This particular version is NS, non-suited. It has a ...

The term bandit evokes images of the old west and a masked man on horseback, six-shooter in hand, riding away from the bank he just robbed. In poker a bandit is defined a little differently but takes your money just the same.

A bandit is a starting hand containing a 7, 8, or 9 and will usually result in the loss of money. They are trap hands, often appearing to be profitable, but in the long run, will cost you money.

Bill Boston portrayed the Ac-2d-9h-Ks as a bandit. Let's take a look at it.

This chart (Not Shown) shows the profitability for all the various ways this starting hand may be suited. This particular version is NS, non-suited. It has a net win of $0.03. This hand, thanks to the A-2, isn't a loss. I would also recommend staying away from the suited version of this hand, although double suited versions of this hand are definitely playable.

If we replace the nine with any other bandit, we would still have a starting hand with a net win of less than a dollar. Replacing the nine with any non-bandit increases our net win to a minimum of $3.02 and a high of $23.69.

The next hand that Bill Boston portrays is the 6c-7d-8s-9h. This hand is a total loser and should be mucked. If you should play this hand from the big blind in an un-raised pot, be extremely leery of continuing even if you hit a queen high or jack high straight, as you may be drawing dead. While this combination of all bandits may form a low, that low will definitely cost you more than you win.

Here is a simple rule to memorize: Except for 6-7-K-K, when the lowest card in your hand is a bandit or a six, one pair double suited (1PDS), is does not yield a net win of over a dollar. The 6-7-K-K double suited returns a net profit of $1.95. The other three profitable hands range from a fractional penny to $0.74 for 9-9-K-K.

If we broke all the starting hand down into two categories, those contain a bandit and those that do not we would have 4,220 starting hands that do not contain a bandit, (7, 8, 9) and 7,775 that contain at least a single bandit. Nearly 64.8 percent of all starting hands contain a bandit. With almost two thirds of the starting hands containing bandits, the real questions are, (1) are they all unprofitable and (2) is the distribution of profitability different between the two classes?

Starting hands without a bandit comprise 35.2 percent of all starting hands, for a total of 4,220. Of those starting hands 27.2 percent, or 1,160, are profitable, while 3,060 are not. The average win for the group is $1.62. While that doesn't sound like much, almost two thirds of the starting hands are unprofitable!

Of the bandits, 774 of the 7,775 starting hands are profitable or 10 percent. On average, they lose $0.61. Here is another interesting number. The average of the winning bandit hands is $6.35 while the average net win of the starting hands without a bandit is $9.25. If you only played the winning hands from each group you would win more playing those that do not contain a bandit.

So which bandit is the worst? Is it the nine which cannot be used to form a low? The nine has the least number of profitable hands, 192 as listed in the chart on the left (Not Shown). The lower the rank of the bandit, the greater the number of starting hands that may be formed. The eight with 3,275 starting hands is the same as the seven and less than the nine and has a net loss of $0.71, exactly ten cents per hand more than the nine, and is 16.4 percent worse than the nine. The eight has 2,982 unprofitable hands, while the seven has only 2,955 with the same number of combinations. Based upon the chart, the eight is the worst of the bandits, not the nine. In fact the seven is even worse then the nine. That renders the nine the best of the bandits and not the worst.

Next time I'll delve into play after the flop. I wish to thank all of you for ordering my book. There remains a small quantity still available.

So what have we learned? The bandits are bad news for your poker bankroll. The worst of the bandits is the eight and not the nine, as widely believed.



Four of a kind-A hand which consists of four cards of the same rank.

Fours-A pair of fours.

Forced Bet-This is a mandatory bet which may take the form of a blind, missed blind, ante or bring-in amount.

Four Card Straight-A hand consisting of four sequential cards.

Sam Mudaro, BA, MBA, is a practicing tax accountant and financial executive with 35 years of analytical business expertise. He uses simulation software to analyze and develop strategies for Omaha/8 and other forms of poker. Reach Sam at: realguru2003@yahoo.com.