Math...

I know how to calculate odds after the flop...
but what's the math behind calculating how successful hands are pre-flop?

[eisanm]

As far as I know, the preflop numbers are based on two things:

Computer run simulations

and

Statistics from poker sites that have millions or billions of hands played


Most of the numbers will probably be based on computer simulations since these are easy to do.

Make a program that shuffles a deck sufficiently, then deal someone AA and deal out X other random hands from the cards left in the deck, and see how many % of the time AA beats the field. With enough # of hands it will converge towards what probability says is true.

I don't think there's any obvious way to calculate it, it should be possible but with all the possibilites I think nearly no one even tries to do that.