14 consecutive losses with AA

[SpaceAce]

What are the odds of 14 consecutive losses with AA including six losses to a variety of underpairs (3 KK underpairs)? Assume an average of three people seeing every river. The likelyhood of this is tiny, isn't it?

SpaceAce

[PugX]

I don't know the odds, but I can feel your pain.. /images/graemlins/confused.gif

[dansalmo]

Did you put in the last raise before the flop and bet/raise the flop every time? If not the chances of losing go up.

[SpaceAce]

[ QUOTE ]
Did you put in the last raise before the flop and bet/raise the flop every time? If not the chances of losing go up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hypothetically speaking, yes, I play my big pairs strongly. I don't limp, I don't dick around trying to trap, etc. I specifically didn't say "I lost 14 times in a row with AA" because I want to keep it abstract. I don't want people getting on side debates about online poker being fair or about how poker is all about swings and so on. I just want to know if there is a semi-solid number that can be attached to a streak like the one I described.

SpaceAce

[SpaceAce]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know the odds, but I can feel your pain.. /images/graemlins/confused.gif


[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the sympathy (if, hypothetically, this is happening to me; see above post).

SpaceAce

[miajag81]

Not sure what the odds are, but I figure they're incredibly small. The other day on Pokerstars .25-.50 NL I watched a guy get AA on two consecutive hands and get cracked by a smaller pocket pair on both of them (one by me /images/graemlins/smile.gif ), costing him his entire stack. The chances of AA losing to a smaller pair twice in a row are 18%x18% = about 3%. The chance of actually getting AA 2 hands in a row is much, much smaller. But I'd guess losing with AA 14 consecutive times is even less likely than that rare turn of events.

[Warik]

[ QUOTE ]
The chances of AA losing to a smaller pair twice in a row are 18%x18% = about 3%. The chance of actually getting AA 2 hands in a row is much, much smaller. But I'd guess losing with AA 14 consecutive times is even less likely than that rare turn of events.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the real question we need to answer here is "what are the chances of being dealt AA 14 consecutive times and losing?"

[jdl22]

Let's look at the worst case scenario - you're an idiot and so is everyone else and you're playing 10 man no fold'em hold'em. According to the simulations done at http://poker.worldzonepro.com/nofoldemholdem001020.html you will win with probability .31 and chop with probability .0049 which I will now round up to .005. That means that you will lose with probability .685.

The probability of losing 14 times consecutively is .685^14. This is approximately 0.00500804244350857585
or 5/1000. Hence the odds against would be 995:5 or 199:1.

That is absolute worst case scenario - a full table showing down on all 14 hands. It's interesting that the odds against actually aren't as bad as getting dealt aces on any given hand.

[Duke]

When I first started using pokertracker for online play, I immediately went 0/12 with AA. A few weeks later I started off on a ridicuous run with KK at a specific limit.

Though I would win at other limits and/or sites, one limit at one site was doom for KK. I was 0/21 at one point, 1/22, and then 1/42, before finally being 2/43. It's a piece of mathematical ridiculousness, but just one of those things I had to learn to deal with. Up to around 20 times the number of times I got it was way out of alignment too - I got KK twice as often as usual. If it can happen, it probably has happened to somebody.

In other words: we're lucky, us 2.

~D

[NaobisDad]

To be honoust, I'd rather be dealt AK. More ways of improving and easy to lay down!, easier than AA at least. I tread very carefully when playing big pairs, and that doesn't mean not raising or slowplaying, it means I focus three times more.

AA tends to lose you a lot of money if they're cracked. I had a losing AA streak myself, and the reason was that I fell in love with em everytime. Even when I knew they were beat. I didn't go 14 times, but i did go 7. And that was enough for me to start rethinking how I played them.

Last night however, my favorite AK met up with AA to my right. I was lucky enough that the guy reraised me, and that he was an easy read. Didn't take much to lay AK down.

[SpaceAce]

Thanks to everyone who took time to reply. As I suspected, the chances of going 14 consecutive AA hands without a winner are small even if everyone sees the river which is not the case in my question. I tried the calculation using less players (I did a bunch of Twodimes runs with AA against three random hands to come up with an average AA win percentage) and got a number so infintesimal that I have to assume that either my math is wrong or the average number of opponents seeing the river is higher than three (although many of the "hypothetical" hands happened in no limit games where the field was limited by pre-flop raises).

Also, the question can now be amended to 15 consecutive losses with seven smaller pocket pairs.

An additional question: if you get AA once every 221 hands and the odds are 199:1 against going 14 consecutive AA hnds against ten players without a winner, doesn't that mean that such a streak would be seen once in every 200 sets of 14 AA hands? So, 221*14*200 (14 AA hands dealt 200 times) if we're going against ten players every time, correct?

SpaceAce

[SpaceAce]

[ QUOTE ]
To be honoust, I'd rather be dealt AK. More ways of improving and easy to lay down!, easier than AA at least.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're right about getting away from AK, of course. I'd still rather be dealt AA, though, especially in no limit.

SpaceAce

[SpaceAce]

[ QUOTE ]
Not sure what the odds are, but I figure they're incredibly small. The other day on Pokerstars .25-.50 NL I watched a guy get AA on two consecutive hands and get cracked by a smaller pocket pair on both of them (one by me /images/graemlins/smile.gif ), costing him his entire stack. The chances of AA losing to a smaller pair twice in a row are 18%x18% = about 3%. The chance of actually getting AA 2 hands in a row is much, much smaller. But I'd guess losing with AA 14 consecutive times is even less likely than that rare turn of events.

[/ QUOTE ]

Someone did post a calculation that assumes ten players to the river. That's much higher than the actual number of players seeing the river in my question but it gives a starting place.

SpaceAce

[SpaceAce]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The chances of AA losing to a smaller pair twice in a row are 18%x18% = about 3%. The chance of actually getting AA 2 hands in a row is much, much smaller. But I'd guess losing with AA 14 consecutive times is even less likely than that rare turn of events.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the real question we need to answer here is "what are the chances of being dealt AA 14 consecutive times and losing?"

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry, I might have been unclear. I meant that the AA hands were dealt over (I assume since I haven't checked the exact number of hands this hypothetical streak happened over) the normal course of hands and time but all 14 lost including many more than expected to underpairs.

SpaceAce

[Bozeman]

The approximation of all hands seeing the river is not as far off as you think, since the hands that make it to the river are more likely to be the ones that beat you. So approximating a game where 3 players on average reach the river by a hot and cold simulation with 5-7 players is more likely to be correct than with 3 players.

Craig

[bugstud]

how many see the flop is probably a more important #, just because the amount of people catching enough to suck out later is more determined by the flop # than the river #, but yes, your number should be TINY. 199-1 as said earlier, right? Get rid of 1/2-2/3 of your opponents....

[SpaceAce]

[ QUOTE ]
how many see the flop is probably a more important #, just because the amount of people catching enough to suck out later is more determined by the flop # than the river #, but yes, your number should be TINY. 199-1 as said earlier, right? Get rid of 1/2-2/3 of your opponents....

[/ QUOTE ]

Both you and Bozeman made good points. Except in the numerous cases of smaller pocket pairs, the hands that will still be in at the river probably some tiny piece of the flop which makes them more likely to suck out on me. As for getting rid of opponents, our hypothetical player does his best but sometimes those pesky people just won't go away /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Our mystery man did have three QQ hands and one KK stand up today but is still witing for an AA that goes the distance.

SpaceAce

[SpaceAce]

The streak ends at 15. Our hero just dragged a smallish pot with AA.

SpaceAce

[NaobisDad]

Isn't that typical? Brunson said it. Win small, loose big. Not that AA won't win big pots, but I do think that your wins will be small relative t your losses with the same hand. I think this will hold especially for NL.

[SpaceAce]

[ QUOTE ]
Isn't that typical? Brunson said it. Win small, loose big. Not that AA won't win big pots, but I do think that your wins will be small relative t your losses with the same hand. I think this will hold especially for NL.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, there's a lot of truth in that statement. The thing is, AA is supposed to win a LOT of small pots not lose 15 big ones and win one small one. Hopefully things will only get better from here on out.

SpaceAce

[DeucesUp]

That's one hell of a bad streak. I don't have enough data to make this a great estimate (getting AA 120 times), but my AA holds up about 62% of the time at Party 3/6, higher at higher limits where play is tighter. Losing 14 in a row should thus be an almost 1 in a million event. Of course every time you get dealt an AA you have another 1 in a million chance of starting a 14 loss streak, but obviously this still shouldn't happen very often.

[Bozeman]

p(winning) oddsoflosing14inarow
0.9 100trillion:1
0.85 340billion:1
0.7 21million:1
0.6 370thousand:1
0.5 16383:1
0.4 1275:1
0.3 146:1

For what it's worth, AA wins ~30% against 9 random hands, ~ 50% against 5, and 85% against 1.

So while this is an unlikely event, in loose games it looks like it is as likely as getting a straight flush in 5 card stud. It certainly should happen to one person on 2+2, and probably several.

Craig

[DeucesUp]

[ QUOTE ]
Losing 14 in a row should thus be an almost 1 in a million event

[/ QUOTE ]

I just realized that using the phrase "1 in a million" makes it sound that like its just a rare event and I just picked 1 in a million out of the air. I actually meant this is pretty close to the right probabilty with my results, its actually closer to 1 in 750,000

[NaobisDad]

Believe me, when I look down at aces I get all tingly inside and I feel like running through grassy meadows.

THing is, I just think I play AK better than I do AA.
But, no poker tracker here. So I officially wouldn't know /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[SossMan]

[ QUOTE ]
Believe me, when I look down at aces I get all tingly inside and I feel like running through grassy meadows.


[/ QUOTE ]

That's funny.
I play mostly in my local cardroom (i.e. not online). When I squeeze out that second ACE (especially if they're the same color), it gets me hard.....is that a tell? /images/graemlins/blush.gif

[NaobisDad]

No, it's perfectly normal to have sexual feelings about seeing aces. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Duke]

[ QUOTE ]
When I squeeze out that second ACE (especially if they're the same color), it gets me hard.

[/ QUOTE ]

You officially like poker more than I do.

~D

[SpaceAce]

[ QUOTE ]
Believe me, when I look down at aces I get all tingly inside and I feel like running through grassy meadows.

THing is, I just think I play AK better than I do AA.
But, no poker tracker here. So I officially wouldn't know /images/graemlins/smile.gif


[/ QUOTE ]

I see the distinction /images/graemlins/smile.gif I guess the best hand is the one that makes you the most money.

SpaceAce

[SpaceAce]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Believe me, when I look down at aces I get all tingly inside and I feel like running through grassy meadows.


[/ QUOTE ]

That's funny.
I play mostly in my local cardroom (i.e. not online). When I squeeze out that second ACE (especially if they're the same color), it gets me hard.....is that a tell? /images/graemlins/blush.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Only if you stand up.

SpaceAce

[SpaceAce]

A little follow-up to this thread: Our hero is currently standing on a streak of 9 more consecutive AA losses at PartyPoker again with a disproportianate number of underpairs doing the cracking. After checking his notes and some hand histories, our hero now realizes that his AA has held up exactly 12 times in the last 76 times he's had it, a span covering about 18,000 hands. If our hero ever purchases PokerTracker, he half expects to find AA is a losing hand.

Maybe I should write my own data mining software. I have well over 125,000 hands in my email.

Edit: No conspiracy arguments, please. I am just noting some number and I am not looking for a big debate.

SpaceAce

[mosta]

How are you sifting 18,000 hands without Poker Tracker??