So I’ve been on Full Tilt for a while, a pay poker site. Before I get into my rant, I have to say that I signed on yesterday to find out that, at 5 in the morning over the weekend, someone had mysteriously put $25 into my account. BONUS!
Anyway, the stereotype of that site is that it is notorious for suckouts (whoever has the stronger hand will get screwed by the turn and/or the river and lose) I don’t agree with that. I mean, it happens, but not across the boards. So I made a theory that it only happens to those who don’t have alot of chips. So I started keeping track of every all-in I was a part of (whether mine or me calling someone else’s) after playing a tourney where I busted out with the best hand.
In the many games that followed, I charted every all-in I was a part of, also taking note if I had the better hand, and if I was the chipleader or if I was all in. (I define better hand as being the better hand if nothing were to match – for instance, AK suited is *technically* a stronger hand than 22, but 22 would win if nothing matched, so it’s the high hand) Anyway, I think I proved my point, but I might have proved something else.
- When someone else went all in and I had the stronger hand, I was 26-15.
- When I went all in and had the stronger hand, I was 27 – 17. Not much disparity there, actually, but I had a few good games lately that balanced it out, because a few weeks ago the numbers were VERY skewed.
When someone else went all in and I had the weaker hand, I was 13-19.
When I went all in with the weaker hand, I was a whopping 4 – 29.
So my point is proved pretty readily. The site definitely seems to favor the bigstack, no matter if they have the strong hand or not. When I was the bigstack, I was 39 – 34, and when I was shortstacked, I went 31 – 46.
But then I think I accidentally might have proved something else entirely with this experiment. I have terrible luck in general. I had the better hand when someone’s tournament was on the line 85 times out of 150 hands (57%), yet my overall winning percentage was 70/150 (47%). I’m still ahead on the site (ignoring the random extra $25), so when I win, I win bigger than when I lose, but c’mon!
Anyway, I’m a stat nerd. Ash says it’s because I like baseball. Makes sense to me.