#214: “Streaky Bacon”

Streaks are one of the most celebrated things in sport; unbeaten streaks, winning streaks, hitting streaks, participation streaks. One of the most incredible streaks is that of Dutch wheelchair tennis sensation Esther Vergeer who retired in February 2013 riding a ten year, 470 consecutive match winning streak, during which she conceded only 18 sets. Probably the most famous is the 1941 56-game hitting streak of baseball legend Joe DiMaggio. And don’t forget the Undertaker’s 21 WrestleMania victories in a row!

The thing about streaks is that they are statistically more common than most people think. If you flip a coin 109 times, there is a 19.5% chance of a sequence of 10 heads or tails in a row. Many are the bankrolls Martingaled away on the false assumption that streaks would not continue.

I recently went on a hot streak at the cash tables, booking 17 consecutive winning sessions in a row. Six of these sessions were played at the Fitzwilliam Card Club in Dublin during the month of March while the other 11 were played in Citywest during the Norwegian Poker Masters. Admittedly, some of the sessions in Citywest were short (one was under an hour) but they were all separate sessions, usually punctuated by miserable failures in the tournaments that were also taking place. Daragh Davey quite rightly made the point to me that he has played only one long cash game session in his career and that this perspective is vital to long-term optimal decision-making. My answer: “That sounds like what somebody whose not on a streak would say.”

In all seriousness though, the sheer volume of poker hands and poker tournaments I have played over my 7-year career will have necessarily created some statistical anomalies, some outlier peculiarities. In 51,001 online tournaments (inclusive of 18,873 6-max SNGs and 14,282 MTTs), approximately 8 million hands and $2,646,252 worth of buy-ins across 1942 days of play (942 winning days/994 losing days/6 break-even days), the following streaks have occurred:

I once cashed in 12 consecutive 6-max SNGs. (roughly 11,000-1)
I once had 9 winning days in a row. (roughly 700-1)
I once failed to cash in 56 consecutive tournaments. (roughly 4500-1)
I was once dealt Aces on the same table 3 times in a row. (roughly 5 million-1)
Dara O’Kearney and I attended six poker festivals together between August and November 2012 and between us made just one min-cash out of a combined 33 tournaments. (Having eventually broken the run by both cashing sides at UKIPT Bristol, I joked that Dara’s Hendon Mob no longer looked like that of somebody who had died in August ’12!)
I once lost 11 times in a row with pocket Kings. (roughly even money,,, always fold the Djangoes pre!)

So, as you can see, despite how unusual all of those stats are, given the sample size, each outcome was actually a favourite to occur at some point. As for my 17-in-a-row cash streak, that’s much harder to quantify. A player’s superior skill means that they are better than a coinflip in a heads-up encounter. For example, Rafael Nadal’s 41 consecutive victories on clay implies that his odds versus his average opponent in that period was approximately 60-1 on. But what is a good player’s edge in what was mostly 80-120 hand sessions of live cash-game poker versus between 3 and 7 opponents. That requires a lot of guess-work. On one side, you have the generally poor standard and my default approach of playing small-ball versus the Norwegians. On the other side, you have the small hand samples (higher variance), the fact that I am a competent cash-game player at best and the control I had over when I terminated about two-thirds of the sessions (couldn’t be leaving buried, ye know!)

Based on the stats of far more experienced live cash pros and the standard deviation of 100 hand sessions, I would estimate that I was roughly a 65-35 favourite to win each session. Therefore, my odds of winning 17 of these in a row was approximately 1500-1. That is obviously a tasty enough long-shot, especially as I have played fewer than 100 live cash game sessions total but on balance, it really isn’t as peculiar as it may first seem.

Esther Vergeer famously said that a streak-ending defeat would actually be a relief. That defeat never came. On July 17th 1941, DiMaggio failed to get a hit versus the Cleveland Indians and, in doing so, lost out on the $10,000 promised to him by Heinz ketchup if he matched the number ’57’ featured on their labels. In the early hours of the 20th of April 2014, my streak came to an end at the Irish Open when a great spot for a semi-bluff presented itself, was taken, was cry-called after my opponent clocked himself and did not hit. It was 6am so I called it a night and, in doing so, lost out on the bottle of 18 Year Old Limited Reserve Jameson promised to me by myself, to be purchased with the spoils from an eighteenth consecutive winning session. As for the Undertaker, well that was just stupid. I mean Brock Lesnar FFS!