probability of a downswing.

[young nut]

I was just thinking about this in my head, but I'm not very good at statistics so I thought I would ask you folks.

Lets say a player is running very well in his last 15-20k hands, sustaining a winrate of about 6bb/100 (a well accepted unsustainable winrate) What are this players chances of having a downswing over his next 10-20k hands?

And I guess the reverse of this question would be someone on a downswing of say -1bb/100 for his last 10k hands. What is the probability of an upswing.

Assume that the player is a winning player with over 200k hands to back that up.

FYI: this post is not about me, as I do not have nearly 200k hands and I am not on an up or downswing.

[olavfo]

The probabilities of upswings and downswings are independent of whether you are in an upswing or a downswing at the moment.

Let's say you and I have the same poker skills. You are up 400 BB on the last 10K hands and I am down 400 BB on the same number of hands. Since we're equal players we have the same chance of experiencing an upswing relative to where we are now over the next 10k hands. Also, we have the same probability of experiencing a downswing.

These probabilities can be calculated from your standard deviation.

olavfo