Limit Hold'em - loose 10k hands in a row?

[phydaux]

I have a friend who is also a poker player. He isn't really a student of the game, but he did study statistics in college.

I was discussing varience in Limit Hold'em, and I mentioned that is was possible for even winning players to go on prolonged loosing streaks. I said these streaks can go one for thousands of hands with the over all winning players not winning a single hand.

He insisted that, in 10-handed full ring Limit Poker, any player is going to win an average of one hand per orbit. Thus loosing 100 hands in a row is 10-1 against, and 1000 hands in a row is 100-1 against.

I only know what I read, and I've read some horrible varience stories here. Assuming that you are a consistent 4BB/100 winner, how many hands would you have to play to encounter a 10k hand loosing streak? And assuming 20k hands of poker a month (not unreasonable for an on-line pro/semi-pro) how long would you have to play before you encountered such a streak? My friend says it isn't possible in an average person's lifetime.

[Kerth]

When people use a term like "20k hand downswing", they don't mean losing 20k hands in a row.

[SpaceAce]

Your friend is semi-right. It is possible to lose 20,000 hands in a row but so unlikely (assuming fair deals and not folding your winners on purpose) that it can be dismissed. A 10K or 20K hand downswing doesn't mean you don't win a single hand, it means you are a net loser over 10,000 or 20,000 hands.

There is math for how likely an x/100 winner is to experience a y-hand downswing but I don't remember it off the top of my head.

SpaceAce

[AaronBrown]

In addition to Kerth and SpaceAge's point that no one is talking about going 10,000 or 20,000 hands without winning one pot, there are two problems with your friend's calculation.

First is that not everyone plays the same way. A tight player will win fewer than 10% of the pots, by design. He can still be a winning player. The average player will win 10%, but the average player loses money. So that doesn't tell you anything about winning.

Second, losing 100 hands in a row with an independent 10% chance of winning each hand is not 10 to 1 against but 0.9^100 or about 38,000 to 1 against. Losing 1,000 in a row is 6 followed by 45 zeros to 1 against, not 100 to 1 against.

[Thorv]

It's spelt "lose". DAMN.

[deadfromsuckouts]

This off the 10,000 hands losing in a row subject. My problem is open ended straight draws especially. Ive played about 10,000 to 20,000 hands on my current site. Of all my open ended straight draws after the flop I'm probably 1-15 hitting it. Is this normal varience for this many hands? Its costing me tons of money.