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Old 04-23-2003, 09:00 AM
Cyrus Cyrus is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Tundra
Posts: 1,720
Default Not Z

"What is the name for this phenomenon ?"

All those mistaken beliefs are variations of the Gambler's Fallacy (aka Monte Carlo Fallacy, etc). The gambler sees 5 Blacks in a row in roulette and either believes a Red is "overdue" or that the Black "streak" will continue. (In fact, each result has again the same probability of occuring.)

To the mathematicians the "Red overdue" is a mistaken belief in negative serial autocorrelation of a non-correlated process. The "Black streak" is a mistaken belief in positive serial autocorrelation. (Ask BruceZ for a translation to English.)

In the case of back-to-back, or three times in a row, of a "rare event" such as getting pocket Aces, the gambler confuses the probability before the fact of unrelated events happening in a sequence, with the probability of each event happening separately in the sequence.

"How do you take advantage (poker wise) of people who think this way without even realizing it?"

Here's one : If the other players are allowed to make or see my hand and then, in a round soon after, I have approximately or exactly the same hand in the hole, I can reasonably assume that the average opponent will estimate the probability of me having again something like I had previously, to be smaller than it really is.

A distant variation of that theme is a play immediately after a multiway pot in which a lot of blood was shed. The next round is often an opportunity for someone to steal quietly (but steal early) with relative impunity.

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