[PrayingMantis]

I'm revisiting this old thread (from the psychology forum), to share some new thoughts in the subject. (The subject was why people tend to see the river card as having more "powers" than any other board card in HE, and why they feel they're often get outdrawn on it. There were some very interesting replies on the psychology forum, specifically by PDosterM)

Assuming player A holds AA, and player B holds 22. They are both all-in pre-flop. 22 will outdraw AA a little less than 20% of the time.

I'm doing here a really rough calculation, *without redraws*, not to complicate it. So, I assume 22 beat AA by hitting his set card.

Now, looking backwards, on what card of the board was it more probable that player B would hit his set? (I'm calculating the outs from a 48-cards-deck to begin with, since we are accounted for 4 known cards)

First card: 2/48 = ~0.04167

Second card: 2/47 = ~0.04255

Third card: 2/46 = ~0.04347

Turn card: 2/45 = ~0.04444

River Card: 2/44 = ~0.04545

It is clear that the chances player B outdrew player A by hitting his set *on the river*, are bigger than the chances he hit it on any other specific board card. Not by much, but the difference is there. I assume this kind of small difference will be there for any draw, against any made hand.

This is a very simplistic calculation, but I believe it sheds some interesting light on this "river card syndrom".

Any thoughts? Especially regarding the mathematic side of this problem?