Freak hearts hands

[frosty-pelican809]

I’ve had a couple of really peculiar Hearts hands dealt this week, which I find very interesting.

The first was six consecutively numbered cards of the same suit. My trusty AI buddy tells me that the chances of this is around 1.1% in simulations.

Next day I was playing again and I was dealt 9 cards of the same suit. The chances of that is a staggering 10,800 to one. Try running this through your preferred AI. Turn off the thinking commentary, I didn’t wait for it to finish…

Obviously this is difficult to comprehend, but my distressed ex managed to bend all the cutlery in the kitchen drawer, which we discovered when we got downstairs.So I know as fact that nothing should ever be called impossible.

But back to this, I play lots of card games on here and I find that the backgammon hands appear to give out a lot more doubles than would be usual. Obviously no proof available of this.

Just an observation, would be interesting to hear other people’s thoughts. Maybe devs too. I presume you run simulation exercises to check the performance of the servers.

[Remkar]

I’ve had a couple of really peculiar Hearts hands dealt this week, which I find very interesting.

The first was six consecutively numbered cards of the same suit. My trusty AI buddy tells me that the chances of this is around 1.1% in simulations.

Next day I was playing again and I was dealt 9 cards of the same suit. The chances of that is a staggering 10,800 to one. Try running this through your preferred AI. Turn off the thinking commentary, I didn’t wait for it to finish…

Obviously this is difficult to comprehend, but my distressed ex managed to bend all the cutlery in the kitchen drawer, which we discovered when we got downstairs.So I know as fact that nothing should ever be called impossible.

But back to this, I play lots of card games on here and I find that the backgammon hands appear to give out a lot more doubles than would be usual. Obviously no proof available of this.

Just an observation, would be interesting to hear other people’s thoughts. Maybe devs too. I presume you run simulation exercises to check the performance of the servers.

One issue with trying to think about the probability of rare events is that those numbers are for the event happening on a SPECIFIC HAND. The likelihood of you getting at least 9 of the same suit in a SPECIFIC hand of 13 is well below 1% like you said. But the chance of that happening in 100 hands is almost 4%.

The other issue is that you are only considering the specific "rare event" that happened to you. What else would you have found odd enough to post here? Having 4 pairs? 10 even cards? 10 odd cards? Only 2 suits? Etc., etc.

If we take ALL possible rare events that would have motivated you to post here over how ever many hands you've played recently, I'm guessing the odds would be pretty high that you'd stumble on something you find odd.

And this doesn't even factor in that with the immense number of hands and dice rolls on this site each day, it would be very odd if we were NOT seeing events that people would consider rare/unlikely.

[FrankJones]

The probability of getting any one specific 13-card hand is 1 out of 635013559600. And yet it happens every time a hand is dealt

Or, to put in another way:

S JT9876543
H A
D AK
C A

is just as likely to occur as

S J742
H K83
D 962
C T53

(Obviously).

But that first hand is a lot more interesting. So, we notice it. And, of course, having increasingly more cards of one suit is less likely to occur, but once it (something unusual) happens, it's just as likely to happen a second time as it was to happen in the first place.

I'm not sure why it would be frustrating - I think it's interesting.

To me, Frustrating is

S QJT
H QT76
D KT7
C JT2

because I know I'm likely to have a terrible score. And, that frustrating distribution is (I think) the most likely one to occur. Either that or 4-4-3-2.

I would be perfectly happy to be dealt 9 consecutive cards of a suit every hand of hearts. I would expect most of them would be fairly easy to play.

[frosty-pelican809]

Yeah, I saw my overuse of that word too, thanks for pointing it out. It’s always nice to have your little mistakes picked up by the internet watchdogs.

I didn’t use the word frustrating. I’ve always had a big interest in this subject, the first proper job I had after school was at the Office For National Statistics.

But you built a whole narrative around it. I wonder why?

[h_illes]

0.01% events do happen on average once in every 10000 games. I am sure the other 9999 games also occurred, just without the users writing about them in the forums because they must have looked normal.

As a side note, I once dealt a hand of 10 H, 3 D in real life (in a game of bridge, but still). Randomness can make that happen alright. Anyway, my point is: 9 of the same suit is sure unusual, but it's definitely possible.

[FrankJones]

Yeah, I saw my overuse of that word too, thanks for pointing it out. It’s always nice to have your little mistakes picked up by the internet watchdogs.

I didn’t use the word frustrating. I’ve always had a big interest in this subject, the first proper job I had after school was at the Office For National Statistics.

But you built a whole narrative around it. I wonder why?

A "whole narrative"?

I Wrote a few sentences, because I find combinatorial math interesting.

[ Regarding "frustrating" - MY apologies. Somehow, I read your first sentence, and my brain thought you wrote "frustrating" when actually you wrote "interesting". I agree with you. it IS interesting. Again, my fault, I have no idea how I misread what you typed. Sorry for the confusion. ]

[FrankJones]

0.01% events do happen on average once in every 10000 games. I am sure the other 9999 games also occurred, just without the users writing about them in the forums because they must have looked normal.

As a side note, I once dealt a hand of 10 H, 3 D in real life (in a game of bridge, but still). Randomness can make that happen alright. Anyway, my point is: 9 of the same suit is sure unusual, but it's definitely possible.

That's why I like Bridge so much more than Spades or hearts. 10 of a Suit? Awesome! Let's go for a grand slam! Or at least a small slam. Whereas Spades just feels like a waste of a fluke deal when you get a lot of cards in a non-spades suit.

[frosty-pelican809]

It:s all cool, just reminded me of the bad old days of flame wars.

When I was at school we used to play Bridge in the library at lunch time. My regular partner had a habit of making strange plays and bids.

I suspect we are very much alike!

[h_illes]

That's why I like Bridge so much more than Spades or hearts. 10 of a Suit? Awesome! Let's go for a grand slam! Or at least a small slam. Whereas Spades just feels like a waste of a fluke deal when you get a lot of cards in a non-spades suit.

It ended up being a small slam bid, grand slam completed.

[FrankJones]

It:s all cool, just reminded me of the bad old days of flame wars.

When I was at school we used to play Bridge in the library at lunch time. My regular partner had a habit of making strange plays and bids.

I suspect we are very much alike!

I tended to be very optimistic. "This could be a slam!"

My regular partner was more conservative, so it balanced out.