IT CAN HAPPEN! : 4-6-5 REVISITED

I tip my hat to “Craig” who recently posted the correct solution on how a 4-6-5 trifecta can hit the board in a 6 post Jai Alai game, using Spectacular 7 rules.

When I wrote my simulation program, it was 1988, written in BASIC, and ran on a Commodore 64. Can you say S-L-O-W ? Maybe a better word would be STOPPED, at least by today’s standards. As a result, I chose to run what I considered to be a reasonable statistical sample of around 400,000 games, even though I was aware that in a 8 post game a number such as 5-8-7 was only expected to appear once in every 142,856 games (W.R. Clow Associates). Somehow, I didn’t image having such a statistical oddity

happen In 6 posts, so given the circumstances, running 400 K games would be okay. Obviously, and unfortunately, that resulted in not enough of a sample to show all possibilities. Not that you ever want to play 4-6-5 in that situation, but at least you now know, thanks to Craig, it can come in.

Oh, I forgot to mention my little machine ran a couple of days. Given today’s hardware, those same calculations would run in minutes, if not seconds, and the few million or so simulations needed would be a piece of cake.

Perhaps the irony in this story was that the State of CT did not know 4-6-5 could hit the board either, and argued that it was okay if your number couldn’t hit the board because you still could win via a consultation payoff. Guess they had slow computers, too.

Thanks to all, and my apologies to Jeff “Laca” Conway who gave me the opportunity to write that erroneous, but written in good faith, article. Bobby D.