An observation on swings and cold cards

[scotty34]

I was just looking over my stats for my last 2500 hands at 3/6 6m. I felt I was running quite poorly over that period, and was looking for reasons why. I am on about a 50 BB downswing over that period (and I was up 50 BB around halfway through it).

One thing I noticed was over those 2500 hands, I got AA 5 times with a 60% winning percentage. Over 2500 hands, on average you can expect to get AA 11 or 12 times, and its winning percentage is usually around 75-80%. My net profit for AA over that period was 5 BB.

On the other hand, I was dealt KK 10 times, which is expected, and it held up to around its expected winning percentage. My net profit on KK was 20 BB over that stretch.

This really means nothing in itself, but it just helped me visualize how small sample sizes actually mean NOTHING. If over those 2500 hands, they took a few of my extra A2o's and made them AA instead, I might only be down 10 BB as opposed to 50. Maybe Party decided they would be really nice to me with AA over that stretch, and I was dealt it 16 times. Hey, I'd probably even be on an upswing now instead!

It's late and I really don't know if I'm making any sense, or if this is at all helpful to anyone. I'm just trying to demonstrate why winrates and swings can be so volatile until you start piling up masses of hands.

[hustalasta]

I had a stretch of 7,000+ hands where AA was losing money. At the 12k mark everything was back to normal.

[deception5]

The % win doesn't tell the whole story, 60% may be reasonable to expect in a game where a 4 players see the flop. If it's usually heads up you can certainly expect better. Of course with more players you'll typically win more $$ when you do win.

722,207 games 5.375 secs 134,364 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 63.7784 % 63.56% 00.22% { AcAh }
Hand 2: 12.0560 % 11.60% 00.46% { random }
Hand 3: 12.1022 % 11.64% 00.46% { random }
Hand 4: 12.0633 % 11.61% 00.46% { random }

[scotty34]

Yes that's true, but firstly this is 3/6 6m. A game where 4 players were typically seeing a flop after a raise would be a dream.

Edit - I misread your post slightly, yes I agree.

[Hellmouth]

When I first bought poker tracker I did the same thing. Over my first 2000 hands or so I was delt AA 5 times and it should have been more like 9-10. Within a week of realizing this I had a session where in 15 min I got AA three times bringing it right into spec. I remember thinkign at the time how small the sample size was and how it was an important lesson. Thanks for posting because you reminded me of this (which I had not thought about for a while) right after a session where I took a bunch of bad beats in a row. Its a lot easier to put it off to chance in those terms.

Greg