General Theory Question

[Disturbed]

This is for Texas holdem and can be applicable for everything else.

So we say that if you play with the odds, then on the long run you will win. People playing against the odds will loose on the long run.

This is what alot of books and pros say and alot of people, including myself, repeat it and believe it.

We repeat it alot when we loose a hand that we were not supposed to loose and say its alright we win on the long wrong.

Now the question is this: says who?


Ok example:

Assume you have a flush draw on the flop and you need a flush to win the pot. What are the odds? Easy, you have 13 - 2+2 = 9 outs so you are around 35% a winner.

You play this hand 100 times, you will win 35 times, right? Sure.

But then again who said the collective "luck" of each individual is even or equal?

I think we all agree that it is not.

hence if you play the hand 100 times, you wont win 35 times even, but if 100 ppl play this hand, then 35 of them will win it. Do you see the difference?

So is there somebody that is lucky enough to win it 40 times out of 100 and somebody unluck enough to win it 30 times out of 100?

I think yes. Then comes the expected question of you think there is somebody on this planet that can win it 60% of the time and someone to win it only 10% of the time?
Donno. But why not?

So the ultimate questions; why play with the odds then, and convince yourself that on the long run your gonna win? Maybe you're just not that lucky to win the WSOP?


What do you all think?

[GypsyTea]

This is for Texas holdem and can be applicable for everything else.

So we say that if you play with the odds, then on the long run you will win. People playing against the odds will loose on the long run.

This is what alot of books and pros say and alot of people, including myself, repeat it and believe it.

We repeat it alot when we loose a hand that we were not supposed to loose and say its alright we win on the long wrong.

Now the question is this: says who?


Ok example:

Assume you have a flush draw on the flop and you need a flush to win the pot. What are the odds? Easy, you have 13 - 2+2 = 9 outs so you are around 35% a winner.

You play this hand 100 times, you will win 35 times, right? Sure.

But then again who said the collective "luck" of each individual is even or equal?

I think we all agree that it is not.

hence if you play the hand 100 times, you wont win 35 times even, but if 100 ppl play this hand, then 35 of them will win it. Do you see the difference?

So is there somebody that is lucky enough to win it 40 times out of 100 and somebody unluck enough to win it 30 times out of 100?

I think yes. Then comes the expected question of you think there is somebody on this planet that can win it 60% of the time and someone to win it only 10% of the time?
Donno. But why not?

So the ultimate questions; why play with the odds then, and convince yourself that on the long run your gonna win? Maybe you're just not that lucky to win the WSOP?


What do you all think?

I think this is a complecated post DisT.....with an EXTREMELY complecated Answer, which I need to think about for a while.

1st thoughts are

skill will always beat luck.
theres more than one set of odds to think about.
and I am at a stage now where playing the player is more important than playing the starting hand.

anyway let me muze over it I get back to you when I am less tired.

GT

[willie beaman]

Gotta agree there Gypsy, playing your opponent is as big as your starting hand. With the flush draw odds, in general a win rate of 35% is good against any random hand. Occasionally though, you will face someone who's set turns into a boat or has a better draw than you. It totally depends on what your holding are versus your opponent.

[Disturbed]

Completely agreed on playing the player versus playing the hand.

But totally disagreed on this: "skill will always beat luck."

This is what we say to ourselves, and this is what they teach us in school.

But real life says the contrary. Luck always beats skill and no you dont wont me to tell the stories because you know them. Like last years million dollar tournement here picked up by a guy who played Texas holdem twice. One on the satellite and one on the tournement. and yes this is true he is a guy I know.

So anyways generally yes in a fair ideal world, but we are far from that. You have the lucky ones who will always see the A with big slick and you have those that never see it, and everybody else in the middle.

[Arjonius]

100 occurrences is far to small a sample size to expect regression will be close to the mean every time. So it's not going to be especially unusual to see 30 or 40 when the expected value is 35. However, if you increase the sample size to say 100,000 the likelihood of seeing 30,000 or 35,000 vs the expectation of 35,000 declines significantly.

That said, there's still a hole in the initial assumption regardless who said it since there's no consideration given to skill. Over the long run, better players will win more money and lose less with the same distribution of hand held.

[luzipher]

I think yes. Then comes the expected question of you think there is somebody on this planet that can win it 60% of the time and someone to win it only 10% of the time?
Donno. But why not?

This is the key question, and the answer is definitively NO.
You can find a person that hit 60% of the times and another one that hit only 10%, but you can find that in a low sample of hands.
The more hands you take, the more close to the 35% everybody will be, and with enough hands is almost impossible to find a person close to 60% of hits.
That's why not.

[NUCKING_FUTS_4]

This is the key question, and the answer is definitively NO.
You can find a person that hit 60% of the times and another one that hit only 10%, but you can find that in a low sample of hands.
The more hands you take, the more close to the 35% everybody will be, and with enough hands is almost impossible to find a person close to 60% of hits.
That's why not.

I agree that over a great enough sample of hands the deviation from the norm (odds) will be less.

But i don't agree that luck wins over skill. I like it that your bud made such a beginning to his poker career, how many other lucky players were there at the final table/ tournament?.. I would say that there were more skilled players and I bet they took as much collectively as did the lucky players if not more.

Whilst the hand will/won't hit a percentage of times, this isn't the important part. How much you make when it hits and how much it looses when it doesn't is what matters.

Making bets above the expected value of the hand and more frequently than the odds suggest against your opponents hands is where you want to be. Thats winning poker and it puts LUCK to shame which is for those that wish to have their fate decided by something outside of themselves.

[Disturbed]

100 occurrences is far to small a sample size to expect regression will be close to the mean every time. So it's not going to be especially unusual to see 30 or 40 when the expected value is 35. However, if you increase the sample size to say 100,000 the likelihood of seeing 30,000 or 35,000 vs the expectation of 35,000 declines significantly.

That said, there's still a hole in the initial assumption regardless who said it since there's no consideration given to skill. Over the long run, better players will win more money and lose less with the same distribution of hand held.

Yes 100 was just an example you can take a space of 1000 or 10000, but the question is that you are taking as per individual and I am saying it is on 35% on all people. So some higher and some lower, you see the difference?

The skill part I will answer on below.

This is the key question, and the answer is definitively NO.
You can find a person that hit 60% of the times and another one that hit only 10%, but you can find that in a low sample of hands.
The more hands you take, the more close to the 35% everybody will be, and with enough hands is almost impossible to find a person close to 60% of hits.
That's why not.

Uhh not quite, especially that you say "almost impossible" meanining that inside you, your not even sure. But make it simple on you. A guy plays 10,000 hands 5000 when he is 20 and another 5000 when he is 21. Why cant he be a 60 on one year a 10 on the other to level on 35? Where is the problem? I mean 4 billion people on the planet and we are almost all bound by statistics, but then again where do your heros come from? Anomalies no?

I agree that over a great enough sample of hands the deviation from the norm (odds) will be less.

But i don't agree that luck wins over skill. I like it that your bud made such a beginning to his poker career, how many other lucky players were there at the final table/ tournament?.. I would say that there were more skilled players and I bet they took as much collectively as did the lucky players if not more.

Whilst the hand will/won't hit a percentage of times, this isn't the important part. How much you make when it hits and how much it looses when it doesn't is what matters.

Making bets above the expected value of the hand and more frequently than the odds suggest against your opponents hands is where you want to be. Thats winning poker and it puts LUCK to shame which is for those that wish to have their fate decided by something outside of themselves.

The deviation will be less for a collective amount of people and not neccessarily for one person.

My bud came out 2nd, and yes somebody got paid more than him.

And yes we want to make bets in the +ev and hope things work out, but what if they dont? I mean who is there to say yes? for example lets take you because you have the poker tracker (which I will get). On all the hands that you have played, only you, how many flushes and str8s have you hit, how many A or Ks have you hit with AK, and how many sets have you made on the flop? Have you met the numbers?



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Now for the trick question. Assume we all agree on the point that each individual playing 10,000 hands will get his flush 35% of the time and that is set as a rule on the side.

The guy plays tournaments, he makes his flushs on small blinds (beginning of the tournament) and looses them at the end on big blinds, how can this guy be not one of the unlucky? Or is making a flush now a function of time and position in the tournament?

See it happens with us alot of times, we get AA and then KK on 10/20 and we say damn its gonna be along time before we see those again. Big blinds come and you all in with some silly hand like A 4 because ur stack is low and you get the short end of the stick against a KK or JJ. Unlucky and unskilled? or just unlucky?

[NUCKING_FUTS_4]

My bud came out 2nd, and yes somebody got paid more than him.

And yes we want to make bets in the +ev and hope things work out, but what if they dont? I mean who is there to say yes? for example lets take you because you have the poker tracker (which I will get). On all the hands that you have played, only you, how many flushes and str8s have you hit, how many A or Ks have you hit with AK, and how many sets have you made on the flop? Have you met the numbers?

Yes. The numbers are there. The interesting part is that what is clearly evident is that there is no big conspiracy against players, my stats show that the cards you get and more importantly the hands that you have at the showdown are at "peace" with the generally accepted odds in the situation, ie how many times you'll flop a set from paired/unpaired holes etc. The cards are true.

--------------------------------------------

Now for the trick question. Assume we all agree on the point that each individual playing 10,000 hands will get his flush 35% of the time and that is set as a rule on the side.

The guy plays tournaments, he makes his flushs on small blinds (beginning of the tournament) and looses them at the end on big blinds, how can this guy be not one of the unlucky? Or is making a flush now a function of time and position in the tournament?

"Now"... No, surely no matter where you are in a tournament, or what stage it is at, your play regardless of your hole cards should always be relative to the conditions of that tournament.

See it happens with us alot of times, we get AA and then KK on 10/20 and we say damn its gonna be along time before we see those again. Big blinds come and you all in with some silly hand like A 4 because ur stack is low and you get the short end of the stick against a KK or JJ. Unlucky and unskilled? or just unlucky?

What you are doing is taking singular events and using them to promote your negative beliefs. Poker is about decision making in particular situations. You keep making the right decisions you'll do well. Of course you'll get knocked out of tournaments, but the successful player will make more better decisions than the lucky one and hence will do better.

if I had this much debate raging in my mind about playing poker its fairly sure i wouldn't play.

Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...
.......

[luzipher]

Uhh not quite, especially that you say "almost impossible" meanining that inside you, your not even sure. But make it simple on you. A guy plays 10,000 hands 5000 when he is 20 and another 5000 when he is 21. Why cant he be a 60 on one year a 10 on the other to level on 35? Where is the problem? I mean 4 billion people on the planet and we are almost all bound by statistics, but then again where do your heros come from? Anomalies no?

I said almost, because of course exist a possibility, but the probability that this event occurs is very very close to ZERO when the sample of hands is large enough.
Again, 5000 hands isn't large enough.

If you want, I can do sample simulations about the example that hit a flush in the turn/river and show you the numbers.