If 7 players fold unplayable hands is BB more likely to have a hand?

[sonneti]

Situation is: Texas Holdem, 9 Players are at a table, 7 players fold due to unplayable hands. Only SB and BB are left.. is BB any more likely to have a playable hand?

I'm 99% sure each hand is an independent event so it shouldnt make any difference but my friend thinks otherwise.

[jem86]

given they all fold bad hands (with low cards) that leaves more As, Ks etc. to make higher hands so it makes a difference, however the odds of a low-medium pocket pair low connectors would be lower because odds are all the folded cards were low (leaving less cards for these hands and more for high hands)

[Rek]

Imteresting and I am not sure I know the answer. Depends what is "unplayable". For some people A7 UTG is unplayable as is KJ in early position. Small pocket pairs may also be put down by tight players in early position.

Logic is telling me that it will make no difference.

[GSykes]

Isn't this called the bunch theory or something?

[jay_shark]

Yes it is but it's not going to make a significant difference . The events are not exactly independent since you're gaining additional information with each passing player . So if you can discount the utg player for having pocket aces (i.e, he folds) then the probability the next player has pocket aces should be slightly better ,no ?

[Henry17]

I'm just not sure if the additional information you get from people folding is useful.

If UTG folds then the probability of UTG+1 having AA increases slightly ~85% of the time but decreases ~15% of the time. Once you have gone though 7 folds the information gained from each fold is less meaningful.

Since there are folding hands that increase the probability of the remaining hands being playable and there are also folding hands that increase the probability of the remaining hands being unplayable I don't believe folding gives us any useful information.

[Pokerfarian]

Yes. But it's negilible.

[oyvindgee]

article on the subject

[aaokwitme]

I'm not a math guy but when I had thia question I sat at my poker table and delt about 1,000 times face up to a full table and found nothing to suport, bad cards for the 1st 7-8 players = good cards for bb. allthough I did find it to be a highly good % play for a bluff in late positons.

[jae686]

[ QUOTE ]
Situation is: Texas Holdem, 9 Players are at a table, 7 players fold due to unplayable hands. Only SB and BB are left.. is BB any more likely to have a playable hand?

I'm 99% sure each hand is an independent event so it shouldnt make any difference but my friend thinks otherwise.

[/ QUOTE ]

Each starting hand (as in the two cards dealt to each player during one "hand") is clearly NOT independent of the others. The probability of you holding AA when someone else also does is clearly not 1/221, for instance.

This is actually a very easy question to answer based on a simple assumption--that other players will make preflop folds (with no one else in yet) in some predictable fashion that involves using their starting hands to make a decision.

That is to say, if the decision to play or fold has any dependency on the two cards dealt to you, we can make an inference about your cards based on your decision. This has some (possibly unknown) effect on our inferences about other unseen cards.

To simplify, if you are playing a 3 handed cash game and a pro on the button open mucks preflop, you KNOW (based on the assumption he will not open muck AA) that there are AT LEAST 3 aces among the 50 unseen cards. If he had raised, you would not have known this.