WSOP best and worst hands

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Nutcracker69

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Back in 2011 I believe it was, I had researched and had verified that the answers to my trivia question were correct. It was hard to tell how they defined "winningest" and "losingest" but I assumed it was based on... actually I don't know.

I just know that it was my favorite trivia question to ask the table when I played live after that.

What is the winningest starting hand in wsop history?

What is the losingest?

I will reveal after some guesses and then maybe someone can find out if these still hold true today. I would assume that the losingest does, but maybe not what was the winningest.
 
detroitjunkie

detroitjunkie

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there is no way this is documented, you are talking about millions and millions of hands

maybe if you are talking about final tables of the ME or something, which I still dispute because there were years and years of WSOP play where this info is not documented

please give us the details of the data - are you talking about certain tourneys, are you including live, sats, and daily's? are you talking about in one hand most won (Esfandiari with 75)? we need more info

I would like to see your research
 
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detroitjunkie

detroitjunkie

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and yes define winningest and losingest because it doesnt make any sense, otherwise I say AA, over millions and millions of hands this will win most often

if you mean on average the biggest pots then perhaps something else, but you would never be able to find the data, there are literally hundreds of millions of hands that are never documented
 
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Um, every single hand that goes to showdown is documented. And no, sats, etc. don't factor in, just "main" events (not THE main event).

Also, I didn't do the calculation (obviously) and I don't recall offhand what the specifics were. I believe it was a combination of win percentage and amount won that they factored into a expected value calculation.

And no, AA is NOT the winningest, which should be obvious to anyone who has been around NLHE WSOP events. It is well known to either win small pots or lose big ones. Sure, it also wins big ones, but typically you either get lucky to fade outs or you get the benefit of a donk for that.
 
detroitjunkie

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Um, every single hand that goes to showdown is documented. And no, sats, etc. don't factor in, just "main" events (not THE main event).

Also, I didn't do the calculation (obviously) and I don't recall offhand what the specifics were. I believe it was a combination of win percentage and amount won that they factored into a expected value calculation.

And no, AA is NOT the winningest, which should be obvious to anyone who has been around NLHE WSOP events. It is well known to either win small pots or lose big ones. Sure, it also wins big ones, but typically you either get lucky to fade outs or you get the benefit of a donk for that.


Um no - they are NOT documented, you would need over 500 people standing around documenting every single hand all day everyday for 2 months, Ive worked there for two years and played there for longer- this does NOT happen I guarantee it, unless you are talking about final tables, which again did not happen pre-1980 ish because no one cared back then, not to mention they didnt even play to a winner. I am not sure where you get your information but whoever told you this is wrong or we are missing BIG pieces of information like final table 1980 and forward only or just the hands the goofy card player folks are documenting - which is like under 1% of the hands

logistically it does not make sense anyways, again we are talking about of millions of hands, where would the data be stored? how would it be calculated? it would take years to sort through it all, not to mention a ton of money to pay someone to do it and believe me the WSOP would NEVER foot the bill for something so trivial, not to even mention that some losers at showdown dont show, so therefor missing data for the loser hands, sorry just doesnt add up here either

chalk it up to urban legend

also not to beat it down even more, but the WSOP tournaments consist of 20 different games, I assume your data is for Texas Holdem only? If you PM me where you got your information I can look into it and help clear things up, because something is very wrong here
 
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Um no - they are NOT documented, you would need over 500 people standing around documenting every single hand all day everyday for 2 months, Ive worked there for two years and played there for longer- this does NOT happen I guarantee it, unless you are talking about final tables, which again did not happen pre-1980 ish because no one cared back then, not to mention they didnt even play to a winner. I am not sure where you get your information but whoever told you this is wrong or we are missing BIG pieces of information like final table 1980 and forward only or just the hands the goofy card player folks are documenting - which is like under 1% of the hands

logistically it does not make sense anyways, again we are talking about of millions of hands, where would the data be stored? how would it be calculated? it would take years to sort through it all, not to mention a ton of money to pay someone to do it and believe me the WSOP would NEVER foot the bill for something so trivial, not to even mention that some losers at showdown dont show, so therefor missing data for the loser hands, sorry just doesnt add up here either

chalk it up to urban legend

also not to beat it down even more, but the WSOP tournaments consist of 20 different games, I assume your data is for Texas Holdem only? If you PM me where you got your information I can look into it and help clear things up, because something is very wrong here

I'll take your word for it. I was given the information by a rep there who said he was charged with tracking as many hands as possible that were shown for "monitoring" purposes, etc. because they were sued pretty much every year by someone claiming collusion/rigged/etc. and this was an easy way for them to squash those suits.

But whatever, that was a while ago, I barely knew the dude and I just took him at his word. Maybe that's because I liked the answer.

It was 910 winningest (my favorite hand) and AK losingest

maybe it is an "urban legend" as you say. The tracking part seemed unreasonable to me, but the answer seemed totally reasonable.
 
detroitjunkie

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The answer makes the most sense mathmatically, as 910 suited is best hand against over pairs and people ALWAYS misplay AK especially in tourneys, so it makes sense

I think he was just making a story for story's sake, I NEVER heard anything remotely close to a situation where the WSOP was sued for collusion, and even if it was tracking hands would not do anything to fix it, especially since you would have to track the players as well - the sheer amount of time it would take to do that is overwhelming and would cost them more than any lawsuit - which would be totally unfounded anyways since the WSOP would not be liable- also would have to count pots too and track all the MUCKED hands - this guy was pulling your leg and making up stuff to prove a point that he made up himself (or heard from another person)- but the answer is probably very close to correct in terms of hands with most accumulated by variance due to the outdraw and over bet potential - but only when reaching showdown - which is a very important item to remember
 
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