Entertainment desk
< April 17	<< Mar \| April \| May >>	April 19 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Entertainment Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

April 18

Reliable source for UK pop charts?

Hello WP:RD/E people.
I recently started Ghost Dancing (Simple Minds song). According to the Once Upon a Time (Simple Minds album) article, it reached #13 in the UK charts. I haven't been able to find a reliable source for this assertion. Is there a reliable online source for UK charts?

Hey, I like Simple Minds, at least in their mid-1980s pomp. Yes, I know, got a bit preachy and all. But they took their name from a line in Bowie's The Jean Genie, and the wonderfully wonderful Cocteau Twins got their name from a Simple Minds song – that's gotta count for something, yeah?
Come to think of it, there's a lot of great tracks from the 1980s and 1990s that don't have articles. Remember when Raw Like Sushi was the soundtrack in every clothes boutique? (Hmm… come to think of it, I can't actually remember when I stopped giving a damn about fashion). "Manchild" and other charting singles don't have articles.
Kids these days, what with Taylor Smith and One Dimension or whatever, they don't know what good music is, I tell you, etc, etc.

Back on topic: is there a reliable online source for UK charts? --Shirt58 (talk) 11:08, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

See UK Singles Chart and the website for The Official Chart Company (which Radio 1 uses for their statistics). According to this page on their site, "Ghost Dancing" did indeed reach #13 on 15 November 1986. Tevildo (talk) 20:26, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

W00T, perfect WP:RD article building assistance - thank you so much Tevildo!

I do note that my Taylor Smith and One Dimension jokes were not addressed. Kids these days, they don't know what good WP:RD satirical comments are, I tell you, etc, etc.

Now included in the article

--Shirt58 (talk) 11:57, 19 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I rather imagine that "w00t" will mark one out as a member of the older generation these days, irrespective of one's taste in popular music. Tevildo (talk) 20:20, 19 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"w00t" is a marker of my age? Aaaaaaaaaaargh! {{tag:repeating characters}}.

--Shirt58 (talk) 12:23, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Young persons, as I understand it, are permitted to like the popular music of 30, 40, and 50 years ago (although as John Peel once said, it's as if people of our generation were making comparisons between our contemporary music and the Savoy Orpheans), but using slang that was popular 20 years ago is decidedly infra dig. But I'm not an expert in this field. Tevildo (talk) 21:31, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Six-card poker

The standard 5-card poker has the following hands:

Pair
Two pairs
Three-of-a-kind
Straight
Flush
Full house (3 cards of one rank plus 2 of another)
Four-of-a-kind
Straight flush
Royal flush

Now suppose we had a 6-card poker game. We could add the following hands:

Three pairs
Two threes
Full hotel (4 cards of one rank plus 2 of another)

What order would these hands be in?? (The above hand list of 5-card poker hands is in order by how difficult it is go get them; I'm asking where the new hands a 6-card poker hand could also contain if they were to be ordered by difficulty together with the above list.) Georgia guy (talk) 14:34, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

How do you handle the existing hands which involve 5 cards (straights and flushes)? That is, in the new game does a "flush" require all six cards to be of the same suit, or just five cards with an off-suit kicker, or would these be treated as two different hands (with very different ranks)? Incidentally, I would also like to suggest "duplex" as the term for two sets, by analogy with a "full house". TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:46, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The straight and flush require all 6 cards to be in sequence and of the same suit respectively (the straight flush requires both.) But the full house still requires just 3 cards of one rank and 2 cards of another; note how the above term "full hotel" differs; it's 4+2 as opposed to 3+2 for the full house. Georgia guy (talk) 14:48, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In which case you may need to reorder the ranks of the existing hands, since you've actually eliminated the straights and flushes and replaced them with new six-card definitions. (For example, your new "flush" becomes significantly more difficult to draw, whereas a full house becomes significantly more likely. I don't know that their rank order likelihood would be swapped, but I wouldn't assume it stays the same, either.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:02, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This might be of help though maybe not. My understanding is the winning hands do not change with the number of cards dealt. At least they don't when playing Seven-card stud. Of course there may well be local variants that do include the hands that you are mentioning but I haven't seen them at any casinos in my neck of the woods - yet :-) MarnetteD|Talk 14:54, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Actually that's not true. For example, in three card poker, a straight is harder to make than a flush, while in four card poker, three of a kind beats a flush. The OP (or somebody else) would have to calculate the probabilities of the various new hands to arrive at an accurate ordering. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:21, 19 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

straight flush	$4\cdot 9$	36
"full hotel" (4+2)	$13\cdot 12\cdot {\binom {4}{2}}$	936
two triples	${\binom {13}{2}}\cdot {\binom {4}{3}}^{2}$	1248
flush	$4\cdot {\binom {13}{6}}$	6864
four of a kind	$13\cdot {\binom {12}{2}}\cdot 4^{2}$	13728
straight	$9\cdot 4^{6}$	36864
three pair	${\binom {13}{3}}\cdot {\binom {4}{2}}^{3}$	61776
full house	$13\cdot 12\cdot {\binom {4}{3}}\cdot {\binom {4}{2}}\cdot 11\cdot 4$	164736
three of a kind	$13\cdot {\binom {4}{3}}\cdot {\binom {12}{3}}\cdot 4^{3}$	732160
two pair	${\binom {13}{2}}\cdot {\binom {4}{2}}^{2}\cdot {\binom {11}{2}}\cdot 4^{2}$	2471040
one pair	$13\cdot {\binom {4}{2}}\cdot {\binom {12}{4}}\cdot 4^{4}$	9884160

Here's what I get. Now, what if there are eight suits and sixteen ranks? —Tamfang (talk) 03:58, 19 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I wish someone would say they'd checked my work! I just found two arithmetic errors. —Tamfang (talk) 00:07, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

extra suits

As for your "eight suits", what do you think they should be called?? I suggest you use the names spade, heart, diamond, club, star, crescent, clover, and tear. For 16 ranks, just use the numbers 2-16 and have the ace as the only letter card. Georgia guy (talk) 12:44, 19 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Precedents mentioned in our section six-suit decks include red crosses + black bullets, or blue tennis rackets + blue wheels, or red crowns + black anchors. ---Sluzzelin talk 13:23, 19 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, sorry, for eight suits additional suggestions to the standard deck include "red Moons, black Stars, red four-leaved Clovers and black Tears", or "red Roses, black Axes, black Tridents and red Doves", or "gold Crosses and Oracles, blue Castles and Shields". ---Sluzzelin talk 21:56, 19 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And if we allow an 8-suit deck; there would be 2 more kinds of hands not in the table here; five-of-a-kind and six-of-a-kind (5+2 is still not a valid hand because we're talking about 6-card poker.) Georgia guy (talk) 22:48, 19 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(I added a header to mark the sudden break in topic.) Who here remembers "pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, green clovers"? I consider "clovers" equivalent to clubs. Being a heraldry buff, I'd definitely add star and crescent, then maybe fleur-de-lis and cross crosslet fitchy; but I like Georgia's teardrop too. —Tamfang (talk) 23:53, 19 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Those weren't from cards. They were the colors of the marshmallows in Lucky Charms cereal. → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 23:56, 19 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Give yourself a cookie. They're also common heraldic charges (though not in pink or orange), as are lozenges. —Tamfang (talk) 23:59, 19 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I imagine at least a few nerds would buy a deck numbered 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F. —Tamfang (talk) 23:59, 19 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just as there is grand chess and other variants, I can imagine versions of "grand poker": more cards, more possible hands, etc. → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 00:29, 20 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]