I was wondering how many standard deviations I'm off after playing six online poker tournaments and getting zero pocket aces in 1300 hands. AA isn't necessarily a cure-all, but they sure help. None in 1300 is not something I've ever experienced.
I was wondering how many standard deviations I'm off after playing six online poker tournaments and getting zero pocket aces in 1300 hands. AA isn't necessarily a cure-all, but they sure help. None in 1300 is not something I've ever experienced.
You have been unlucky. There are 1326 two card combinations for a 52 card deck. Of those 6 are a pair of aces. So, you should see pocket aces once every 221 hands. In other words, you've now gone almost 6 cycles. Not unheard of but nonetheless a bad run.
I once played close to 3000 hands of quick quad VP without a QQ or regular quad. The cycle there is around 160 hands. It was around 18 cycles. So, you still have a ways to go.
Thanks, Arci. The problem from my perspective is I play two or three tournaments a week to keep my hand in at low stakes -- really low stakes. So that's only 600 hands a week. Going a stretch of 1300 hands when I don't play much is nasty.
Somehow the 18 cycle example is less than comforting, but I thank you.
Just keep in mind that you could also get 18 pocket aces in the next 221 hands. These low probability events work both ways.Originally Posted by redietz
How lucky do you feel with pocket aces? Even when you get them they're not a lock to win. In limit games, pocket aces are less powerful than they are in no limit games.
Rather than worry about the number of times you don't get pocket aces, you should be more concerned about how you play AA when you get them. There are two schools of thought which I will name the Doyle Brunson School vs. the Mike Caro School.
Caro talks about slow playing AA to maximize their win potential. Brunson talks about making very big bets with AA to isolate the opponents and eliminate as many bad beats as possible. These strategies only work in No Limit Hold 'Em, of course.
In limit games you are doomed to have to face other players and you can easily lose to some player who calls with a 78 suited, or a small pair, or KQ and gets two pair vs. your AA or one pair.
I've lost with AA way too many times in LIMIT games and I think I've won the expected number of times in No Limit by betting big and limiting my competition pre flop. But betting big doesn't always work. A few weeks ago I had KK in the big blind. It turned into a family pot as all of the other players called my Big Blind, including the small blind. When it was my option, I pushed all-in. Everyone folded except for the small blind who had AA. Luckily on the flop there was a K. My set of kings beat the pair of aces.
And to add insult to injury to the small blind with AA, it was the case King that flopped.
I am now at 1800 hands and counting on one poker site -- still no AA. In addition, through roughly the last 500 hands on that site, no AA, no KK, no QQ. Starting to get a little concerned.
I vary what I do with AA -- not sure a look at my overall play stats with AA would give much away.
By the way, playing on a different site in a small tournament last night, I went into head-to-head down 15,500 chips to 500. I won the tournament. One hand was my QJ suited all-in against AA -- caught the flush. And, in case you're wondering, no AA for me on that site, either.
Oops... I missed that you are talking about online poker sites. The only online poker I ever played was the free-to-play sites sponsored by certain brick and mortar casinos with tournaments that were free to enter and paid small cash amounts. I won four of those tournaments. But I don't trust any online poker site where you have to pay money -- period. Now that you told me more about your drought of big pairs, I would suggest you save your money.
I have now stopped playing the free tourneys as well after I was barraged with spam and my cell phone was hit with fraudulent charges. I don't know that the free online sites were responsible, but when I closed my free online account, the problems went away.
Here in LA there are real casinos with real daily tournaments starting at $40 just about every day of the week. So if I get the bug to play a tourney, there's usually one about a thirty minute drive close. But I have been sticking to cash games because the luck factor in tourneys is too high as you are always fighting rising antes and blinds.
Well, in a span of 250 hands on the site I mentioned, I finally got a QQ and two KK last night, but no AA. The drought is now at more than 2000 hands. This is getting a little hard to swallow.
This is why I do not play more than $10 tournaments online.
Chances of collusion in a $10 online tourney are small, unless you are playing a one table or two table sit 'n go. Several "kids" could easily dominate a small tourney such as that sitting in the same room with their laptops. It wouldn't surprise me if small rings of players sitting in India or China couldn't do the same thing in smaller tournaments up to perhaps five tables.
Just how "small" are these small tourneys that you are playing, redietz?
Dontcha' just love how the math works it all out in the end!?. Oops! Spoke too soon. The standard AP operating procedures, are to WAIT until either it actually all DOES work out, so you can blab about the math "working", or more likely, to lie about it before actually announcing you've had to endure a losing streak. That way, you won't be so embarrassed when you say you're losing.
Redietz, you need to talk more to arci on how to cover up the losing.
Dontcha just love it!?
The tournaments where the strangely absent AA is occurring have between 100 and 250 people, generally. So not that small. My results are very consistent -- I usually get knocked off somewhere in the 10% to 20% range, the bubble. I've cashed two of the last 20 tournaments on this site, which is normal, but when cashing it's for small amounts, obviously, so I'm losing.
There are only two poker sites where I've had a losing record -- Ultimate Bet, where there was proven to be rampant cheating, and this one. I'm going to limit my play on this site to one tournament a week from here on -- an $11 tourney with 15K in prizes each Sunday. That'll keep my hand in, so to speak, while not donating much money to them.
Chances of cllusion are better than you think, Alan, because there may be bot armies intercommunicating. You can seed a 250-man tourney with 30-40 vanilla-programmed bots. By simply sharing hole card info and then dumping chips late in the tourney, they can be tough.
Actually, Rob, there is a lot more to "live poker" than just the math, which was the subject of another thread. The skills in live poker go beyond math, but also include acting like you have the best hand, betting like you have the best hand when you dont, and betting like you have the worst hand when you dont, and reading what the other players might have and might not.Originally Posted by Rob.SingerDontcha' just love how the math works it all out in the end!?
Redietz, you need to talk more to arci on how to cover up the losing.
Dontcha just love it!?
You could be a genius when it comes to video poker and figuring out the math, but fail miserably playing live poker because you can't read a bluff or don't know how to bet to protect your hand pre flop.
In this case, redietz has yet another set of problems that go beyond math, and go beyond the skills of live poker, he is also playing an online poker game which can be rigged and is subject to collusion.
If you think video poker is one kind of game, and live poker is a second kind of game, then online poker is a third kind of game.
I know Alan, the math is negligible when playing live poker except to analysts who know everyone's cards. Can you see some idiot like Negraneu playing while pretending to know all the figures and acting on them?
I played at the same table with Daniel in a World Poker Tour event about five years ago at Commerce. He busted out long before I did at my table. He was never able to use his great math skills that everyone talks so much about because he could never catch cards and never saw a flop that went his way. As he left the table I remember his immortal words... "I didn't want to bust out so early."
My experience with him was also about five or six years ago--at the sports bar at the Suncoast. I was there playing up to the $2 limit in RTT. He came in and sat right next to me. I usually move when that happens but the machines at that bar are well spaced, so I stayed. He immediately poured in $1500 and started banging away at the $2 9/6 ddbp game. When he got down to around $600 he must have caught me constantly changing denominations during my play, and asked me why I was doing that. I told him and he shrugged. He then said he was playing at an "edge" on the 9/6 game because of some stupid theoretical reason like arci would give, that has him winning no matter if he lost everything that evening or not. Them good 'ol phantom bucks save the day again and again.
Which is exactly what happened. He left after about 90 minutes, and I slowed my play just so I could follow his results. He put $3000 in and never hit a quad, ending up down the $3k. I was up about $420. I could tell this "math expert" was lizard at his machine & results, because he got up, banged it with his fist, didn't say a word to me, and left.
Oh, he "won" bucu phantom bucks because of triple points and some stupid coupon he had.
Rob's story reminds me of a story involving another poker pro, Terrence Chan. His girlfriend at the time talked him into trying for Diamond in a Day status so they could get valet parking and snacks during the WSOP. Well, she had calculated how much his likely net loss was going to be, and the likely variance, and so on, and it all went to hell. Very, very expensive valet pass and snack access.
And arci will come on and proclaim how it "just as easily" could have gone the other way, because he'll never be able to accept how AP's lose with those "edges" far more often then not. Of course, as we've discussed many times prior, arci in no way is capable of ever identifying that he's lost anything, unless he adds in a fantastic story about some winning that surpasses his losing, thinking he's easing the pain of all his fans before it even begins.
Back to reality: let's hope his washer/dryer doesn't go on the fritz!
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