luck

did you ever wonder what luck was?
i did maybe once when i was a child. but i'm not really sure. just would have to assume i did since i guess i have some concept of what luck is. not sure if i ever looked up the definition of luck either. so but here are some definitons from one source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/luck
luck
–noun 1. the force that seems to operate for good or ill in a person's life, as in shaping circumstances, events, or opportunities: With my luck I'll probably get pneumonia.
2. good fortune; advantage or success, considered as the result of chance: He had no luck finding work.
3. a combination of circumstances, events, etc., operating by chance to bring good or ill to a person: She's had nothing but bad luck all year.
4. some object on which good fortune is supposed to depend: This rabbit's foot is my luck.
—Verb phrasesInformal. 5. luck into or onto, to meet, acquire, become, etc., by good luck: She lucked into a great job.
6. luck out, to have an instance or run of exceptionally good luck: He lucked out when he made a hole in one during the tournament.
7. luck upon, to come across by chance: to luck upon a profitable investment.
—Idioms8. down on one's luck, in unfortunate circumstances; unlucky: She hated to see her old friend so down on her luck.
9. in luck, lucky; fortunate: We were in luck, for the bakery was still open.
10. luck of the draw, the luck one has in or as if in drawing cards.
11. out of luck, unlucky; unfortunate: When it comes to getting World Series tickets, we're usually out of luck.
12. push one's luck, Informal. to try to make too much of an opportunity; go too far. Also, crowd one's luck.

so i guess we know you might get lots of different ways to define luck from various sources. so but maybe this one will do.
so but why bother? after all we all know what luck is right?
well maybe not me since of late with my obsessive interest in gambling and investing and all the question of luck has become a point of interest and in my case a good bit of confusion.
so but of late i've actually been trying to think about the subject of luck. not much lol, not enough to get a headacke. but enough to maybe think luck is vastly more complicated than one might think at first blush just going about ones daily activities. but still why bother? for me now it's just a natural confluence of my interest in gambling and investing but invigorated by a kind of a wake up call mentally when i stumbled upon the book The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb. http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/
now there is a guy who's obsessed with luck and has been so ever since a young age.
so but anyway it's an interesting subject and suprisingly perhaps not even applicable to casino's! the thing for me about luck, real luck not standard deviation, not making your expectation but the prospect of fortune is the question of can it be realized in a casino. it's always been an interest of mine ever since learning some things about advantage play that the process is so robotic and lends no room for judgement, thought or wisdom. a computer which experts say isn't even as intelligent as a grasshopper can perform advantage play flawlessly. but when it comes to luck, really luck a computer is clueless and so are probably most of us. but well if you believe Taleb wisdom has it's place.

Luck is the residue of design.

-Branch Rickey

Doofus said:

Luck is the residue of design.

-Branch Rickey

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that's what i've been thinking!
the idea that advantage play is analogous to design. and luck is ancillary.
the trick would be recognizing the residue shrouded in it's chaotic form or lack there of. seize it and put it to work for you with maybe more design.
problem with that scenerio i guess is the problem of the likelyhood of diminishing returns and just plain risk i guess. point being i guess the payoff needs to be way large compared to the risk and the original designed advantage maybe?

Guess My Thoughts?

Luck = Variance?

Luck = hard work meets opportunity?

Is one luckier if they play a strong game vs a weak game?

Is when hard work meets opportunity when you study some indices beyond the Catch 22 and you get your chance to employ them and you are successful? Is that making your own luck?

Actually we have a lot of control over our play:
What % ror do we accept?
resizing?
close indice play?
when to enter a table?
when to leave a table?
where to play?
how often to play?
camoflauge?
tips?

We are masters of our own ship but we are in some rough seas due to variance. I guess it matters if we are a lucky captain:eyepatch: or not:joker:

blackjack avenger said:

We are masters of our own ship but we are in some rough seas due to variance. I guess it matters if we are a lucky captain:eyepatch: or not:joker:

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Hmm. The picture is clear to me now as I sit oarless in my rowboat looking down the barrel of tsunami.:fish: The lip of the wave splashes water on my face as the rowboat begins to invert and just then, I wake up standing on a pile of chocolate.

BJC:

blackjack avenger said:

Luck = Variance?

Luck = hard work meets opportunity?

Is one luckier if they play a strong game vs a weak game?

Is when hard work meets opportunity when you study some indices beyond the Catch 22 and you get your chance to employ them and you are successful? Is that making your own luck?

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not to hard to guess your thoughts on those attributes oh vengeful one.
except maybe of the Luck = Variance one.
that's the one where my feable frog hopefulness muses upon turning the mundane into fortune. well maybe not fortune but a small level of luck.
the symmetry of variance be dammed :eyepatch:
sagefr0g's know when they experience high positive standard deviation and when they are approaching low negative standard deviation.
and like their chameleon brethren know how to change their spots. see below as well as above your words:

Actually we have a lot of control over our play:
What % ror do we accept?
resizing?
close indice play?
when to enter a table?
when to leave a table?
where to play?
how often to play?
camoflauge?
tips?

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ahmen. glory halleluya brotha!
that's IMHO can be as far as how we fool around with those choices could be a way to do the tango with lady luck a bit. :cool2:

We are masters of our own ship but we are in some rough seas due to variance. I guess it matters if we are a lucky captain:eyepatch: or not:joker:

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advantage play is what it is. the question is can luck be made, can it be profited from, taken advantage of? or is it an integral part of advantage play and shouldn't be tampered with?
davey jones ain't gonna tell ya. lmao. dead men tell no tales.:fish:

Luck = Skill

Perhaps we make our own luck by becoming skilled.

Luck favors the advantage player just like luck favors the prepared.

blackjack avenger said:

Perhaps we make our own luck by becoming skilled.

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that's one we agree on.
how about the concept of knowing sh!t from apple butter.
and the good sense of what to do with either?
those aspects of the equation seem totally ignored in advantage play where the attitude seems to be just keep throwing money at it since it's all good.
but me thinks it isn't all good. some of it stinks to high heaven. other of it is like mana from heaven. it's as if just because a computer doesn't have a sense of smell or taste and it can achieve an advantage then we should ignore our ability to smell and taste. like maybe the computer sim doubles it's bankroll at some point fairly early on and then goes on playing and loses maybe all of that and then some million hands later or so more than doubles it.
so but we don't know how it went when we look at the end results we just know the standard deviation and some averaged out hourly win number that probably won't relate to our real world results more than once every blue moon or so. the computer just keeps playing the same way never changes and it gets the money. so there is something i don't understand about that.
is there some rule that says if you change the way you play at some point that you won't get the money or maybe even more money?
i know you've mentioned bet re-sizing. well that's one thing i don't see my simulator doing. is that a wrong thing? i suspect not. are there other changes one could make and still make money? i dunno but i suspect so. if it is wouldn't that be skill as opposed to playing like a robot? could that be skill making luck?

hawkeye said:

Luck favors the advantage player just like luck favors the prepared.

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some think it has nothing to do with luck. there is no gamble.
maybe that's close to right or has some significance. maybe there is no luck in a casino. maybe it's all standard deviation and expectation and it's all known what can happen, no surprises.
if that's the case the question would be is there a factor that can change that above and beyond the dull known expectations? what could it be other than us who might throw a monkey wrench straight into the heart of the guts of the ever grinding casino machine monster lol? yeah we know how to mimic the casino machine and turn the tables on it. that's advantage play and with it we can grind out maybe a decent little profit for our selve's.
wouldn't luck if it were possible be more than that? i like the idea that you allude to. the idea of using advantage play so as to expose ourselves to the possibility of luck.
so maybe if there isn't luck in a casino there is something like it. that's standard deviation. and another thing that's like luck in a casino is shooting for a goal and making it. those can be short term events. here and now sort of things. the stuff that feel good is made of. the orthodox advantage player experience's that feel good stuff rarely. the rest of the time he's if he's human miserable. he's gonna get his money but what is he gonna do with it? he's gonna buy something to feel good lol. maybe it's like the old bed time story of the ant and the grasshopper. lol. where the ant worked his a$$ off and the grasshopper played. what was it the ant was warm and cozy in his house when winter hit and would have let the grasshopper in if he wasn't so big and fat. lol. did the grasshopper end up freezing to death or just end up feeling like a dumb schlemeal while he mooched off the ant?
so we don't want to be like the grasshopper that's for sure.
maybe luck is finding the balance between being a miserable but warm ant and a happy but frozen grasshopper.

more on luck

I would guess that my take on the luck issue would be atittude toward it. Did you ever go into a casino and just feel lucky and that things were going to go your way today. Also did you ever go into a casino and feel lucky only to find that things were not going your way and that lucky feeling just start to ebb away. That's atittude taking over your senses and feelings we either take command or not of them. blackchipjim

blackjack avenger said:

Luck = Variance?
Is one luckier if they play a strong game vs a weak game?

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What's a strong game? What's a weak game? What does it matter?

One stan dev is always one stan dev lol. If I'm ahead 2 stan dev in a -EV game and yet still losing money, am I not "luckier" than a CC one stan behind but who still has a profit?

blackchipjim said:

I would guess that my take on the luck issue would be atittude toward it. Did you ever go into a casino and just feel lucky and that things were going to go your way today. Also did you ever go into a casino and feel lucky only to find that things were not going your way and that lucky feeling just start to ebb away. That's atittude taking over your senses and feelings we either take command or not of them. blackchipjim

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usually when i'm on the way to the casino i have sooner or later this feeling of dread. then i tell myself Evil Kneivel's line when he was asked, "aren't you scared to jump that canyon" and Evil retorts " doesn't much matter i'm going to do it anyway".
but when i sit down and play i'm just keyed up nervous feeling at first i guess from the adrenalin. but yeah if in fact the hands are going my way i feel lucky as if things are going to go my way today. but then if the tide turns i slowly start getting this sense of doom like a cloud over me and as my chips fall away it's like the cloud of doom is telling me there is no hope.
so those feelings are pretty right on to the events. thing is are they pre-good times or post-disaster vibes? i can't never tell.
it is i read supposed to be a fact that our emotions can alert us to danger before we are intellectually able to discern it.

Kasi said:

What's a strong game? What's a weak game? What does it matter?

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in my mind a strong game is like bojack and the vengeful one plays. you know orthodox AP counting sorta thing according to some well understood sim.
a weak game is like fuzzy counting and fuzzy betting sort of thing where it's not certain to be correlated to some well understood sim.

One stan dev is always one stan dev lol. If I'm ahead 2 stan dev in a -EV game and yet still losing money, am I not "luckier" than a CC one stan behind but who still has a profit?

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it would seem fortunate at that moment in time but still standard deviation.
would it still be standard deviation if you switched up and took some of that standard deviation and took a shot at some goal and made it... a non-game plan move? would that be more really like luck or some unexpected fortunate event?

...or...

sagefr0g said:

usually when i'm on the way to the casino i have sooner or later this feeling of dread. then i tell myself Evil Kneivel's line when he was asked, "aren't you scared to jump that canyon" and Evil retorts " doesn't much matter i'm going to do it anyway".
but when i sit down and play i'm just keyed up nervous feeling at first i guess from the adrenalin. but yeah if in fact the hands are going my way i feel lucky as if things are going to go my way today. but then if the tide turns i slowly start getting this sense of doom like a cloud over me and as my chips fall away it's like the cloud of doom is telling me there is no hope.
so those feelings are pretty right on to the events. thing is are they pre-good times or post-disaster vibes? i can't never tell.
it is i read supposed to be a fact that our emotions can alert us to danger before we are intellectually able to discern it.

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I've felt the same way, but the debate I then begin to have with myself is: "Am I feeling a hint of something to come, or am I bringing the bad juju down upon me for having negative thoughts instead of a more positive expectation?"
I struggle to find a middle ground between the extremes of thinking that my night's outcome is pre-ordained and thinking that no matter what was 'destined' to happen, I can have an effect on the outcome with my mental state and my intentions/expectations.

Better Lucky Then Good, Absolutely!

Kasi said:

What's a strong game? What's a weak game? What does it matter?

One stan dev is always one stan dev lol. If I'm ahead 2 stan dev in a -EV game and yet still losing money, am I not "luckier" than a CC one stan behind but who still has a profit?

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Perhaps we can all agree that dollars won is no way to determine a players skill.

However, we do use money as an important way to keep score in the real world and that can be more a function of variance/luck then skill.

PMA Not PMS

TheApprentice said:

I've felt the same way, but the debate I then begin to have with myself is: "Am I feeling a hint of something to come, or am I bringing the bad juju down upon me for having negative thoughts instead of a more positive expectation?"
I struggle to find a middle ground between the extremes of thinking that my night's outcome is pre-ordained and thinking that no matter what was 'destined' to happen, I can have an effect on the outcome with my mental state and my intentions/expectations.

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Having a positive mental attitude cannot hurt.
One does need to try to keep their emotions in check less they interfere with the math of the game.
If you enjoy playing you are more likely to play then if you consider it a chore.

sagefr0g said:

is there some rule that says if you change the way you play at some point that you won't get the money or maybe even more money?
i know you've mentioned bet re-sizing. well that's one thing i don't see my simulator doing. is that a wrong thing? i suspect not. are there other changes one could make and still make money? i dunno but i suspect so. if it is wouldn't that be skill as opposed to playing like a robot? could that be skill making luck?

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Just run a new sim anytime you want with current roll and re-sized bet and that's what it is from that point forward.

There's no rules. Bet anything you want, anytime you want - double your $ unit after losing half your roll if you want. EV goes up, so does ROR.
Have the weekend warriors re-size to $5 unit after winning whatever they have won. ROR goes way down but so does EV in dollars. EV in units is unchanged but now you have a bucketful of units for a roll.

fortune & every day life of an AP

in my mind the two images below represent fortune won and fortune lost.
luck and bad luck. but ok it's got double meaning it's also just normal fluctuation.
both are just snap shots of the results of perfectly normal AP play (well as best as this warrior could muster). everything there is just expected. nothing abnormal. so ok i don't know what a pro would have done at the point of the first image where he accumulated $70,000.00 . far as i know he'd of just kept playing on the same way he managed to win up to that point. as is what i did and promptly lost $40,000.00!
again in my mind that's fortune won and fortune lost. so yes that $70,000.00 is way above expectation (think it was 4 std dev's).
so a lot of what is in my mind about realizing luck would have been if some how this AP would've managed to keep all or at least most of that 70 grand and still play on in some AP manner.
so i dunno do AP's even think about stuff like this?

Luck cannot be summoned at will whether it be good luck or bad, but I do believe that there are certain components that need to be in place to experience the frequency in which luck will strike you.

Take for example 2 wealthy men. One is a powerball or mega millions lottery winner, the other is say Bill Gates. Now to win the lottery we all must agree that requires tremendous luck. You can try to win, you can have many systems that you feel give you the best chance to win, you can try through attrition of buying as many tickets as possible, but the bottomline is it is almost an impossiblity to win it. But all that is needed is some luck and you are instantly a multi millionare.

Now with case of Bill Gates he needs luck too right. He needed somebody to believe a college dropout could give the world something they couldn't seem to live without. He had to have vision, intelligence, design, perserverance, the technical skills and the courage to pull it off. He had all the tools to make a world changing development, but without a little luck you know what would have happened....He still would've become the richest SOB on the planet.

Thats because luck can change the course in which you get to your destiny, but if you are truly prepared and committed you can still get where you were going. Of course if you are that lottery winner and instead of being the winner today, you're not, well your course has been changed and there is very little hope you will find it.

There are all type of deep philosphies to describe things we don't fully understand. The deeper the reasoning tries to become usually the more lost the truth becomes. Simplicity is wasted on the ignorant. And weakness will breed complexity. We all have been guilty at one time or another of trying to get out of something we don't want to do. More times than not the act of avoidance is much harder than the act we needed to address to begin with. Luck is just a word. I don't agree that it is a noun. I believe it is descriptive of a situation but it is not any kind of entity or force.

Bottomline is, I feel to a degree we can control luck to the point if we have it of course it helps, and if we don't well then it just delays the inevitable that we've prepared for. If one is not prepared and relies more on luck than their own skill, the results will be as fleeting as luck itself. In which case the inevitable then usually results in failure, or what commonly referred to as bad luck. I do not think it is a coincidence that those with the most success in whatever field they excel in seem to be the luckiest. Bad breaks, or "bad luck" befalls everyone at some point. But its all relative to the outcome and your preparation for it.