What are the odds of this?

Playing in a .50/$1 home cash game. Whether you believe in luck or not, you have to feel that this guy got very unlucky.

I had the good fortune of not being involved in either of these hands. But the person I am talking about is a pretty good friend of mine. For the purpose of this post I will call him Bob.

Ok, about an hour into the game Bob is dealt AA in the cutoff spot. A player in an early position (we'll call him Jim) raises to $3.50 with JJ. Bob reraises to $10, everyone else folds, and Jim calls. The flop comes AJ8. Jim checks. Bob makes a pot sized bet. Jim reraises all-in, of course Bob calls. A rag hits on the turn but the river was the case J. Ouch!!

Much to my surprise Bob seemed to keep his cool. Aside from saying "oh man that sucked" he took it pretty well.

About ten minutes later Bob is in the big blind with J9. Nobody raises so he gets to see a free flop. Well, the flop comes JJJ. Unfortunately for Bob, the other four players in the hand just kept checking. Bob finally made a small bet on the river and everyone folded. I think that one steamed him more than losing to the quad jacks.

But, get ready, the fun is just beginning for Bob. About 1 1/2 hours later he's on the button with AA again. And again he's facing a raise from Jim who bet $5. This time Bob just smooth calls it. The flop comes AJQ. This time Jim leads out with a pot sized bet. Bob is having no part of it and moves all-in. Jim quickly calls and turns up his JJ. Everyone at the table said "Holy S@$t" at the same time. Then all of our mouths hit the floor as the case J lands on the turn.

I fully expected Bob to blow his top. It would have been 100% understandable as far as I'm concerned. But all he said was "Damn, it's just not my night." He even volunteered to deal the rest of the night for us. I've always considered him a really good player. I think his attitude in this situation told me more about why he's a good player than anything else. He made everyone laugh when he said if that had happened online he'd be swearing it's rigged.

Anyway, can anyone tell me what the odds are of seeing quad jacks three times in that short of time, and for them to bust a set of aces twice? And better yet, for it to be the same players each time?

[Solami17]

Well the guy with JJ has 1 out. One card out of 44 unknown cards means he will hit quads about 2.3% of the time.

As for having quads three times with Jacks, I'm stuck

[benkahuna]

AA NO GOOD!

You could take it to the probability section, but the odds are very slim.

The interesting matchup to me is AA v. JJ 2 times, set over set, 1 outer suckout.

AA (1/221) v. JJ (1/221). Multiply those together. Then suckout for 2 percent and change so multiply by 1/50.

I believe that's approximately a 1 in a million chance or so. Funny how that works out.

Oh wait, I forgot to do odds for the 2 sets. 1/8.5 or so and 1/8.5 or so. 1/72.25 or so.

So odds are in my way quick estimation 1 in 75 million or so for this event to occur.

For it to occur twice, square the 75 million. Multiply the 1/75 mill^2 times the number of hands in the night (maybe 200 in a very good night?)
and I think you have a set of a events that is unlikely to occur in anyone's lifetime.

Immediate composure is cool. How he plays after those 2 beats would interest me. I've been developing tilt immunity, but after that I'd probably stop just to be extra safe to avoid latent effect on my play.

[AaronBrown]

The odds of getting pocket Jacks are 220 to 1. With 10 people at a table, someone will get pocket Jacks about 4.4% of the time. The odds are 244 to 1 against converting them to quads by the river. Multiplying these together, on one hand in 2,783 in a ten-player game, someone will hold pocket Jacks and make quads on the board. 1 time in 16,738 it will happen three or more times out of 200 hands.

While that seems unlikely, if you look at any 200 hands you will find events as more unlikely than that. What really makes this remarkable is (a) the quad jacks beat pocket Aces twice and (b) the same player was on the losing end on all three hands.