Aces vs. Joker

[UCF THAYER]

In holdem, which hand wins more headsup.
Joker 2, or Ace Ace?

[UCF THAYER]

Does anyone know the answer?
What are the %'s?
How would one figure out the answer?

[Lost Wages]

Does anyone know the answer?

No, because you don't use a joker in hold'em.

How would one figure out the answer?

You would use a showdown calculator like Twodimes (http://www.twodimes.net/poker/) or PokerStove (http://www.pokerstove.com) only they don't have the option to use a joker because, well, you don't use a joker in hold'em. I assume that you are talking about a home game.

Lost Wages

[UCF THAYER]

I'm just asking a theoretical question, and wondering how maybe one would figure it out.
It started with a debate with a friend of mine who said definately the joker and a 2 hand would win by far, and i wasn't so sure. After thinking about it for awhile, i've come to think aa is better slightly.

[Stork]

I haven't done any calculations, but it seems like the aces would be a little better.

[UCF THAYER]

just dealt out 40 hands real quick.
Joker hand won 31-9.
Yikes, my thinking appears to be way off...

[Stork]

40 hands isn't exactly note-worthy.

[UCF THAYER]

agreed, but still, it surprised me.

[Alex Levin]

The board pairs about 50% of the time by the river. Any time that happens, J2 will almost always win because they'll have trips vs. two pair. Plus any time a 2, any 4 to a straight, and any 4 to a flush (3 if it matches the suit of the 2) it wins also. I don't know how often that is, but I would think it is pretty often. Unless, AA hits a set (about 20% of the time), J2 is a huge favorite.

[Ogre]

[ QUOTE ]
just dealt out 40 hands real quick.
Joker hand won 31-9.
Yikes, my thinking appears to be way off...

[/ QUOTE ]

NICE! Only about 999,960 more hands to go to find some true results, keep up the good work!!

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
40 hands isn't exactly note-worthy.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes it is, if the result is 31-9. It is common to tell people they need more data just to get rid of them, but it's not correct here.

The one-tailed significance level is 0.034%, i.e., if it's a toss-up, Joker-2 would win that much or more about one time in 3000. This is a highly significant result.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
just dealt out 40 hands real quick.
Joker hand won 31-9.


[/ QUOTE ]

To add to this, I dealt out 36 hands, 18 suited and 18 unsuited. Joker-2 won 27-9. These were the actual hands made, with the hands won by AA starred:

flush vs. pair
quads vs. 2 pair
3oak vs. 2 pair
straight vs. 3oak
straight vs. pair
*pair vs. pair
flush vs. 2 pair
*3oak vs. full house
3oak vs. two pair
full house vs. 2 pair
flush vs. straight
3oak vs. 2 pair
3oak vs. pair
flush vs. pair
*pair vs. pair
3oak vs. 2 pair
3oak vs. 2 pair
*straight vs. quads
3oak vs. pair
3oak vs. 2 pair
straight vs. pair
full house vs. 2 pair
*pair vs. pair
straight vs. pair
3oak vs. 2 pair
*3oak vs. full house
*3oak vs. 3oak
3oak vs. 2 pair
3oak vs. pair
quads vs. 2 pair
*pair vs. pair
3oak vs. 2 pair
full house vs. 2 pair
*pair vs. 3oak
full house vs. 2 pair
straight vs. pair

I was surprised by how frequently Joker-2 made a straight or a flush, 10 times out of 36.

Combining the two sets of data gives Joker-2 58 wins out of 76, 76.3%. A 95% confidence interval is 65.1%-85.4%. From 76 hands, we don't have a very tight estimate on how frequently Joker-2 beats AA, but we can conclude that it wins much more than 50%.

I'm not sure I want to test this myself, but perhaps just a joker would beat AA.

[daryn]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In risposta di:</font><hr />
18 suited and 18 unsuited

[/ QUOTE ]


was anyone else confused by this? if you have a joker then your hand is always suited.

[reubenf]

I took "suited" to mean the 2 was the same suit as one of the aces.