About PokerShowdown

Most experienced online poker players can recognize if they are running good or bad. But there is not really a good way to quantify just how good or bad. PokerShowdown quantifies the luck experienced by a player with a set of calculated statistics called "Luck Factors". In general, a Luck Factor greater than one indicates good luck and a luck factor less than one indicates bad luck. For more details on the calculated statistics see the "Luck Factors" tab.

I made a YouTube video about basic usage of PokerShowdown which can be found here: basic usage

One of the key ways PokerShowdown measures luck is by how it defines a bad beat event.

As everyone knows, a bad beat event is just a random event that occurs in poker. During this event, one player is lucky (receives a suckout) and one player is unlucky (receives a bad beat). So if you process 1 million hand histories, let's say there are 100,000 bad beat events. With how PokerShowdown defines a bad beat, there will be exactly 100,000 bad beats and 100,000 suckouts. So why should any one player experience one more than the other? The answer is they shouldn't over the long run.

Another way to look at is let's say you process 1 million hand histories you find you were involved in 100,000 bad beat events. 60% of those were bad beats for you (you were on the unlucky end) and 40% of those were suckouts for you (you were on the lucky end). It is clear that you have been unlucky over that range of hand histories.

Note that with all the luck factors, over the long run the numbers should converge to 1. If that does not happen, you may want to play elsewhere as there is a bias, unfairness, or something else going on with that poker site. That being said, the value of this app is over the short term. As mentioned at the top of this page, most poker players can tell if they are running good or bad. But this puts a number to it so you can see just how good or bad.

I've found that if I have a bad poker session, it is somewhat reassuring to see a low luck factor. This means it was mostly out of my control (I got my chips in good but my opponents got lucky).