tournaments won vs entered

[shaundeeb]

743

[im a model]

just a quick note: the chances are obviously very small that phil won 11 bracelets by luck, assuming these were coin-flipping tournaments. but people make the mistake of applying the odds of a specific person winning as opposed to any person winning. for example, say its a coin-flipping tournament with 77 entrants and Bill Someguy wins it two years in a row. people automatically say that the odds of someone accomplishing this is 1 in 5929 (77 squared). but really the odds of someone accomplishing it is 1 in 77. the odds of Bill accomplishing it is 1 in 5929. there must be a winner the first year, so whoever wins will be 1 in 77 the next year.

so the point that phil/doyle/chan couldnt have just been lucky because the odds are so small isnt really correct. it seems correct because you are looking at it in retro-spect and saying what are the odds that phil/doyle/chan accomplish this by luck, when you should be asking what the odds are of one (or three) of the dozens of pros who have been playing these events for decades having eleven (or ten) bracelets.

i think its reasonable to say that because there is so much luck involved in poker, if we reset the world to the early 1970s and ran it all again, it would be a different few players (like bobby hoff or dewey tomko or some guy we've never heard of) who were saying, "look at the numbers--i am clearly the best. what are the odds that i have won this many bracelets by chance alone!"

[BigAlK]

[ QUOTE ]
people automatically say that the odds of someone accomplishing this is 1 in 5929 (77 squared). but really the odds of someone accomplishing it is 1 in 77. the odds of Bill accomplishing it is 1 in 5929. there must be a winner the first year, so whoever wins will be 1 in 77 the next year.

[/ QUOTE ]

I get this. It's the same as the same idea as the odds of getting dealt AA twice in a row (1 in 221) as opposed to the odds of getting dealt AA the next two hands (221 squared or 1 in 4641). I was lucky enough to have this discussion earlier this year in a casino when one of my opponents said I'd just hit a 1 in 5000 shot. I disagreed. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

This would certainly tend to lower the odds of someone winning multiple bracelets if you attribute a win to random luck since the first would essentially be meaningless from an odds persepctive. But obviously the odds will still be pretty long for anyone winning more than 3 or 4 based purely on luck. In any case I hope you'll post whatever you figure out.