Sorry, it implies nothing of the sort. The only thing that changed was the amount of perfect knowledge we had and therefore the odds of this specific hand in this 1 specific event were different than they would be against a random deal. 1 event says nothing about the overall odds. Adding information will of course change the calculations for that 1 event but they cannot be extrapolated back to the baseline calculations for all events.
SPG - I don’t think it was a waste of time. It is however an example of how people can describe the same principals and still talk past each other sometimes, especially in statistics. Regardless of how you got there. I’m glad you got the info you wanted. As you know, statistics doesn’t give you the solid numbers that you are used to in engineering or that a physicist would like when calculating an orbit. Stats is “fuzzy” math. It is never giving you a “correct” answer in the sense hard math does.
I’m off to Borgata for a few tournaments where I’ll get to see if I have any live game left 
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Actually, they can.
If you are at a full 9 seat table and flop an open-ended straight draw and a flush draw (15 outs), the most common distribution would be 5 of your outs in the 16 unseen hole cards and 10 in the 31 undealt deck. I thought these 5 “dead” outs would seriously alter the actual odds, but they don’t.
(15/47)X100=31.9% and (10/31)X10=32.2%… close enough for me.
Both Chase and Joe tried to get this idea of proportional distribution through my thick skull, but I just couldn’t grasp it. Now I do.
My “ah ha” moment came when JumpingJacks provided the probabilities for each of the possible distributions. This brought it home that we were centering our predictive model on the middle of the distribution bell curve, and it doesn’t get better than that, imperfect information or not.
The same concept can be applied to any drawing hend.
I am now comfortable using my down and dirty “outs X 2” approach because I now have confidence that this will be about as close as I can get on the fly.
Exactly right and well said and I’m glad this is what got it for you.
My point from above was that the results of 1 improbable hand have zero bearing on the models accuracy as was implied above. The 1 improbable hand neither proves nor disproves the model. I am sorry if I was not more clear about what I was referencing. Extrapolated was the wrong term.
And of course I had to move my Day 1 tournament play for the Deepstack to later in the week. As I’m getting ready to run out the door I get a call from a tenant about a problem I need to handle so I’d be late for the 5pm start time. Now I’ll have to do day 1 on Thursday. Sigh.
By the way, good luck at the Borgata.
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Thanks. I need it more than most This is my tune-up for the main event in a few weeks there. That one is the biggest event I have every year. Of course for me it is more of an experience than a serious run at a win/final table but I do the best I can and try to have a good time.
I definitely don’t think this thread was a waste of time. It is always useful to think about probability, how it works, and how it can be applied to improving at poker. It has gotten me thinking a lot more about what my actual equity is in certain situations, and (maybe I should start a new thread), specifically about the idea of playing suited connectors in a ring game.
In ring games let’s assume that we are deep stacked (200 bbs) and most opponents have at least 100bbs. You are dealt 76 of spades in the cutoff and for the sake of realism let’s say 2 other players have already limped so you limp behind, and it ends up being the BB, UTG, MP1, you, and the button going to the flop. The flop comes 469 with both the 4 and 9 being spades. It’s checked to you and you lead for 3/4 pot, the button calls and everyone else folds, and the next card is the J of spades. You bet 3/4 pot again and the button shoves. What are the odds that they have a bigger flush?
Or, let’s say they shove over your raise on the flop. Do you call? Would your decision to call be different if you hadn’t also paired your 6? If you had combo-draw gutshot or open-ender? Are the reverse implied odds too great to play big multi-way pots with suited connectors? It has definitely gotten me thinking…
To try to answer my own question 
, against two random spades on that turn board, I would be behind almost 90% of the time (only beating 23, 25, 35), but against the top 25% of all starting hands I would be ahead 90% of the time. I still would have 65% equity if my opponent would shove the turn with any random spades, AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 99, 66, 44, AsX, or broadways with the K of spades. Given the lack of raises preflop (unlikely to have AA-QQ) and the flushy board, it is a pretty marginal situation if they shove. I would probably fold unless I knew my opponent could somehow bluff or overvalue worse hands.
Going backwards to the theoretical flop, against 99 I would have 31% equity on the flop, which is actually not abysmal. Against AK of spades, I would still have 53.4% equity on the flop, so that is pretty good if the button shoved. On the other hand, I would only have 44% equity against 79 and 33% against 44, so calling that button shove is probably a bad idea, given that I have ~46% equity against my opponent’s likely shoving range.
This type of math makes me wonder if playing suited connectors in deep stack ring is even a good idea. It is unlikely that you will win a big pot against a hand with a 9 or a 6 in it, but you are likely to be crushed by bigger flushes or overpairs even when you do connect. Plus they make you more likely to chase flushes or straights even when the reverse implied odds outweigh the implied odds. I guess the idea is that you can fold them when you miss or get bluffy with them (but I wouldn’t count on bluffing anyone on Replay, people love to call). Anyone have any other thoughts?
One of the things I got from this thread was that you don’t have a probability, you have a range of probabilities. In the example I used, the range would be 22.5% to 16.1%, with a confidence level of 75%. If you want a higher confidence level, you get a much wider range.
I’m not sure if knowing this helps me, or if it does, how it helps me, LOL
The first example you gave would be a fairly easy fold for me. If he has a flush, it’s probably better, and there are tons of other hands he could have. What can you really expect to beat there? You aren’t in great shape vs any 9X or JX type hand, especially if he has a spade, and many of these might limp into a multi-way pot.
The second situation is a fold for me too, at least usually. You aren’t in great shape against any hand he would shove there. If he has a set, you could flush and still lose. If he has a better flush draw, you could flush and still lose. Even if all he has is top pair or 88,TT, or JJ you aren’t happy calling allin there.
Even if you had 15 outs twice, you could be behind and hit your hand and either lose or chop.
You only have what, 4 or 5 BB’s invested? Better to fold bad than to call bad, why risk 95 BBs there?
For me, the real value in suited connectors is when you flop 2 pair or trips. Also nice if you flop an open-ender, at least if you’re at the right end of it. If you make the flush, it’s a mixed blessing. If I’m in position, I’ll try to get to showdown on the cheap. Out of position, I might min raise a small bet to see where I stand and try to take control, but I’m not going broke with a small flush.
I’m a tournament player, so that kind of shapes the way I look at things.
Yeah, our conclusions are pretty similar. I think the reason pros like them is because you can semi-bluff a lot on open-ended or flush boards, but on Replay where there are so many multi-way pots and nobody likes to fold, that playing that way does not work (maybe in the 50k/100k ring where people get trickier). I think the probability of flopping trips is pretty low (about 3%, though I am not sure about that) and you are crushed by trips with a bigger kicker or a flopped set, so it doesn’t really seem worth investing in that. Plus, when you flop two pair with say 76, it is often bottom two where an opponent with top pair/overpair has a lot of equity and there is likely to be a potential straight on the board by the river (if a 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, or 9 hit), not to mention possible sets.
I’m more of a tournament player myself, but I think deep-stacked (usually more often in ring) is where the reverse implied odds come into play. In a tournament with 10-80 bbs I would be more likely to get it in with a flopped two-pair, a mediocre flush, a combo draw, or on a semi-bluff than I would in ring, so the hidden ways that suited connectors hit the board have more value in tournaments.
Playing hands like that can also help you balance your range. If you semi-bluff, get called and win, well, having hands like that in your range just might get you paid down the road when you do flop a monster.
I’ve cracked more big pairs with hands like 89s, than any other way. If I can get in cheap with them, yeah I’ll take a flop.
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or you could just formulate the theory that because you’re playing on Replay site probability of a flush is 75%
Which would be wrong. As we have discussed many many many times before, people play somewhat differently for free chips, especially at low stakes, so they chase a lot of draws. The probability of having three of one suit on board by the river is about 37%, so there are a lot of flushes in poker, not just on Replay. Enough with this conspiracy stuff…
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Totally agree here. You see a lot more hands made here on the river because a lot more people play highly speculative hands and chase those drawing hands all the way to the bitter end. I would love to see a stat on what percentage of hands go to showdown here vs in cash play. I would imagine the difference would be striking and put to bed this “rigged game” conspiracy stuff for good.
Anyone have any idea on the numbers in question here?
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That is a good question, although it is difficult to answer empirically. I think only site employees might have access to that data, plus I am not sure it would be meaningful because it would vary by game type, table size, and stake level.
Anecdotally, it seems like many more hands go to showdown than what I have seen in real-money poker (in home games and watching the pros play, though I have never played online for money). Players on Replay are more likely to play suited or connected cards like 93s or 78o, which are actually terrible hands, and they are also more likely to call big bets when they flop a draw, so of course there are going to be more flushes and straights. This phenomenon decreases as the stakes get larger (but never disappears completely).
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Regarding this hand I think it highlights a bunch of considerations, not just the cards we have.
- Are we scared of losing our entire balance in this one pot because we are playing at Stakes beyond our bankroll?
- What information do we have on the opponent? In the example, a shove by someone with 100 bb is a mighty over-shove. If we are comfortable risking the chips and the opponent is known to be playing like this with top pair or worse, we can take either line suggested, either shoving the flop or the turn. Realistically, made flushes when you have both cards in hand are winners more often than not.
- With the same hand in a different spot, we might be pot committed and folding is just bad. Why limp 7-6 suited, hit a nice flop, or even the flush itself, then bail?
Regarding some stats, it is something we at Replay have considered digging up and using to address the riggedness theories. Getting some stats for Replay games would not be too difficult, (have to check) but we would need other stats to compare them with.
From my day to day observations, there are more rivers reached by more players on Replay than cash sites, Therefore more players make more hands, but no-one has a definitive number of rivers which change the winning hand, just ‘always’ or ‘too many’. My statement is also unsupported by actual data, just my perception.
On the flip side, what about when there is an all in every hand player in the game? Those games are not that rare and someone shoving every hand preflop would produce a session where a tiny percentage of hands go to showdown and if the players in the game are half decent, the river might rarely make much difference because one of the participants will be drawing thin on average.
I do think it is logical that free chip players play more hands to the river and thus the results are more unpredictable. The example I use is when someone is beaten by what looks like a miracle runner runner by one of their opponents, but collectively the three other players all-in are supposed to win the hand 50% or more of the time.
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I’m not that sure we see that many more hands go to showdown. Here’s a pattern I see all the time…
Raise to 3x preflop, get 4 callers.
Min bet the flop, get 4 callers.
Min bet the turn, get 3 callers.
Move in on river, everyone folds.
So, a lot of times, the betting patterns make it more likely people will chase, and the huge overbets when you make a hand make everyone fold before showdown.
I agree with that. I would say more hands go to the river than in real-money poker, not necessarily go to showdown. In ring, even at high stakes 500k to 1.5m buy-in, you get 3 callers on a 6x-7x open raise, then the raiser bets 3/4 pot or full pot on a flop with two suited cards and gets called by the naked flush draw. They will then end up going all in when they do catch the flush, forcing their opponent to fold.
Of course, they get no added value on the draw they overpaid to chase, so I am happy to face this kind of play.
I do not find the 3x bet making anyone fold that was not going to fold anyway at this site. $50 to $150 and no one folds. Maybe 6x or 10x will make them reconsider.