What are the odds....

S

Safehouse

Member
Playing a 6 deck, normal rules, perfect basic strategy, what are the odds of losing 15 hands in a row? Been playing for 16 years, I've never experienced that before. Thought one of the math whizzes here could compute the odds.
 
Hell'nBack said:
Very easy calculation. YxY(15)
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No, that's certainly not true. That would be the odds (using about 0.473 for Y) of losing 15 hands in a row at the start of the shoe -- the very first 15 hands you play. This is almost certainly not the way it happened. Instead, during the course of playing perhaps several hundred hands, the poster hit a streak where he lost 15 hands in a row -- not at all "impossible."

So before the question can be answered -- and the math isn't easy, by the way -- we have to know how many hands the poster played during which he encountered the streak of 15 losses.

Don
 
Ignoring pushes, you win about 47% of your hands and lose about 53%. Odds of 15 losses without a win are 0.53 ^ 15 = 0.00007314 = 0.007314% or 1 in 13,763. Rare but not ridiculous.

I once lost 23 hands without a win.
 
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Just saw Don's response. My reponse says that you will hit such a streak once in 13,763 hands on average assuming that you just keep playing and playing. If you want to know the odds of this happening within some fixed number of hands, then yes, the math is much more difficult.
 
gronbog said:
Just saw Don's response. My reponse says that you will hit such a streak once in 13,763 hands on average assuming that you just keep playing and playing. If you want to know the odds of this happening within some fixed number of hands, then yes, the math is much more difficult.
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Assuming ALL losses, with NO pushes, losing 15 in a row right off the bat is a 1 in 75,000 shot. That's probably NOT what happened!

Play 200 hands and having at least one streak of 15 losses drops all the way down to 1 in 700. For 300 hands, 1 in 500.

Don
 
gronbog said:
Ignoring pushes, you win about 47% of your hands and lose about 53%. Odds of 15 losses without a win are 0.53 ^ 15 = 0.00007314 = 0.007314% or 1 in 13,763. Rare but not ridiculous.

I once lost 23 hands without a win.
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Me too! At the high-limit room at Caesars A.C.

Don
 
MJGolf said:
Key question: Did you stop playing? Or was count positive and you said it was not a quitting point? LOL
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The count was astronomical. I was playing two hands of max bets. I would have died before quitting, although the incredulous pit boss watching was pleading with me to get up and change tables. When this happens, it's almost impossible to explain to others why you don't stop "throwing good money after bad" and keep shoving out the huge bets. It was one of the worst shoes of my life.

I had another similar experience at Bellagio, but it wasn't all in one shoe. And, it had come just minutes after I had run a single shoe at Harrah's for the exact opposite of my Caesars experience, and a huge score.

The game can be crazy, huh?

Don
 
I am always amazed at the "lost xx hands in a row discussions".

Can I ask, when do you start counting losing rounds? after each loss do you say "that's 1". :D

My point being, I am usually well into a streak when I even realize "hey I have lost quite a few hands in a row". But is it 7? 9? 11? I don't know at that point and I can't go back and try to remember each hand at that point. So any number I came up with would be at least part guess.

I suppose the one scenario that would be easier to figure after the fact would be sitting down at a new session. If you lost every hand you could easily figure out just how many by the chips you lost.
 
DSchles said:
The count was astronomical. I was playing two hands of max bets. I would have died before quitting, although the incredulous pit boss watching was pleading with me to get up and change tables. When this happens, it's almost impossible to explain to others why you don't stop "throwing good money after bad" and keep shoving out the huge bets. It was one of the worst shoes of my life.

I had another similar experience at Bellagio, but it wasn't all in one shoe. And, it had come just minutes after I had run a single shoe at Harrah's for the exact opposite of my Caesars experience, and a huge score.

The game can be crazy, huh?

Don
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I'm thinking if the count kept rising, that your bets increased, even with the losing streak. They probably thought you were almost martingaling! LOL And yes, this game can be crazy...........the more years you play, the more you see. Just shake your head, smile and go on.
 
MJGolf said:
I'm thinking if the count kept rising, that your bets increased, even with the losing streak. They probably thought you were almost martingaling! LOL And yes, this game can be crazy...........the more years you play, the more you see. Just shake your head, smile and go on.
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Naw, reached max bet very quickly, then lost every hand in the shoe.

Don
 
DSchles said:
When this happens, it's almost impossible to explain to others why you don't stop "throwing good money after bad"
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Conversely, I've been berated by fellow players for sticking to minimum bets in the midst (as they see it) of a rampant lucky streak!
 
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