out:

Link the first: Slashdot featured a link to a service that allows one to go straight-to-voicemail when calling someone's cellular phone. Simply call 267-SLY-DIAL, and then enter the phone number whose voicemail you wish to be directed to. In a manner very similar to magic, you will be directed straight to their voicemail. This service should provide never-ending usefulness to someone such as me, because it decreases human interaction. Now instead of talking to people, I can simply convey the necessary information via their inbox. Fantastic. This gives me even more free time to hate on people.

Link the second: MSNBC had an article about a website that has just been launched that allows one to look up the criminal history of any person you so desire. This website is truly the best thing ever. I spent about an hour of my life looking up friends, co-workers, acquaintances, relatives, and my various enemies to see who had speeding, burglary, and rape convictions. Of all the people I looked at, I was surprised to see that some of them had citations; some I was surprised to see that they didn't have any citations, and some I was surprised to see didn't have more than they did. God bless the Internets.

Link the third: this isn't so much a link as it is a flash game. It isn't really even that great of flash game either. I'm not much of a gamer. In fact, I don't generally play video games at all. I do, however, play short flash games that can be solved in a half hour or less to pass the time. I couldn't begin to add up the amount of free Wiis, Xboxes, and Playstation 3s I have won over the years. I have surrendered my soul to Satan, set fire to an orphanage, and impregnated a cow with my seed all to win a free iPod. In any event, this game is basically an advertisement for Twix, where you are trying to get the girl by choosing between two different options in various parts of the game. I know; it's not very exciting. After playing it however, I am left with three questions:

• Wouldn't the girl find it strange that this douchebag carried with him at least four different sets of Twix bars, which he ingested probably within an hour of meeting her?
• Why is every swarthy French guy in movies and entertainment named Francois?
• Why did I waste my time playing this game?

Whatever you may think of the game, it is a perfect microcosm of the world around us. Clearly when faced with decisions of a romantic nature, it is best to lie and invent falsehoods rather than be honest; otherwise you will lose the game/life.

In any event, it did make me want to go buy a Twix bar, which I gave into. Capitalism rules!

Today was my last day of school this term, and in honor of the last day of my complex analysis class, which can best be described as bittersweet (mostly bitter), I have created the following image. I normally would tell you not to cheat by looking at the filename, but I don't think it would help you anyway, and no one will find it funny anyhow – not even the people who take complex analysis.

Like I said, it's only amusing to me. If you really care I'll explain it to you.

Gary Gygax, one of the co-creators of the popular role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, has died at the age of 69. His hitpoints were reduced to zero after dealing with a series of health aliments. He will now pass on to another dimension where he will be greeted by Klixar The Healer, who will help him find the mystic sword of Opalem. Perhaps with a lucky roll of a twenty-sided die, a fellow player will donate half his constitution to revive Gygax into the game.

I'm not really sure if any of that makes sense – you'd have to ask someone nerdier than myself. Though I might have my geek card revoked, I've never actually played D&D. I have no idea how it is played, or what one does during a lively game of D&D. All I know is that there are trolls, and knights, and lots of dice. The other interesting note in the story is that Gary Gygax had six children. Apparently level 36 paladins don't believe in condoms. That is all.

So it was just announced yesterday that WotC is going to be releasing D&D 4th Edition. This makes me very angry, and I'll tell you why. The previous edition, 3.5, is less than four fucking years old! People have sunk amazing amounts of cash into the source books, and now they're all going to be obsolete. And it's not like Wizards is hurting for cash, either; they release a new source book every fucking month. I'm not even sure why I give a shit about any of this! None of my old group are into D&D anymore, what with Brandon being on the other side of the world, and Ben with his excuses. Wanting to get laid is not a valid excuse for abandoning a campaign, you mother fucker! When 4th Ed comes out, I'm just going to steal that shit off Bit Torrent. I would have stolen it even if I wasn't angry, but now I'm going to utter profanity while I break the law.

In other, less 'Nerd Rage'-inducing news, 'The Wrath of the Lich King', the second expansion to World of Warcraft, was announced at BlizzCon 07 a week ago. I'm sooo excited. I'm giddier than a pre-teen girl about to see…whatever musical group pre-teen girls are into these days. I don't really know a lot about little girls. That's Burson's area of expertise. The point is, I'm giggling like an idiot, and I can hardly wait. I know none of you care about WoW, so I'll just say that at this early stage, it already has more content that the previous expansion.

Well, I've run out of shit to talk about, so I'll leave you with this, the best music video ever. It's an oldie but a goodie.

</geek fest>

Good morning Americans, standby…for news! Nerd news to be precise, and if you know nerd news than you know that is comes fast and furious, much like their love. I will take these stories off the air and in no particular order.

According to The Slashdot, the last incarnation of Mystery Science Theater 3000 will be making another comeback, but this time they are doing so under the name of The Film Crew. The movie previews they have up look fantastic. However, it just seems lacking without Crow. He was truly one of my favorite characters of all time, and now he's not there. It's like trying to go to a favorite romantic hangout spot after that special someone has left you. You can't be doing that, because it's all weird. Not that I would know. Moving on…

Grand Theft Auto IV has been delayed until 2008, which is cause for concern because it's been over two years since I've been able to rob banks, murder my enemies, and keep my pimp hand strong. You know… in a new Grand Theft Auto game. I do all that stuff on a weekly basis, but sometimes I don't want to leave the house. A man has got to know his limitations.

Here is an in-depth interview with some nerd who is one of the designers of the new Starcraft II game. The original Starcraft was released in 1998. I use to play it on my old Pentium 233 computer. It was awesome. The best race to play as was clearly Protoss. Zerg were so easy to kill that you might as well save your opponent the trouble and off yourself. Terran was okay, but like all humans they were soft and weak. Protoss had permanent cloaking ability, along with shields. Therefore, they were the best. Anyone who disagrees with this assessment is clearly an idiot. QED.

Now perhaps the greatest news that has ever been told, the old Suprnova.org will be returning. The original Suprnova.org was run by one Sloncek, who shut in down because The Man was all up in his grill. He decided to donate the domain to thepiratebay, because clearly they don't a… well, we all know the line from Borat. The best thing about the old Suprnova was that there was absolutely no pornography on it. Now don't get me wrong, I am a fan on said pornography, but it was nice to go to a site and actually find quality uploads without seeing that attractive single girls were available in my area. I know it's hard to find pornography on the internets, since only a couple of those series of tubes are dedicated to smut, and they often get backed up, but I'll make due. Anyway, they have promised they will keep the original design of the site and everything. It's going to awesome.

And now you know… the rest of the story.