Short term variance in live poker prop bets
The gambling world has all put money on Tice vs Becker, but with only 25 guaranteed events between them, will the bet prove anything?
Everyone has an opinion, and money, on Tice vs Becker this year at the World Series of Poker. The crossbook between the GTO student and the feel player has everyone talking.
Naturally, this led me to tweet this joke:
It would be awesome if Tice vs Becker ended with three mincashes between them
— Barry Carter (@Barry_Carter) February 24, 2024
Afterwards, I got wondering how likely this actually was. The two men have agreed to crossbook at least 25 tournaments this summer at the series. While both of them are clearly +EV in the field, 25 really is a meaningless sample.
So I decided to plug it into my favourite online toy PrimeDope to see how likely it would be that neither man would cash for much. I used an average buy-in of $3,000, in 1,000 runner tournaments, giving both men an ROI of 50%. The ROI is debatable of course, but I'd rather go generous to prove a point.
Of 1,000 simulations, here are 20 random runs:
(r7R50).png)
And this is the distribution for all tournaments, over 1,000 samples:
(r7R50).png)
Most of the time the challenge ends in a loss
The probability of loss after 25 tournaments was 69.4%.
As you can see from the sample runs and distribution, the most common occurrence is to lose, and often it is to lose every single event played.
It's not a perfect simulation by any stretch. The ROIs will be way off no doubt. The field sizes will vary based on buy-in, as will the ROIs. And both men are likely to play more than 25 events.
But it does show how futile judging anyone on one series actually is. The most likely outcome, regardless of ability, over a small sample is that both players will lose money in the events played.
Having said all that, good luck to Jeremy Becker, because I have still bet on him.
Have you bet on this challenge? Let us know in the comments:
