I believe this is correct ... assuming a 40,000 game royal cycle...
Assuming 100 "lifetime" games, the odds are 1 in 16,162,016
Assuming 1,000 "lifetime" games, the odds are 1 in 1,601,642
Assuming 50,000 "lifetime" games, the odds are 1 in 32,001
Assuming 100,000 "lifetime" games, the odds are 1 in 16,000
Assuming 500,000 "lifetime" games, the odds are 1 in 3,200
Assuming 1,000,000 "lifetime" games, the odds are 1 in 1,600
Note that the odds above are for getting "one or more" back to back royals.
The proper way to interpret the numbers above is this way: "I am a 'clean
slate' when it comes to video poker ... the odds that I get 2 back-to-back
royals at least once sometime in the next xxxx hands is ####."
You might be able to do it with a binomial distribution. I've been thinking
about it while I waited for Excel to calc the numbers above, and I'm not
100% sure. You have to be careful. Let's say P(2 royals) is the probability
that you get two royals in a row. And you want to see what the probability
is this will happen within the next 1,000 games. It might be tempting to do
a Binomdist using the P(2 royals), but I think this would be wrong. For
example, if you are on game 1 and you fail to hit a royal, you can get a
royal on game 2 and then another on game 3 and satisfy the conditions. I do
not see how the binomial distribution takes that into account.
If anyone thinks they can do it with a binomial distribution, please show
me. That would be very helpful.
On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 5:39 AM, <coachvee@aol.com> wrote:
>
>
> Hi Gang:
> We have a friend who is a comedian who works on cruise ships. He's also a
> video poker player and right now he's on the Allure of the Seas, one of
> Royal Caribbean's two new mega-ships (the Oasis is the other).
> He sent us an email the other day about an unbelievable occurrence that
> happened to him onboard. He was playing 50-cent DDB when he held three
> cards
> to a clubs royal and hit it for $2,000. After getting his hand pay, on the
> VERY NEXT hand, he held a queen of spades and got another royal!!
> He posted pictures of the royals on his Facebook Page and it was amazing to
>
> see.
> He asked us if we had ever heard of anyone doing this before and we wrote
> back that we have friends who live in California who also had this happen
> to
> them.
> My questions are:
> 1) Is it possible to compute the odds of this once-in-a-lifetime happening?
> 2) Does anyone else on these boards have any other stories of back-to-back
> royals?
> Regards,
> CoachVee & Hedy
>
> PS: Hedy and I will be staying/playing at Showboat in AC this weekend
> because I will be playing poker in the AtLarge Tournament events next door
> at
> the Taj. I know Siona and Llew of the AC group will be playing as well but
> was wondering if any other members of these boards will be taking part.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
