I am not new to the game by any means which makes me having to ask this question somewhat.... Embarrassing?
So I have recently hit a pretty steep downswing and in years past I would have chalked it up to tilt, poor river calls, mild cooler situation etc. BUT this time it seems to be different. It appears as though all my poker study and hours of grinding are paying off and I am in a legit downswing as "Most" of the hands that are losing me stacks I am a huge favorite in.
No, This will not be a post where I ask if you can teach me to outrun variance or not lose AA vs QQ.
During this downswing my brain has been torqued to the point that I am questioning things that I use to hold as fact such as AA vs KK being a 82% favorite. Now I am not saying I dont believe these numbers or think the world has gotten it wrong all these years. For me seeing is believing so as usual I went to google sheets to "Do the math by hand" if you will.
This is probably some silly error on my part but its hurting my brain so I would like someone to point out where I am getting either my assumptions or my math wrong. OK HERE WE GO!
So my whole "Prove to myself" Scheme was just to take 100 hands of AA vs KK and run them out line by line knowing I have 82% Equity in the hand every time. So I did this and somehow the numbers are not coming out to what I had assumed.
My assumption was that if I have 82% Equity in the hand I would walk away after 100 hands with 82% from all the pots combined. So lets say for simplicity that the total pot of each hand all in was $10 (I shove $5 and he Shoves $5). So if i run that hand 100 times the total sum of all pots is $1000. This would leave me with $820 of that $1000 because obviously I "Own" 82%.
But when I ran it line by line in google sheets (Losing 18 hands out of 100 and winning 82) my winnings are somehow coming out to $640 instead of $820.
To sum up this whole thing - I was under the assumption that EVERY TIME I went AA vs any smaller pocket pair in a $10 pot that I would profit an average $8.20 Every hand Win or lose over the long term. My numbers are showing an average profit of $6.40 when I average winning 82 times and losing 18.
Anyway I am absolutely confused on this and I would be very grateful if anyone could point out my error in math or assumption.
You assume average pot size. Especially in tight games, getting maximum value when everyone folds should help you understand why your numbers....are just assumptions.
I don't think the responders abvoe were understanding what you were saying. If I understand you, you are saying that you simply simulated 100 hands, calling 18 of them losers and 82 of them winners.
If you do that, you will find that in 18 cases you lose $5 (net loss = -$90), and in 82 cases you profit $5 (+410). The net win is $320. If you figure that you wagered $500, you won $320/$500 = 64%. Which is what you got. However, what you also got is $820 out of the total $1000 wagered by both people = 82%.
So you are getting the right numbers, but are just a little confused because they don't seem to match what you expect. Just remember that you are putting in half of the money, so the equity is 82%, but you don't end up with 82% profit. Just like if you were 50/50, you would have 50% equity but wouldn't expect to profit 50% every time - you would expect to break even.
I know what the problem here is. You only simulated it 100 times. It has to be more. I’d estimate after about 600 times then you’ll start to see the true percentages start taking shape. It’s just a sample size problem. I know this is ive done it myself and was thinking the same things as you op.
