Re: Intresting proposal
 

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To win, you have to survive nine consecutive all-ins. A dominated-hand matchup like AK vs KQ is close to a 75% chance; pair over pair is close to 80%. The only time you will do better than that is when you're so lucky as to be dealt a pair AND catch an opponent with a third card of the same rank.


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So what is the probability that your random hand is at least a 3:1 favorite over one of 9 random hands? of 8 random hands, of 7..?
how do we find out?

Re: Results
 

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My strategy was to double up without busting any more of his hands, then I could afford more badluck when they got fewer. It did really have some intresting deep and I think my strategy could have been better, but as sudjested 5:1 is not good enought odds.

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Were you attacking larger stacks, then? Other things being equal, I'd think I'd prefer to attack smaller stacks so as not to be busted if you lose.

Re: Intresting proposal
 

I was interested enough to go ahead and try it once this morning. I got to heads up with a 6:4 advantage and won on the first hand. From memory, I believe I won 9 hands, lost 3, split 1.

After losing to a 2-outer on hand 2, I was on the brink of elimination on hand 3. Another 2-outer sucked out on me, leaving me with 1 out for the re-suck. I rivered a split instead, which was a 2-outer in its own right. I didn't run into trouble again until it was 3-handed.

I'm not sure how you could lose this 10 times in a row. It seems easily +EV at 5:1.

Re: Results
 

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Other things being equal, I'd think I'd prefer to attack smaller stacks so as not to be busted if you lose.

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The strategy in this game is far too serious for a simple computer simulation. We'll just have to wait 'till 10 000 2+2ers try this at home and post their results.

Re: Results
 

I tried it once more, just because it's a somewhat entertaining way to play solitaire. Got to heads up as a 9:1 leader, lost twice, then closed it out on the 3rd hand. Two for two!

I actually won this one despite losing the 2nd hand again, and then dealing myself 34, 23, and 34 again, for 3 consecutive hands midgame. I sucked out on every one of them. There was another hand pretty early on where my suited J6 was a only a favorite against some 10-high hand, and a dog against almost all the others. I opted to face an unsuited J6 hand, and wait for higher EV plays later.

Interesting game.

Re: Results
 

this prop intrigued me, so I played a few rounds (in my infinite boredom)

I'm 3 for 5 right now, and the two times I lost I went out on the first hand.

I played it with 5 chips per stack and a 1chip/ 2chip blind structure just to see the effect.

Having any kind of blind structure definately helps the player out, as he can target non-blind hands and take thier stack plus a chunk of all of the other stacks with each hand. Losing to a non-blind stack sucks because it disproportionatly increases the opposition stack size, but the expectation of having blinds is very positive overall for the player. I'm going to try a few rounds out now with no blinds, and see exactly how much harder that makes it to play.

Re: Results
 

yup, no blinds makes this markedly more difficult to beat. If you propose this bet, keep the blinds down as small as possible or eliminate them completely.

i did it too...
 

SNG 1: I won in 10 hands. Poker is easy!
SNG 2: Lost on first hand. Poker is hard.
SNG 3: Lost on first hand, K8 v 83 with two dead 3s. Poker sucks.
requested and received new setup.
SNG 4: Lost on first hand, AJ v J9 with two dead 9s. Poker is RIGGED!
requested and granted a seat change.
SNG 5: Lost on 7th hand, 7 players remained.

Re: i did it too...
 

SNG 1: Won in 13 hands
SNG 2: Lost after 4 in a row worst hands on the table with 4 remaining
SNG 3: Lost on first hand
SNG 4: Won in 10 hands
SNG 5: Won in 11 hands

Re: Intresting proposal
 

Very interesting. Seems like a Markov chain could get at a decent answer.

I dealt this out and played 3 hands for grins, assuming no blinds.

I’d guess that for the first 3-4 opponents you might average a 75-25 advantage for each play, between getting in with dominating hands or picking overcards to undercards where undercards are missing outs.

So on first all-in you’ll lose 25% of the time. Second all-in where you survive, you’ll lose the next two a total of 4.6% (.75*.25*.25), run a couple more and maybe you get to ~35% total loss thru the first 4 or so trials.

The times you haven’t lost then (~65%), you’ll have about a stack of 4 with 6 opponents, and maybe a typical hand advantage of ~65-35% now. So you’ll go bust maybe 5% of the time (.65*.35*.35 * .3 or so you must fact that bigger stack) on each of the next 4 opponent ranges (4 left, 3 left, etc.). Then heads up, assuming you come in with a 8-2 or 9-1 advantage, you will lose 3 in a row (or equivalent amount) around 20% of the time (.5^3 + some lose-lose-win-lose type scenarios).

Add those up, and I get maybe 35+5+5+5+5+20 = 75% chance of losing in aggregate.

Since you need to win ~>20% over the very long run to be EV positive, I’d guess this prop bet is 1) very, very close, and 2) Perhaps slightly EV positive.

But my numbers are obviously extremely rough, and slight changes could make this easily a EV negative bet. In fact, I think 75-25 might be too optimistic an average over the first few trials, so there’s a good chance this is EV negative. And if your friend is smart, I’d say it probably is EV negative 

--Greg