Statistics for Online Poker
Relevance of Mathematics and Statistics for Poker
Every successful poker player must be able to apply mathematics to his poker game.
No matter how big a bonus, or how good a Poker Rakeback deal you have, you also need to train your poker skills constantly.
When you play online poker, you are dealing with probabilities all the time – the probability of hitting a flush on the river, the probability that your opponent outdraws you with his 4-outer on the river and so on.
In mathematics, this falls under the topic of statistics.
While it is enough for most poker players to simply learn by heart that xx outs will require you xx:1 pot odds, learning a bit about the underlying math can’t hurt and helps you understand the importance a little bit better.
If you do not want to be bothered with mathematics, you can find tables for outs and pot odds at this poker strategy website: Poker bonus code test and report
As a poker player you know that since you have played the same type of situation over and over again, some situations and plays are profitable and some are not.
Playing against the math and the laws of probability will make you lose money long-term.
But in statistics, there is one law that is quite important – that’s the law of “big numbers”, meaning that only after a relatively big number of events, probability will kick in.
Let me give you an example: If you roll a dice 20 times and write down all the results, some results will be significantly more frequent than others. Roll it another 100 times, and you will reach a point where the number of sixes, fives, fours etc. will not be too different any more.
Of course we assume that we are not working with loaded dice here… Statistically, each of the six numbers should turn up 16.66666… times in a hundred.
In fact, such an equal distribution will only occur after a few thousands of trials, due to the law of big numbers.
In consequence, the fact that you have lost money short term although your play was mathematically correct, should not keep you from making the same correct call next time.
In mathematics, the probability that an event occurs is given in percentages.
In poker and betting, we find the odds form more often (good events vs. bad events).
In statistics, however, you have to calculate in percentages.So let’s take a look at some examples when playing online poker games:You hold Kd9d, and the flop shows 2d4d Tc, giving you a flush draw.
Since you do not know what the other players are holding, you must assume that there are another 9 diamonds in the deck, which has 47 cards left.
The probability of spiking a diamond with the turn card is 9 divided by 47, which is 19.1%.
If you want to know how the probability percentage for hitting a diamond on either the turn or the river, you have to calculate both (either/or) probabilities individually and add them.
That leaves you with (9/47)+(9/46) = 38,7%.
If you need diamonds on both the turn and the river (if you had Ad6h and were looking for a runner-runner flush), then you would have to calculate both probabilities individually and multiply them: 19.1% x 19.6 = 3.7%.
Of course you do not have to be statistics expert to play poker successfully, nor do you have to do those calculations every time.
But you have to be able to understand and apply the principles, which can be achieved by looking at tables for outs and odds and learning them by heart.
Read more Poker Strategy Articles or go to the rakeback section if you havent signed up for a poker rakeback online account yet.
