Please be the queen of spades
Dear Mark,
Why is it that every time I'm dealt one card short of the
royal flush, when I draw I never get the card I need? Just
yesterday I was dealt all but the queen of spades, and sure
enough, I got the lousy three of hearts. It makes me believe
the casino controls who and when someone hits a jackpot. Why
can't that queen of spades show up just once? Katherine R.
What do you expect, Katherine? The queen of spades represents
Athena, the Greek goddess of war. Pull out a deck of cards
and look at her closely. She's the only armed queen in the
deck. Even Homer in the Illiad, described her as a fierce
battle goddess who continually intervened on the side of the
Greeks in the Trojan War. Expect her to arbitrate on behalf
of the casino every time.
Seriously, Katherine, I could bore you to tears by trying
to explain how the pseudo-random number generator determines
the cards you will get, but instead, I'll simply describe
the difficulties you're up against when fate blesses you with
four of the five cards needed for a royal flush.
Because there are 2,598,960 possible poker hands using a 52-card
deck, you're going to feel pretty good when your hand is one
card shy of gaming ecstasy. But although the big jackpot appears
to be only one card away, your chances are really only one
in 47 or just over two percent. Another way to visualize its
difficulty is taking a thousand video poker players lucky
enough to start with your proposed hand. A ten of spades,
jack of spades, king of spades, ace of spades and a three
of hearts. Naturally, all in my controlled group will discard
the three of hearts, leaving only 21 mathematically hitting
the royal flush, then 150 flushes, 128 straights, 191 high
pair hands and 510 who think, like you, the big fix is on.
Sorry, Katherine, it's just not as easy as it seems, but keep
trying. Someday Athena may look favorably on you.
Oh, yes, a final thought. In case you want to know what the
remaining better halves of the kings represent? The queen
of diamonds is Rachel, wife of Jacob and mother of the twelve
sons who founded the twelve tribes of Israel. The queen of
clubs is an anagram of Regina, signifying queen. The queen
of hearts is Judith of Bavaria, daughter-in-law of Charlemagne.
And of course, we've already met Athena.
Dear Mark,
I would like to know a little about the four suits and their
rank from highest to lowest. Does one suit on a video poker
machine rank higher than another? Joe C.
Generally no, but occasionally a casino will have a promotion
with designated video poker machines paying higher jackpots
if certain straights, flushes or royals are in a particular
suit. There are also a few video poker machines that pay a
mega-jackpot if you hit a royal flush in a predetermined suit
with cards in sequential order. (Example: 10 of Hearts, JH,
QH, KH and Ace of Hearts.) And what are the possibilities
of hitting a consecutive card royal in a prearranged suit?
Let's just say, Joe, it's easier to hit your New York state
lottery.
Now for some bar stool trivia. Though cards have existed since
the earliest Asian civilizations, France had the greatest
influence on the creation of the modern deck. They eliminated
the major arcana and combined the knight and page, reduced
the size of the deck to 52 cards and simplified the suit symbols
to red diamonds and hearts, black spades and trefoils (clover
leaves). They were produced in mass quantity after Johann
Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1455, and the four
suits reflect the structure of the medieval society. Hearts-priesthood;
spades-nobility; clubs-peasantry; diamonds-the wealthy merchant
class.
By the way, after Gutenberg printed the 1,284-page Gutenberg
Bible on the printing press, the second impressions made were
of playing cards.
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