luck

[aslan]

Well, basically, I agree with you 100%.

I negelected to mention I was going to take advantage of a Sears appliance sale that weekend wherein I counld get free delivery and installation, with removal of old machine too noless, but, although I had a Sears card with an expiration date of 5 months from now, they refused to take it over the internet. With 45 minutes left before the internet "sale" ends I called some 800 credit card number and was told my balance was zero. Tried again and refused again. Called some other number and finally was told they had cancellled the card because I hadn't used it frquently enough. I asked if they had notified me when they cancelled the card but they said their policy was not to send out a notice every time they did that or it would cost too much.

Sure, I asked why they told me the card had a zero balance when I phoned as opposed to saying "card cancelled" but they didn't know why. I even asked why not just wait 5 months and not mail me another card if I wasn't using it enough. They didn't know why they didn't choose that option either.

Then they told me I could always just apply for another credit card after I had asked "can you just re-instate this card now" and they said, of course, of course not.

So I told them, I will never set foot in a Sears store again and he thanked me and asked me if he had answered all my questions satisfactorally and had given good service. I told him, yes indeed he had.

So, I went to Lowe's and used a regular credit card. Saved me $100 too. Until I had to rent a U-Haul to pick it up since it wouldn't fit in my fancy Buick Century.

Cancelled (opted-out) of all my Sears e-mails but I'm still getting them, the b*stards.

But I have to face facts, I am not what one calls a "handy-man". I don't mind minor injuries, they're expected, I just hope, even when just hanging a picture, I don't have to replace the wall.

Been there, done that :grin:

But, taking that extra $1, still bugs me. It has to factor in somewhere, don't you think?

I tried to rationalize that 4 times in the last few years I had bought a 4-lightbulb pack and the 4th lightbulb I used didn't work right out of the pack.
I let it go. I rationalized a couple times I came home without something I had bought on the receipt - apparently they failed to pack it. So maybe I was entitled to that extra $1 after-all.

I don't know - be careful out there :grin:

I find it hilarious, mainly I suppose because it makes me say, "I'm not the only one!" I still deal with Sears in that I have all my appliances under Sears warranties (you don't have to buy them at Sears). I have saved a ton over the years with their warranty service. And if they can't fix it, they're required to replace the appliance (unless the problem is simply cosmetic (like the front of the unit fell off and they don't make them anymore. lol) I have a washer and dryer that are at least 20 years old under the warranty. Somehow they keep coming out, doing the repairs and everything keeps running.

I just had a run in with one of my banks, Wachovia. I am trustee for several trust accounts and I pay certain expenses out of one of the accounts. At the end of the year their auditors kicked checks I had written into the overdraft credit card account even though I had sufficient funds in the account. I didn't catch it for a couple of months and when I asked them, they said that the auditors did not think that checks should be written on a trust account. I talked with them, I sent letters, and to no avail. I did manage to get the overdraft fees removed, but not interest and late fees on the credit card account. I told them I write hundreds of checks each year on the trust account (which is a bona fide trust account and has no restrictions on it) and that they had no business charging them to the overdraft account, especially without even notifying me. They ignored my argument. So I asked the bank to pay off the credit card account in full from my other accounts and cancel the account. A few month's later I got anotherbill for interest and late fees. They said that when the bank paid off my account they failed to pay off charges that were applied at month end, so I ended up paying another $52. To top it all off, I discovered that they had sent the information to the credit bureaus so that I had a bad mark on my otherwise perfect credit rating. I sent a letter disputing their doing this. They said it was policy and ignored my arguments. So now I am sending them a letter to inform them that I am filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, so that at least there will be a bad mark where it belongs, against them. I am also sending copies of the letters to Wells Fargo who just bought them out. What a complete pain in the @ss.

Maybe I'll stop shopping at Sears, too. Last time I went in there they had hardly any stock in inventory in the areas I was shopping. They're steadily going down the tubes.

 

[sagefr0g]

luck & chance

to me it seems luck and chance
are married in an enticing dance
chances are this or that, a lead
luck embraces but will not heed
music plays for chance to follow
luck's music is true not hollow
chance leads on and has his way
as luck her music makes his day

 

[blackjack avenger]

Luck and "With it Ness"

I read something online recently that linked luck to being attentive. I think a study was done to look at a newpaper and on one page was in large bold type "tell the researcher you see this and get $50". Those who earlier thought they were unlucky mostly missed it. Those who considered themselves lucky mostly saw the statement.

To take that to blackjack. Perhaps if you are more attentive or with-it-ness you catch the flashed card or a few more. Maybe you catch a few more pay out errors.

Zengrifter will like this one, maybe you subconsciously notice the actual values of the cards so in those close pays you "guess" right.

Maybe you need to be lucky:
Preparation
Good frame of mind
Good Karma
With-it-ness

 

[sagefr0g]

I read something online recently that linked luck to being attentive. I think a study was done to look at a newpaper and on one page was in large bold type "tell the researcher you see this and get $50". Those who earlier thought they were unlucky mostly missed it. Those who considered themselves lucky mostly saw the statement.

To take that to blackjack. Perhaps if you are more attentive or with-it-ness you catch the flashed card or a few more. Maybe you catch a few more pay out errors.

yes i think there is a link in this thread for that article.
so but yeah, a kind of maybe not so common mind set involving ambition for taking advantage of a short cut, sort of thing. as opposed to the idea one has to fully reason and create some solution to a problem.

Zengrifter will like this one, maybe you subconsciously notice the actual values of the cards so in those close pays you "guess" right.

Maybe you need to be lucky:

Preparation

knowledge as to just what luck and advantage is

Good frame of mind

ambition & willingness to employ an outside the box heuristic.

Good Karma

couldn't hurt, might even help.

With-it-ness

awareness of the significance of advantage and the nature of luck's dark side.
:whip:

 

[aslan]

Look at these two different definitions of luck, the first from Webster's dictionary, and the second from Wikipedia:

a force that brings good fortune or adversity

Luck (also called fortuity) is a chance happening, or that which happens beyond a person's control

In my wildest imaginings I never once thought of luck as a force (definition 1)! Shades of Star Wars? These two very different definitions point to the impossibility of coming to terms without first having agreement on basic terms. I have been frustrated in some discussions on this topic, and maybe the reason for this is that we do not all share the same idea of what luck is--maybe we are in essence talking about different things and expecting somehow to find agreement. That can never happen.

 

[sagefr0g]

Look at these two different definitions of luck, the first from Webster's dictionary, and the second from Wikipedia:

a force that brings good fortune or adversity

Luck (also called fortuity) is a chance happening, or that which happens beyond a person's control

In my wildest imaginings I never once thought of luck as a force (definition 1)! Shades of Star Wars? These two very different definitions point to the impossibility of coming to terms without first having agreement on basic terms. I have been frustrated in some discussions on this topic, and maybe the reason for this is that we do not all share the same idea of what luck is--maybe we are in essence talking about different things and expecting somehow to find agreement. That can never happen.

good point. we've been from black swans to standard deviation and all about.
luck's a nebulous concept overall. in casino's and for example blackjack i think luck's been pretty much tamed down to standard deviation with well behaved tails on the bell curve sort of thing over the long haul. like anything, complexity can muddy the waters. like most any simulation i know of requires constraints that give you well behaved results. i guess i'm interested in what happens when you mess around with those constraints, maybe in such a way that allows for decision making and judgement. say you do something that may or may not be outside of those constraints and get some results, hold those results up against expectation and standard deviation for say if you had made yourself live within those constraints then make a decision about what you further want to do. in short using knowledge so as to try and capture advantage or even temporarily standard deviation (ie. luck) that may not have been earned as a result of applied skill. thats something that goes on in the short term where it's pretty much agreed most anything can happen. and what is the long term but a bunch of short terms added together over time, sort of thing.
sigh, same ole song and dance, i know.:whip:
lady luck? does she have a poker face? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyDRbp1ZPp8

 

[aslan]

good point. we've been from black swans to standard deviation and all about.
luck's a nebulous concept overall. in casino's and for example blackjack i think luck's been pretty much tamed down to standard deviation with well behaved tails on the bell curve sort of thing over the long haul. like anything, complexity can muddy the waters. like most any simulation i know of requires constraints that give you well behaved results. i guess i'm interested in what happens when you mess around with those constraints, maybe in such a way that allows for decision making and judgement. say you do something that may or may not be outside of those constraints and get some results, hold those results up against expectation and standard deviation for say if you had made yourself live within those constraints then make a decision about what you further want to do. in short using knowledge so as to try and capture advantage or even temporarily standard deviation (ie. luck) that may not have been earned as a result of applied skill. thats something that goes on in the short term where it's pretty much agreed most anything can happen. and what is the long term but a bunch of short terms added together over time, sort of thing.
sigh, same ole song and dance, i know.:whip:
lady luck? does she have a poker face? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyDRbp1ZPp8

Yes, same old...and to get to those strings of good luck experiences, I trust you will string together some bad luck experiences that invariably seem to happen in between, so that when you add them all together, you get the true long run--dead even, zilch, zero, nada, nothing but vapor--the thing dreams are made of...ehh? :whip:

 

[sagefr0g]

the value of expected value

Yes, same old...and to get to those strings of good luck experiences, I trust you will string together some bad luck experiences that invariably seem to happen in between, so that when you add them all together, you get the true long run--dead even, zilch, zero, nada, nothing but vapor--the thing dreams are made of...ehh? :whip:

hmmm, me thinks i hit the nail on the head:
http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showpost.php?p=113098&postcount=6
:whip:

 

[aslan]

hmmm, me thinks i hit the nail on the head:
http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showpost.php?p=113098&postcount=6
:whip:

So you agree? lol :grin:

 

[sagefr0g]

So you agree? lol :grin:

if they ever manage to get me in a nursing home and they let me have a computer with internet access, i'll let you know.

 

[aslan]

if they ever manage to get me in a nursing home and they let me have a computer with internet access, i'll let you know.

WTF? What do you mean? Don't leave me hanging on this one, Mr. Fr0gMan. :grin::joker::whip::laugh:

 

[sagefr0g]

WTF? What do you mean? Don't leave me hanging on this one, Mr. Fr0gMan. :grin::joker::whip::laugh:

oh, sorry, obtuse as hell right?
i just meant i'll probably go to my grave trying. lol, but then i don't even know that's true or not either. lmao, might just change my mind tomorrow.:whip:
do we agree?
i don't think so.
far as i'm concerned the jury is still out on the question of luck and advantage for just lets say regarding blackjack for the time being.
but ok, i mean well, i'm saying what i'm interested in and what i'm doing. your not saying so much except essentially the long run it won't pan out, sort of thing.
and i can't argue with that, just can pose a theory and say what i'm up to.
maybe i'm wrong, i'll just say it seems to me that you place your eggs in the statistics and probability basket. me, i'm not willing to do that entirely, but i'm willing to use statistics and probability as a tool and guide but i'm insisting on being free to make decisions, judgement calls, take thought and even use intuition.
would you doing the statistics and probability thing come out ahead of me doing what ever you wanna call it is that i'm doing? yeah, probably would. would i be happy or even capable of doing it the statistics and probability orthodox method way? probably could do it, at least for a while but i'd never be happy doing it that way and likely i'd break down and mess up royal or if not still end up suffering an unlucky out come.
the question of value regarding our discussion of this stuff, is i believe as i stated previously one of utility theory sort of stuff. an each to his own sort of thing. point being at least in my case it's my intent to keep things on a no big deal nothing life changing sort of a level.

 

[sagefr0g]

Yes, same old...and to get to those strings of good luck experiences, I trust you will string together some bad luck experiences that invariably seem to happen in between, so that when you add them all together, you get the true long run--dead even, zilch, zero, nada, nothing but vapor--the thing dreams are made of...ehh? :whip:

hmm this deserves a better response than the first one i rattled off. lol.

but all i can say on the bad luck experiences thing, is the same thing i'm pretty sure any AP is gonna say.
wonging in would be best, if not at least wong out of negative counts.
and yes even playing all positive counts bad luck is still gonna happen or that negative fluctuation (perhaps more rigorously stated negative variance).
or have some high enough spread to deal with the negative implications of an awful lot of waiting bets. (yuck)

that said, i'm not convinced the voodoo ideas of setting goals and some sort of loss limits is entirely with out merit.
i haven't an argument to support such notions but frankly i've just accepted the statements of experts that setting loss limits is of no value. never bothered to put any real thought into the notion. wouldn't hurt to give it some thought.:whip:

 

[aslan]

hmm this deserves a better response than the first one i rattled off. lol.

but all i can say on the bad luck experiences thing, is the same thing i'm pretty sure any AP is gonna say.
wonging in would be best, if not at least wong out of negative counts.

Bad luck is not a function of negative counts. Bad luck comes in both negative and positive counts. The bad results that you experience in negative counts is more attributable to house edge than to bad luck. We shouldn't confuse the two.

Another way of saying it is luck is all you have after perfect advantage play. It has no influence one way or the other in the long run. Good and bad luck perfectly cancel each other out (in a game context).

and yes even playing all positive counts bad luck is still gonna happen or that negative fluctuation (perhaps more rigorously stated negative variance).

Yes!

or have some high enough spread to deal with the negative implications of an awful lot of waiting bets. (yuck)

This will work in the long run, just as all advantage play will.

that said, i'm not convinced the voodoo ideas of setting goals and some sort of loss limits is entirely with out merit.

But you're slowly coming around to it.

i haven't an argument to support such notions but frankly i've just accepted the statements of experts that setting loss limits is of no value. never bothered to put any real thought into the notion. wouldn't hurt to give it some thought.:whip:

Either that or take the voice of experience and scientific research at its word.

 

[sagefr0g]

Bad luck is not a function of negative counts. Bad luck comes in both negative and positive counts. The bad results that you experience in negative counts is more attributable to house edge than to bad luck. We shouldn't confuse the two.

ok, yes, in negative counts you not only have expected bad results, you have good and bad luck as well.
standard deviation i believe for the zero and negative counts tends to be a bit greater than that of positive counts. at least for the one example i'm looking at this moment. if you added up all the standard deviations at zeor & negative counts and subtracted those from all the standard deviations at positive counts, i have no idea what you'd get. probably my example isn't so good, cause it cuts off and i guess averages SD at <=-4TC
and goes all the way up to TC=9.
this was for a six deck s17das game 75%pen full table i think.

TC	FREQ	ADV	SD

<=-4	0.0751	-0.0302	1.164
-3	0.0618	-0.0167	1.153
-2	0.1129	-0.0117	1.148
-1	0.2008	-0.0062	1.143
0	0.2661	-0.0022	1.140
1	0.1245	0.0031	1.135
2	0.0697	0.0084	1.131
3	0.0394	0.0137	1.125
4	0.0225	0.0187	1.119
5	0.0127	0.0237	1.114
6	0.0070	0.0301	1.109
7	0.0038	0.0313	1.104
8	0.0020	0.0370	1.100
>=9	0.0018	0.0474	1.091

Another way of saying it is luck is all you have after perfect advantage play. It has no influence one way or the other in the long run. Good and bad luck perfectly cancel each other out (in a game context).

your point is well taken for absolute AP play in the long run, still though wonging at least can get rid of a lot of your bad results, be it either the negative count luck factor or the disadvantage factor. leaving one then to only deal with the vagaries of expectation and standard deviation (luck) in positive counts.
long run like you say expectation wins out and luck cancels out.
long as standard deviation (luck) didn't get you before the long run resulting in ruin.

Yes!
This will work in the long run, just as all advantage play will.

again, with in limits it will work. ruin is always a possibility. just the point being, there is no certitude, one is compelled to take the roller coaster ride and hope the thing stays on the track. again, i say yuck.
me, if i'm ever gonna get on a roller coaster again, it's gonna be one where the rider has control.

But you're slowly coming around to it.

i believe there is merit for such tact's outside the casino walls. it's said there is no intrinsic value for them for orthodox advantage play. that seems reasonable, maybe even mathematical. i could definitely see where it would slow down the progress of an orthodox AP.
does that mean that stop loss and goals can not be part of a process that yields advantage (ie. 'street smart' advantage)? i'm not so sure.

Either that or take the voice of experience and scientific research at its word.

voice of experience is merely anecdotal. scientific research has been known to miss things. i'm certainly no one to say that the voice of experience and scientific research is wrong, one just has to wonder in the case of blackjack and maybe other stuff if such knowledge can have it's practical use from more of a layman's perspective and grounding.

just as a crazy imagination flight of fancy example. lets put our self's in the twilight zone for a moment, transcending space and time, lmao. the year is 1809. a certain, one Mr. el'perfecto aslan finds himself sitting in some wild west saloon under the baking western sun at a table of chance. the game blackjack. a traveling snake oil salesman stopped in town and introduced the game. and Mr. aslan sitting at said table suddenly and inexplicably is imbued with the knowledge but not the skill of the greatest AP player of all time from the year 2009. how would our hero do, compared to the rest of his fellow players?

 

[aslan]

ok, yes, in negative counts you not only have expected bad results, you have good and bad luck as well.
standard deviation i believe for the zero and negative counts tends to be a bit greater than that of positive counts. at least for the one example i'm looking at this moment. if you added up all the standard deviations at zeor & negative counts and subtracted those from all the standard deviations at positive counts, i have no idea what you'd get. probably my example isn't so good, cause it cuts off and i guess averages SD at <=-4TC
and goes all the way up to TC=9.
this was for a six deck s17das game 75%pen full table i think.

TC    FREQ    ADV    SD

<=-4    0.0751    -0.0302    1.164
-3    0.0618    -0.0167    1.153
-2    0.1129    -0.0117    1.148
-1    0.2008    -0.0062    1.143
0    0.2661    -0.0022    1.140
1    0.1245    0.0031    1.135
2    0.0697    0.0084    1.131
3    0.0394    0.0137    1.125
4    0.0225    0.0187    1.119
5    0.0127    0.0237    1.114
6    0.0070    0.0301    1.109
7    0.0038    0.0313    1.104
8    0.0020    0.0370    1.100
>=9    0.0018    0.0474    1.091

your point is well taken for absolute AP play in the long run, still though wonging at least can get rid of a lot of your bad results, be it either the negative count luck factor or the disadvantage factor. leaving one then to only deal with the vagaries of expectation and standard deviation (luck) in positive counts.
long run like you say expectation wins out and luck cancels out.
long as standard deviation (luck) didn't get you before the long run resulting in ruin.

again, with in limits it will work. ruin is always a possibility. just the point being, there is no certitude, one is compelled to take the roller coaster ride and hope the thing stays on the track. again, i say yuck.
me, if i'm ever gonna get on a roller coaster again, it's gonna be one where the rider has control.

i believe there is merit for such tact's outside the casino walls. it's said there is no intrinsic value for them for orthodox advantage play. that seems reasonable, maybe even mathematical. i could definitely see where it would slow down the progress of an orthodox AP.
does that mean that stop loss and goals can not be part of a process that yields advantage (ie. 'street smart' advantage)? i'm not so sure.



voice of experience is merely anecdotal. scientific research has been known to miss things. i'm certainly no one to say that the voice of experience and scientific research is wrong, one just has to wonder in the case of blackjack and maybe other stuff if such knowledge can have it's practical use from more of a layman's perspective and grounding.

just as a crazy imagination flight of fancy example. lets put our self's in the twilight zone for a moment, transcending space and time, lmao. the year is 1809. a certain, one Mr. el'perfecto aslan finds himself sitting in some wild west saloon under the baking western sun at a table of chance. the game blackjack. a traveling snake oil salesman stopped in town and introduced the game. and Mr. aslan sitting at said table suddenly and inexplicably is imbued with the knowledge but not the skill of the greatest AP player of all time from the year 2009. how would our hero do, compared to the rest of his fellow players?

You're straining a bit against the goad. lol

On the roller coaster: You do have control if you have enough money. But I fear you may tire of the game before you reach your goal. I am worn out by roller coaster rides. I am now restudying poker. The advantage is higher--there is no roller coaster--proper play should win you 5 out of 6 sessions with average individual losses less than average individual winnings. You can win on only the scientific, but the art of play will reap higher rewards. And you can pick your games by watching the table play for a short time.

 

[sagefr0g]

You're straining a bit against the goad. lol

if you mean by goad, what to do with bad luck, your right.
perhaps that goal shooting and stop loss voodoo stuff. lol, i dunno.

On the roller coaster: You do have control if you have enough money. But I fear you may tire of the game before you reach your goal. I am worn out by roller coaster rides. I am now restudying poker. The advantage is higher--there is no roller coaster--proper play should win you 5 out of 6 sessions with average individual losses less than average individual winnings. You can win on only the scientific, but the art of play will reap higher rewards. And you can pick your games by watching the table play for a short time.

what's my goal? oh yeah, no big deal nothing life changing sorta thing. have fun, maybe win a little.
i'd love to play poker, thing is man what a learning curve. not sure i have the patience for all that. then say you learn to be a good player, what i've heard is that catching games in a casino is hardly worth it because of the rake. that is unless you are willing to play high stakes games. shudder.

 

[aslan]

if you mean by goad, what to do with bad luck, your right.
perhaps that goal shooting and stop loss voodoo stuff. lol, i dunno.

what's my goal? oh yeah, no big deal nothing life changing sorta thing. have fun, maybe win a little.
i'd love to play poker, thing is man what a learning curve. not sure i have the patience for all that. then say you learn to be a good player, what i've heard is that catching games in a casino is hardly worth it because of the rake. that is unless you are willing to play high stakes games. shudder.

I meant that you are pulling against the grain of certain undisputed scientific findings.

To know all there is to know about the art of good poker is a lifetime pursuit, but what if I told you you could become a winner overnight with little study and little or no skill at the art of poker, bluffing and all that mysterious stuff? If you would be happy just to play the more scientific games, draw, five card stud, and seven card stud, I can point you to becoming an overnight winner. The simple truth of poker is that those who play the right cards invariably have more winning hands than those who play the wrong cards looking for a little luck to help them along. Without a single bluff, and playing only certain minimum hands, I guarantee you that you will win from day one. From there, you can pick up the finer points along the way. I'll PM you my advice.

 

[sagefr0g]

despair is a good thing if anger is averted

Quote:
Originally Posted by johndoe
Well, I suppose I've earned my stripes now - last week I took my first big dive. Damn that variance! 250+ units down in a few days of play. I suppose my long winning streak had to end sometime.

On several shoes, the count skyrocketed, but I just couldn't win a hand. Sometimes not a single win after several hands of TC>+6. Boy, does that make the BR bleed quick!!

Even when I tightened up and only wonged in at +1 or +2 (with a good act), I *still* got slaughtered. This after waiting around endlessly for a +EV shoe.

I am quite confident my skills are in order; I had to be REAL sure I wasn't making any mistakes (my partner attests I wasn't - he lost too, just not as badly).

It'll happen to all of us eventually, of course. It's part of the game, and that RoR is a very real number..

To be sure, this is money I can easily live without, as I'm young, employed, and have a very replenishable bankroll. But it still stings.

At least now my favorite stores can post a nice loss for me, even if the cheap bastards didn't give me much of a rating.

Originally Posted by creeping panther
John,

What you must learn to do is not accept the *variance* but learn how to stop it, and or deal with it, as in nipping it in the bud.

Think outside the box... be proactive.

6d shoe right?

CP
__________________
"Midwest Masters Of Advantage", "Strength and Honor."

Quote:
Originally Posted by johndoe
8D in this case, with good pen. (usually 1 deck)

I'm keeping my eyes open for other opportunities, but I haven't seen many; I could learn shuffle tracking and such, but it's not clear it will be viable in this case. Opportunities for hole carding are very rare, as are scavenger plays. Am I missing something?

My biggest variance reducer was aggressive wonging in/out with a good act, but even that wasn't enough in this case of a spectacularly (for me) bad run.

john, allow me to interject here, even if it's voodoo is all your going to get, if for no other reason than variance is a subject near and dear to my heart.

i'm not sure just exactly what the mighty one means by proactive and thinking outside the box. and that is as it should be because CP is stealthy as well, lol.

but he does allow for being proactive and thinking outside the box. that being the case i'll cast my two cents in with regard of negative variance even if it may be completely at odds with CP's intentions.

CP's credo is Strength and Honor and he is a blackjack warrior.
strength and honor is the creed of any warrior. with out strength you can not win and without honor you should not win.

a warrior must have one other virtue, that of heart.
it is not always true but it is often the case, a warrior that loses heart loses the battle. losing a battle is no big deal, it's the war that the warrior's honor is at stake for. that being the case a warrior who fights on without his heart intact, does so to the peril of his honor.

John, your posts indicates the likelihood that at some point you lost heart.
did at some point in the battle, did you feel that sinking, hopeless morose despairing sense of the battle at some point? what would your loss's have been if you had retreated, not surrendered at that point?

no AP will tell you that your goal is to win the battle, and no AP will tell you that stop loss's (especially like in your case when you had the advantage) are anything more than voodoo and in fact are error. that said there is still one mathematical valid option. at the point for which you have lost heart, your chances tomorrow are just as good as your chances today. if you retreat your heart will repair, if you don't retreat and suffer more loss's the only repair for those loss's will be to enter the battle again tomorrow.

 

[johndoe]

John, your posts indicates the likelihood that at some point you lost heart.
did at some point in the battle, did you feel that sinking, hopeless morose despairing sense of the battle at some point? what would your loss's have been if you had retreated, not surrendered at that point?

Of course I felt bad when the cards weren't going my way. But honestly it was more being flabbergasted at losing several in a row with a TC+7! Annoyed, surprised, flustered - yes - but I never did have that sinking heart feeling of defeat, and I never once thought of quitting when I had the advantage. I never even considered giving up. I know, and trust, the mathematics.

Instead, as you suggested, I took breaks (only at TC<0), had a nice meal, went dancing, flirted, and focused on enjoying myself, which is really what it's all about for me.

Near the very end, with a small BR left, I played at smaller stakes, and considered it practice for both counting, play, and cover, and just went along for the ride.

The only lingering question for myself is whether I was *really* doing everything 100% correctly, or whether there is room for improvement. That requires some careful introspection and, of course, benefits by others opinions here in the community.