confidence of being better?
 

Lets say two very similar players sit down and play heads up limit poker against each other. Lets say one of them should on average make .1BB/100 hands off the other. How long would you expect it to take for this true win rate to become apparent? This is Heads Up Limit Hold'em.

Re: confidence of being better?
 

The key variable is the standard deviation. It's hard to guess without knowing the styles of the players, but say it's 10 BB/100 hands. In that case, after a million hands, the better player is expected to be up by 1,000 BB, with a standard deviation of 1,000 BB. There's about 5 chances in 6 that he's ahead.

After 4 million hands, the better player is expected to be up 4,000 BB, with a standard deviation of 2,000. Two standard deviations is conventionally considered to be significant; so I guess that's a reasonable answer.

Re: confidence of being better?
 

right, so I guess my actually question was what is an average standard deviation given solid players.

Re: confidence of being better?
 

[ QUOTE ]
The key variable is the standard deviation. It's hard to guess without knowing the styles of the players, but say it's 10 BB/100 hands. In that case, after a million hands, the better player is expected to be up by 1,000 BB, with a standard deviation of 1,000 BB. There's about 5 chances in 6 that he's ahead.

After 4 million hands, the better player is expected to be up 4,000 BB, with a standard deviation of 2,000. Two standard deviations is conventionally considered to be significant; so I guess that's a reasonable answer.

[/ QUOTE ]

can you explain to me real quick how you used a standard deviation of 10BB/100 to acheive a standard deviation of 1,000 over 1 million hands?