What are the odds?

[Gubus]

This may belong in a bad beat forum, but I'm looking for a stat/game theory whiz (Andy Block type) to give me a little insight. Not about a hand, but rather a very long stretch of what appears to fall outside expected variance (at least to my somewhat limited knowledge of the subject).
I've been keeping track of my all-ins (NL Holdem) for a long time. I've got a lot of different catagories/situations, but will just post a common situation all can relate to. Pre-flop, all-in (me or the other player all-in): under pair vs 2 over cards. The classic ("thank you Mike Sexton") race situation. We all know the pair is usually favored by a few percentage points, but basically even money. As of this writing, when I'm holding the pair, my record is 61 wins, 252 losses or 19.5% (61 divided by 313 total situations). On the other hand, when I'm holding the over cards, I've won 28 out of 199 (14%). That's a combined 17.3% in a 50-50 spot. Maybe 512 times in that situation isn't a large enough sample, but it's going to take me a LONG time to get even.
I've got other much more improbable records, but believe me, you wouldn't believe me!
Gubus

[pococurante]

As I posted in your other thread, the odds are somewhere close to 1 in a billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion. Somewhere in the neighborhood of playing the lottery each week, and winning all 52 times.

It would be one of the most unlikely things to ever happen in the history of the world. Coinflips simply do not work this way over an extended period of time.

It is extremely likely that you are "misremembering" those stats.

[Broderick C.]

Do you have poker tracker or something or are you just recording them in excel or something? Also what site is this?

[thomaz]

Stranger things have happened. I've been beaten in back to back showdowns by the same guy hitting consecutive straight flushes. Even less likely I think, I have been dealt AA in 3 consecutive hands and lost all of them. Although that's just five hands... To have a run like that you're either desperately unlucky or have been pushing too much with ducks!

[pococurante]

Odds of someone hitting two straight flushes in a row against you = over 1 in 5 trillion. Extremely unlikely, but with all the poker hands being dealt every day... it's bound to happen to someone.

Odds of getting AA three times in a row are 1 in 10.8 million. Odds of losing with AA three times in a row are around 1 in 244... so it's about 1 in 2.6 billion for that to happen. Again it's very unlikely, but also reasonably possible.

For Gubus to lose that many coinflips is like getting dealt AA for 30 hands in a row and losing to a straight flush every time. Not even remotely possible at all.

As for your claims, I think it is also extremely likely that you lost to two straight flushes within a few hands, or lost with AA 3 times in an hour or something like that. People exaggerate or misremember their hands extremely often... so I'm more likely to believe that, than a 1 in a trillion scenario.

[Reckless1der]

Please clarify, were all 451 trials exclusively heads up?

[Copernicus]

[ QUOTE ]
This may belong in a bad beat forum, but I'm looking for a stat/game theory whiz (Andy Block type) to give me a little insight. Not about a hand, but rather a very long stretch of what appears to fall outside expected variance (at least to my somewhat limited knowledge of the subject).
I've been keeping track of my all-ins (NL Holdem) for a long time. I've got a lot of different catagories/situations, but will just post a common situation all can relate to. Pre-flop, all-in (me or the other player all-in): under pair vs 2 over cards. The classic ("thank you Mike Sexton") race situation. We all know the pair is usually favored by a few percentage points, but basically even money. As of this writing, when I'm holding the pair, my record is 61 wins, 252 losses or 19.5% (61 divided by 313 total situations). On the other hand, when I'm holding the over cards, I've won 28 out of 199 (14%). That's a combined 17.3% in a 50-50 spot. Maybe 512 times in that situation isn't a large enough sample, but it's going to take me a LONG time to get even.
I've got other much more improbable records, but believe me, you wouldn't believe me!
Gubus

[/ QUOTE ]

Youre right, because this one is so improbable I dont believe it, so if you have more incredible ones than this I certainly wont believe those.

Also, unless you were being sarcastic, give up on the idea of "catching up". Even from a more credible starting position, probabiity theory doesnt say that you will catch up, the most likely result of future trials is that you'll remain 167 succeses behind your expected mean of (n+512)/2 successes (assuming a 50/50 probability for all trials.)

[Gubus]

Update-
OK, I took the comments to heart. Maybe I was hideously off with my recoed keeping. Started tracking anew, with a different approach. This time strictly as a statisitical endeavor, with the sole purpose of keeping the records... not playing & keeping track on the side. Played at UB and Absolute, 50 cent Sit'N'Gos. Guaranteed accurate.
All in pre-flop, under pair vs overcards - 23 wins, 66 loses= 26%. Over cards vs underpair - 10 wins, 44 loses= 19%. Not as whacked, but still weird. Side note...not sure if the following can be assigned a probability - flop a set, all in before the turn, 1 win 5 loses. Same setup, but flop a straight, 0 wins 4 losses.
There...don't I feel better now...