Should or Expect in Poker

Contributed by: jbharshaw
Updated: Oct 17, 2007
Views: 942

Many poker players use those two words interchangeably when talking about poker and it often causes a lot of stress and disappointment. In truth the two words have significantly different definitions. Many may feel that when discussing semantics it doesn't matter as long as the talker and the listener know what was meant, but some times words carry additional, emotional content. Just look at "dislike" and "hate" they may be synonyms but they don't really mean the same thing. There are many players at the green felt that don't really understand the difference between "expect" and "should."

Let's look at a simple statement we've all heard at least once. "Pocket Aces, heads up, should win 85% of the ace hearts

time." Our speaker should have said, "Pocket Aces, heads up, are expected to win 85% of the time." When written side by side the difference apparent. "Should" implies an imperative. "Expect" more correctly implies a probability. It could only be stronger if the statement was, "Pocket Aces must win 85% of the time." When we use "should" instead of "expect," many players become emotionally tied to the result, and when their good hands are overcome by probability, we have to listen to a torrent of complaints, and gripes. Online, "This site is rigged." is probably the most common.

In fact, your online site is not rigged. Although it may not seem that way when your opponent is stacking your chips, "Pocket Aces, heads up, do win about 85% of the time. This hand just happens to be one of the other 15%.

Right now on PokerStars there are 5348 Hold'em players. During the next hand we could realistically expect Pocket Aces to be dealt 24 times, and they will lose 4 times. In the next hour, they will be cracked about 200 times. It only makes sense that you would see them lose often. You are seeing at least three maybe four times as many hands per hour. If you multi-table you need to multiply that number by the number of tables you are playing. The poker site gains nothing by rigging the game. Regardless of the winner, they still get the same rake. The idea that they rig the cards to cause bigger pots for a bigger rake is also absurd. They actually have a better rake with small pots than big ones. One big pot of $100 yields a rake of $3, but 2 small pots of $60 yield a rake of $6. Although some sites employ many techniques to increase the rake, rigging the cards is not one of them.

Some sites, like PokerRoom , actually post the statistics for different hands on their site. They usually provide the data for a recent block of hands. A check of PokerRoom's page today has the information on over 2,000,000 hands, and it falls well with in the expected margin of error.

Face it. "Kaka" occurs. So, the next time you're discussing how often a hand should or should not win, you might consider using "expect" and keeping yourself emotionally unattached to the result. After all, "That's Poker."

Should or Expect in Poker

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Should or Expect in Poker