Odds question

[Talking Poker]

You guys are looking at this wrong... forgetting one very important piece of information.

Yes, the odds of getting AA on exactly the NEXT two hands are indeed 220:1 * 220:1 = a shitload (48,400:1).

But that's not what happened. What you are really asking about here is what are the odds of getting dealt AA immediately AFTER getting dealt AA? And that is simply..... 220:1.

See the difference? If in the middle of your tourney, you had said, "I bet I get AA the next two hands in a row" and wanted to calculate the odds of it happening, you would indeed be talking about the big number. But if you didn't say it until AFTER you got the AA the first time, the odds of you getting them on the following hand were only 220:1 again.

The cards have no memory, so each hand dealt is an independent event. People like to look backwards in time to calculate odds, but you can't do that. You have to look forward.

Another much simpler example: Say we are flipping a coin. On our past 4 flips, the coin has landed heads each time. What are the odds of it landing heads on the next flip?

50%. It will be Heads or Tales with equal probability, and the coin doesn't care what happened on the last four flips.

Now.... if I ask you what the odds are of the coin landing Heads on the NEXT 5 flips, then the odds become: *.5*.5*.5*.5*.5 = 3.125%

Get it?