How do you explain this?

Poker Strategy
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I am a stats person, not a conspiracy theorist (and I have defended this site on this forum many times).I recently looked at my “Best Hands” in the “Hands” section of the site and noticed something weird. I have been playing on the site for 2.5 years, and almost all of my best hands occurred over 2 years ago. Statistically speaking that makes no sense. I have played over 177,000 hands on Replay, and 9 of my 10 best hands occurred over 100,000 hands ago. There is basically a 0% chance that this occurred by chance. My top 10 hands were:

2 royal flushes (most recent in January, 2015, 2 months after I joined the site)
7 straight flushes (most recent December, 2015, 13 months after I joined the site and 17 months ago; 2nd most recent was May 2015, almost 2 years ago)
And number 10 is quad aces from July 2015

I have considered a bunch of possible explanations:

  1. My playing style has changed since then, which makes it less likely that I would end up with a straight flush. This explanation is unlikely because I know how much equity a combo straight/flush draw has.

  2. These mostly occurred at lower stakes, so the playing style of the other players made it more likely. This explanation is valid, but doesn’t seem like it would go far enough to explain the difference.

  3. The “Best Hands” only include hands that go to showdown, so my opponents are not calling my bets when I have a straight flush. This explanation also has some merit, but I have gotten better at bet-sizing over time, so I would expect to get called at least 1 out of 3 times I have a straight flush.

Can anybody come up with a better explanation? I pointed this phenomenon out on this forum last year sometime, and while I don’t play quite as much as I did back then, it seems even stranger after playing another 40,000 hands.

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Joe is slipping over to the dark side :wink:
/Kidding. I can’t explain it.

Here’s another one.
I checked my latest hands list. In my last tourney. I lost 37 straight hands to end it for me . If you don’t count the hand where everyone folded to me in the BB I lost 51 straight. This was the final table of a Kick Starter tourney in which I finished 4th. I remember it well. I was playing tight and couldn’t get hardly any hole cards worth playing. When I did, I couldn’t improve. There was a hot seat and he won 14 of those 37 hands. And yes…he had “donk” in his screen name lol.

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I have just over 79,000 hands played.

Top 3 are all royals, 2 of them flopped. I went almost a year without seeing one, then hit 3 in a week or two. This was about 6 months ago… nada since.

The other 7 of my best hands are all straight flushes, 3 of them king high, the lowest 9 high. How many did I actually make? I don’t know, it only shows 10 hands.

Odd that you have more than twice as many hands played and less royals, less straight flushes, but 2 players isn’t a meaningful sample size, and we have different styles. Let’s see some more data before grabbing the tin foil hats.

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I have noticed that every time I join a site for the first time, my luck is great. But. the more I play, the more garbage I get. Also, I have had donks call pot-sized bets with straight and flush draws on the board, and nearly always they suck out on the river, with only one or two cards in the deck that can win. I mean like 2-7 off, 3-8 off, yet they win more with garbage then I do with pocket aces. They go all-in preflop with garbage, and I’m holding premium hands, yet they always suck out. Makes me wonder if the staff are playing, maybe with bots, to boost their winnings.

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Same thing happens to me. Again, like I posted below, the staff are playing, maybe with bots, to boost their egos and their stats.

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i could think of three things:

1: maybe you have played royal poker more in 2015 then you are now and switched to hold’em/omaha

2: maybe you have played much less after 2015 and because of the less hands there are also less strong hands.

3: there is indeed something strange happening. i am just like you a stat person instead of conspiracy, and also defendeed the site (which i’ll keep doing). but glitches can and will happen from time to time on any site, and that could maybe a reason this happens. i also have experienced strange stuff, not exactly the same thing as you talk about. but also a “bad luck” related problem. look at this: http://forums.replaypoker.com/t/question-for-replay/5973/30
don’t know if it helps at all, but at least you know you are’nt the only one that trust the site and still experince strange stuff.

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Hi, my first thoughts were the same as yourself and yiazmat, but I believe the bulk of the answer is variance.

Regarding Royals, two in 180,000 hands (of non-Royal hold’em) feels acceptable. From my days of video poker, I remember a royal is about 1 in 650,000. Is that a fair comparison to hold’em? The 180,000 hands is hands dealt, so I can only guess how many flops were actually seen - your Big blinds walked etc

I am going to say this is a situation where a pattern is detected after the fact, a bit like noticing someone does not get aces for 1,000 hands, or a pocket pair for 100 hands.

Having said that, there are other relevant factors:

Distribution of your volume in two and a half years. Of your total hands played, If a significant percentage of them happened at the beginning of your Replay career, you would expect to see the majority of your top ten from that time, but I did not investigate your activity by month to see if it is weighted like that. (I did not dig up your month by month stats because that’s not a report we have, but I could get some figures if pushed)

Game type and your strategy. I played through all ten hands and they are in games you play less often nowadays. I expect your hand selection is different in Mid to High stakes Ring than 6 max SNG at stakes you were limited to when you had significantly less chips, therefore you should expect to complete premium hands less often.

Hands which would have made your Best Hands List, but you folded or Mucked without showing: I found straight flushes not on your Top Ten since Nov 1st 2016. (Sent those to you in PM. Feel free to share here to confirm I did not invent them.) Again, different strategy in recent times. If some of those went to showdown, your Best Hands page would look slightly different.

@Everyone, Did you know it is possible to look at the Best Hands List of other players? Go to their player page and View Latest hands > Best hands.
Checking out (shown) Best Hands of regulars who do not play much Royal was hours of fascination for me. (Thanks JoeDirk)

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Good, bad or indifferent, here are the numbers:

Total hands played: 225,788

Best hands:
6 Royal Flushes
2 King Hi Str8Flushes
2 Queen Hi Str8Flushes

All 10 “best hands” are more than 1 year old with the oldest being almost 4 yrs old

My best guess is that once you fill the list with Royals or very hi Str8flushes, it’s hard for them to be bumped by newer hands. My guess is that newer hi hands of equal rank do not bump the current hands on the list. But then again I’m regularly told that I don’t know what I’m talking about … and … they’re right!

Enjoy!
John

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x

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I think this is the best explanation. At low stakes it’s easier to stick around with marginal hands because players are passive or they under-bet.

Also, I am pretty sure that hands played in Royal holdem don’t count towards “Best Hands” because I have made several royal flushes there that aren’t on the list. Royal flushes just happen a lot more often there.

I did play more hands back then, but at least 9 of the 10 hands occurred during the first ~80,000 hands, and only 1 occurred during the next ~90,000 hands. I did hit a straight flush recently, but my opponent folded, so maybe it is that people at higher stakes are less likely to pay you off when a straight flush possibility is on board.

Or maybe the “Best Hands” list just isn’t functioning correctly.

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It is my opinion that this site gives an unfair advantage to new players [check their ratings, any over 800,000 win a lot ]
I have also noticed that bingo players nearly always win even when they go all in with a rubbish hand.
I think [despite the staff telling me that this site is all above board ] that their object is to reward newbies and bingo players because it is more visually exciting.
The staff tell me that if the site was “rigged” then they would ensure staff won all the time.
But what is there to win??? A load of worthless chips, just numbers on the page? You can’t spend them even if you are the top player [ currently 2outs4u with 10,191,065,426 chips ]
Let’s have a fair game, no favoring newbies or bingo players, PLEASE.

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Totally agree, Frank. And why the hell are staff even playing in the first place???

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Total hands played: 75,597
Hands folded: 77% (57,968)

Best Hands

Hand Pot Size Winners Played

1 Straight Flush, Queen High 959,500 Chips Caracal 11 months ago REPLAY SAVE
2 Straight Flush, Jack High 1,924,500 Chips Caracal 12 months ago REPLAY SAVE
3 Straight Flush, Jack High 3,840 Chips Caracal, thumbs 8 months ago REPLAY SAVE
4 Straight Flush, Ten High 179,500 Chips Caracal 10 months ago REPLAY SAVE
5 Straight Flush, Nine High 3,750 Chips Caracal 8 months ago REPLAY SAVE
6 Hi: Straight Flush, Eight High / Lo: 7,5,4,3,A 6,180 Chips Caracal, Robbie4 8 months ago REPLAY SAVE
7 Hi: Straight Flush, Seven High / Lo: 7,6,5,4,3 1,566,000 Chips Caracal, williwin 12 months ago REPLAY SAVE
8 Straight Flush, Five High 18,900 Chips Caracal 8 months ago REPLAY SAVE
9 Four of a Kind, Aces 777,500 Chips Caracal 12 months ago REPLAY SAVE
10 Four of a Kind, Aces 4,350 Chips Caracal 3 days ago REPLAY SAVE

Is what in my profile for one year from this account.

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Quick comment only. After playing for two years and getting one sf in that time, a few weeks ago I had Royals on successive nights, and a K hi sf the next night. All NLHoldem.

Variance.

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I have said this before,but it bares repeating. As an ancient old fart with probably more hands played before most of you were born, than what you have now. Listen carefully----When you play enough hands you will learn the following about poker. Everything that shouldn’t happen on a poker table,will happen sooner or later. For every,rule,odds calculation,lock,or
“dead nuts sure thing” there are exceptions, anomalies,miracles,screwings,bad beats,and “why me”'s. On this site,recently, I
have had a straight flush beaten by a higher SF. High boats beaten by higher boats, Four of a kind beaten, like a red headed step child. But, every time you can be sure of one thing. The best hand wins,at a show down. Sure ,somebody can bluff everybody out, but when the cards have to be shown,a bad beat, for you was a good river card for somebody else. Despite
odds calculations, hand strength,position, previous actions, and tells, remember these. Feelings,esp, epiphanies, stupidity,
and good old fashion happenstance. These things happen all the time–The jerk that stays rags and costs you a winning
card–the player that calls you on a draw, and rivers an Ace to complete his hand–and so on. But face it, the uncertainty of gambling is what holds the attraction. So shuffle up and deal.

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A year into starting to play on this site I won 3 Big Guess tournaments at 250K chip buy in and placed in the money 12 times. I also won The Granddaddy of Them All at one million chip buy in and placed 2nd once. I also won several of the 50k chip buy in etc. I had about 14 million chips. Well I had a lot of friends, and 3 of those friends were great players having bad luck. I invited them one at a time to a 2 player ring game table and gave each of them a million chips each. I would bet just under the amount they had and when they called or raised I would fold until they had won a million chips each, well that put me on Replay’s bad boy ( s h i t ) list. I have had more bad beats since than than I could possibly count. My rating is usually over 1,000,000, which means there are more than a million players better than me. Glad I don’t count on poker to put food on the table. I have well over 500 friends and enjoy playing on tables with my friends. There are a lot of very nice players on this site from all around the world and I always enjoy meeting new friends. I have been in the US all of my life but Replay has some how managed to change my US flag to Canada.

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How does Replay explain 4 cards to a straight or 4 cards to a flush dealt so often. A player holding 1 card beats a player with a real poker hand way to often. Replay likes messing with players minds. They are control freaks. Getting us to buy chips is their goal but cheating players when they have a good poker hand with their fixed 4 suite hands is just sick. They should seek help.

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My hands do not add up either. I am beginning to doubt there truly is a random shuffle of the deck.

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That statement is wrong…

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Well, that doesn’t seem fair…