Big Starting Hand -vs- Big Starting Hand - How often should you see them?

This article tries to give the average poker player a visual picture of how often big hands (AA -vs- KK, AA -vs- QQ and KK -vs-QQ) should come up during a poker session. To analyze this I used the DealGuardian card shuffling and dealing engine to simulate a number of hands. For each hand the following starting hand counts were recorded: AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, AA-vs-KK, AA-vs-QQ and KK-vs-QQ. Afterwords, the statistics of how often you should see these particular hand combinations are calculated, not just as percentages, but as a result of frequency over time.

This article will leave out most of the math used. There are a number of other sites dedicated to showing starting hand percentages and odds, so I will leave it up to the reader to search those sites.

To start with I setup the data gathering software to simulate 9 handed poker games using the DealGuardian engine. Only the pre-flop player hole cards were dealt and the information stored for the analysis. Each trial simulated 8 hours of play based on a 70 hand/hour rate. The results of the 100,000 trial analysis was used to write this article:

Trials:..................100,000
Simulated Hours:.........800,000
Hands Per Hour:...............70
Total Hands:..........56,000,000

Let me first start by validating the randomness of the DealGuardian engine by showing the results of the big pairs (AA, KK, QQ, JJ and TT) and compare theme to the expected results.

The probability of a player being dealt any pair for the starting two cards in a hold'em game is 0.45% (4 and ½ tenths of a percent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker_probability_%28Texas_hold_%27em%29). In a nine handed game, this number is increased to 9 X 0.00453 to give the probability any player can have a specific pair. The result is that any player being dealt AA in a 9 handed game is approximately 4.08%. After running the 100,000 trials, the data demonstrated the following percentages for big pairs using DealGuardian:

AA:.............4.07%
KK:.............4.07%
QQ:.............4.07%
JJ:.............4.07%
TT:.............4.08%

This should be evidence that the test engine is sufficient for simulating an unbiased shuffle and distribution of cards. Now on to the bigger question about data gathered about big pair -vs- big pair.


We will next look at the percentages of this situation gathered from the same 100,000 trials. I will then translate he percentages into hourly rates to demonstrate how often a player should witness these situations when playing poker. After 56,000,000 hands the following probability of a having big pair -vs- big pair is:

AA -vs- KK:.............0.16%
AA -vs- QQ:.............0.16%
KK -vs- QQ:.............0.16%

To get an approximation of how close this is to the expected value you can multiply the 1 player pair percentage to an 8 player pair percentage to get 0.15%. That's a very small percentage of time overall. The following data is how many times big pair situations came up in the 56,000,000 hand:

AA -vs- KK Total:.............88,771
AA -vs- QQ Total:.............88,637
KK -vs- QQ Total:.............88,692

That is after 800,000 hours of simulated play. So how often should a player witness this scenario at a 9 handed table? Well, the rate I got for each situation is around 0.11/hour which means you should see any one of these once every 9 hours and either of them once every 3 hours. That's a pretty low rate compared to what I think I'm experiencing online. Which is why I started this analysis in the first place.

My next effort will be to collect online statistics to see if these numbers line up. It's going to be difficult gathering 56 million hands of legitimate online poker room data, but I feel its will only take a small number of hands to see if the online stats are in line with these results.

Please feel free to share these results as often as you like, as long as they are not altered. A link to the PDF version can be found at:

http://www.securecarddealer.com/presentations/BigHandAnalysisReport.pdf

DealGuardian Demo Site

We are pleased to announce that Secure Card Dealer is going to make a DealGuardian demonstration service available to the public. This service will provide a sense of how easily DealGuardian can provide the necessary services to provide a legitimately secure and honest environment for online poker rooms to utilize.

If you are a developer and are interested in seeing DealGuardian in action, please send a license request to info@securecarddealer.com to get your secure digital certificate. The demo site is available at http://demo1.securecarddealer.com:8080
Click on the DealGuardian button to have a glimpse into the WSDL provided by Secure Card Dealer.

Mason Malmuth is wrong

OK. I understand that I have not been playing poker as long as Mason, but the idea that he expressed on the Two+Two Pokercast about the online poker community policing itself like live poker players do is absurd. Sure, the 2+2ers got lucky with Absolute. Someone in the support department gave up information they should not have and a cheater was discovered. It took a lot of persistence and luck to catch this one.

The biggest difference between live and online is that players sitting at a table can observe what is happening to the deck, their hole cards and the deal. Online player are relying totally on the poker site to make sure a fair, unbiased and secure game is being played. In a good number of financial transactions that take place in the real world, an independent 3rd party is used to ensure the integrity of the transactions. That's where DealGuardian comes in.

DealGuardian is the only service an online poker room can use to prove to it's players that the games they are in are not being manipulated or hacked. But as long as people (the industry insiders) argue against live security measures, players will always have questions about game fairness. If you think it's time to move on and have online gaming progress to the next level, then write your favorite site and ask them when they will start using DealGuardian. You can use a link on this page to do so: http://www.securecarddealer.com/contactpokerrooms.aspx

THE NIGHT BEFORE ONLINE POKER SAFETY

THE NIGHT BEFORE ONLINE POKER SAFETY

Twas the night before online protection, at an online poker house

All the supers were playing, even PotRipper louse;

The bets were all made with correct odds and care,

In the hopes that the river wold bring no despair;

A super user is ready for signal all green,

while images of everyone's hole cards flashed on his screen;

And “Dan Druff” in his skivvies and me in my suite,

were ready for all sites to give supers the boot;

When on the poker table there popped up logo,

I leaned forward to see if it was time to go go;

Away to my screen I logged on in a flash,

supplied my credit info and put in some cash;

The picture of the Bull Dog on imaginary felt,

gave the feeling of integrity of all cards to be dealt;

When I realized my eyes were seeing quite clear,

The DealGuardian logo erased all my fear;

With a quick riffle of cards and the click of the mouse,

I knew it was safe to play poker in this house;

As fast a each card was secretly dealt,

The supers were leaving without bringing us to felt;

No PottRippper! No NioNio!
No Sleepless or WhackMe44!

No nvtease! No flatbroke33!
No UtakeIt2 or WhakMe!

Log off! Log off! Your ineffective here!

So leave us to play and you can kiss my fat rear!

The DealGuardian logo will be here for days,

And let us do poker without your cheating ways;

Our hole cards are secret, and future cards too;

Your inside help is no good so eat some poo;

And now sites are dealing, with players in mind;

I'll make my pot sized bet, like every good grind;

That DealGuardian logo has shown up in time,

I now know these sites are free of the grime;

My skills are now winning, I have no despair;

The decks are not stacked they are shuffled with care;

The DG Logo with teeth showing bright;

Will let me hang on to my bankroll tonight;

That spiked collar shows that protection is here;

And all poker players can play without fear;

He has a stern face and his eyes in dead stair;

For cheaters he hates and a new one he'll tear;

He's a watchful old canine, he protects every hand;

He makes supers, NOT supers just helpless and bland;

With a riff of the deck and my public key given;

He deals me my cards and and keeps everything hidden;

He does not say much, because that's not his job;

He deals us the cards so no one can rob;

At the end of the hand, that old Bull Dog supplies;

The results of the hand so the card room complies;

He does it so quick, that the players don't know;

The card room does not even have all the info;

So I proclaim to all, ask your card rooms tonight;

Help fill all you super users with DealGuardian Fright!

Merry Christmas from Secure Card Dealer!

Why would online poker rooms want you to bust out?

Why would online poker rooms want you to go bust on their site? At first glance this question appears to have no merit. Online poker rooms make their money on rake and tournament fees, so there would be no reason for them to want me to bust out. How about this?

The cash you put into an online poker account is sitting in an off-shore account. This account is owned and controlled by the poker site. As more people deposit at the poker site, the larger the account grows and the more interest it is able to generate. If you win enough playing online, eventually you are going to pull money out of this account. If the poker room is using the interest from this account as a part of their revenue, well then they get hurt when withdrawals are made from their account. But, if you go broke there is probably a good chance you will re-deposit and grow the poker sites account.

Re-deposit bonuses are a good way to attract players to put more money into an online poker account. Even if you do get some of the bonus cash promised to you, the poker site still has all of it in their account. Heck, the bonus money does not even have to be real unless they get enough withdrawals to have to pay up. Given the number of players they have, this should not be a problem for the poker sites. And, if the hands are being manipulated so that more people go broke instead of winning, you may never see the entire bonus amount or will end up re-depositing to try to win that bonus amount.

If sites need something to attract new players or want to have players re-deposit, they should consider having services which protect the player from fraudulent activity. Prove to online poker players that they are not just trying to grow and off-shore account, but want to provide a service which is fair and unbiased. Better yet, allow the player to get the interest from the account with monthly statements from legitimate banking institutions. If we ever see a site providing such services, we will have truly reached an age where online poker is legit.

Food for Thought

Why do Full Tilt poker commercials talk about and demonstrate live play scenarios for an online site? Just about every commercial talks about why people play poker and most of them are about tells or situations involving live play, but are impossible to experience in online play.

Is the general public so gullible that they put together a series of commercials that play on their intelligence? My guess is that online play has too many differences to live play and this information would drive people away from online poker. Electronic data is easily manipulated and snooped but live cards are not.

Sitting at a live table has players policing the action, but online the players can only see their cards and the board. What happens electronically is completely hidden from their eyes. Did one of the other players see what I was holding? Did the dealer deal off the bottom of the deck? Online you have no idea. These are the things online poker rooms don't want to advertise.

Full Tilt presents the positives of live play while falsely giving current or new players a warm and fuzzy feeling that playing online is just as safe and secure as playing live.

Online Poker Fraud Revealed

I just finished watching the piece on 60 Minutes about the Absolute and Ultimate Bet poker scandals. As online poker players we need to be very careful when playing these sites. I have heard stories from countless players claiming the hands they play appear to be manipulated. There are chat rooms out there making the players just feel like they play poorly, when in fact if you were one of the victims at Absolute an UB you were just being cheated.

What we need is a real time regulatory body or service that can prove to the players the hand they were just dealt was on the up-n-up and that none of their competitors had an unfair advantage. We need a product like DealGuardian to protect us from internal fraud and scams. But until we unite and demand such a service from the sites we play, they will gladly keep taking our deposits and drain the US economy out of billions of dollars every year.