Bojack1 said:
To address your first point, any bankroll can feel affects of luck, as most do. As you know E.V is an average of what is expected. Usually results will be higher or lower per session of expectation. If you want that can be called luck, or standard deviation. Regardless of how far from the mean results may fall short term they can always be measured in terms of S.D. As you progress into longer terms as far as playing, as long as you are playing as a skilled AP, highs and lows while still a factor become just jogs in the graph. Meaning luck will always be immediately evident in each session, but the sum of your playing will revert to the mean regardless of how bad or good you feel at any given session.
thank you for your view of luck and standard deviation and for your view of effects of luck on ones position be it early on, mid-term or in latter stages. i believe one point that should be further addressed is ROR and the actual realization of ruin or degrees of ruin or profit. point being things don't always work out result-wise with respect to how E.V. and it's standard deviation map out on the bell curve.
your expected value and the fluctuation of your expected value may map out just fine on the bell curve while your bankroll drops to zero. i'm confident a serious professional would have a contingency plan for that event (ie. more money waiting in the wings or better advantages to be exploited). the expectation of ruin or some degree of ruin may also be framed in a bell curve
i suppose. again matters of expectation of ruin and standard deviation i suppose. so i guess there is luck in terms of expected value and in terms of risk of ruin if one wants to associate luck and standard deviation. in truth i'm speaking supposititions on my part with regard to these maths. it just seems logical to me but maybe i'm off base. maybe one can just look at the bell curve of expected value and determine ROR directly from that?
then i know one can fit ones results to the bell curve as well and see how it stacks up against the models of expected value and risk of ruin.
well regardless of my error in interpretation of how the maths could be graphed i'd just say that just from a conceptial stand point one might reckon some luck or standard deviation into the aspect of risk of ruin. i mean essentially if one meets ruin isn't it because standard deviation has overwhelmed ones bankroll?
i know this to be the case if for no other reason than my demise in sagethepoisonousfrog*vs*jacktheghostriderjackson, the contest in which i played in the most respectable AP fashion according to the game plan (known simulation with known EV and ROR) that even you might expect of one of your team members.
lol.
http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showpost.php?p=80445&postcount=161
point being if everything i've just said is wrong
then still ROR is a fact and can be realized regardless how rosey the EV picture is.
another point i just have to say with regards to that contest and how it went down for me, is that for me even just playing the contest at no cost on my computer it was virtually intolerable to play like a perfect robot (but i did it) and seeing how down hill things were going. i simply just would not do that in real life. i'd at least try and do something off of that robotic game plan to try and turn things around.
However, this only stands true for those that play at a consistent level. If you vary your play to where you are sometimes an AP, sometimes a progression player, or sometimes a hunch or gut player, you will lose the ability to excuse luck as standard deviation, and now depend on it for your results. In this case good luck is untrackable and bad luck inevitable. Afterall the odds are against you in any casino game, which will limit what is referred to as good luck to any who play the game on a regular basis.
yes the odds are against us in any casino game, the probabilities of how the odds are realized may be skewed. like you may be able to realize a high percent of samples of events where your results beat the casinos expectation and a low percent of samples of events where the casino beats you to the extent that your
total results meet the casino's expected advantage. sadly that low percent of samples has you losing money at a vastly higher amount than the sum of those high percent of samples where you did realize some profit. and so it is like you say that those sort of results couldn't be considered the same as the expectations and standard deviation of an AP toeing the line. this case the player has a negative expected value and in the long run 100% ROR.
an AP observing such a player could in a sense relegate that players results as a function of luck even though the player does have some negative expectation and the prospect of long term ruin.
the player reckless as he may be could hold his results up against the known expected value of the AP and gauge where he is with respect to where he would have been had he played correctly. should the reckless player have 'luck' and also have the capability to play as an AP he's then in a position to choose to use that 'luck' to his advantage if he should so choose or he could recklessly go looking for some more 'luck'.
As far as your second point, you are right that the results of luck vs skill may be indechipherable to an outside observer. But that only stands true for small sample sizes. Given lifetime playing records of AP's vs straight gamblers, you will see the difference and could determine luck from skill. There are always exceptions, but that is exactly that, not the rule.
no argument with the AP's vs straight gamblers point.
an AP who gambles and gauges his gamble against the expectation of a perfect AP need not suffer the same transparency of results in the short run.
additionally in essence his short term results should just add to long term results just as an AP's would.
watching his bottom line and switching his mode of play could result in long term similar results albeit the pure AP would i should expect come out ahead as it would seem that when the gambling AP runs into the negative results of his gambling he'd have that to make up as well as the negative results he'd incurr playing correctly as an AP whereas the pure AP only has to make up his negative AP results.
The problem I have seen with a lot of fledgling AP's is inconsistency in how they play the game resulting in more of a luck graph as opposed to a skilled one. Thats why so many push luck as an ingredient in being a winner. When you are skilled and play with an advantage luck is an expectation that whether good or bad shouldn't shock or surprise you. Sure losing sucks and winning is great, we all feel that to a degree. But if advantage play is fully grasped then you get that what happened today only matters for an instant and we shouldn't live or die with the emotion of it.
intellectually i can understand that. emotionally i guess i'm just an old dog that can't be taught new tricks. but this old dog can trick himself and slip in some AP stuff to the point where he's happy and surviving. lol.
imagine if you will a fiftyfive year old guy who never really gambled in any fashion that then starts gambling and then attempts to employ advantage play for a period of three years.
You wouldn't believe what I've lost in one day, nor would you believe what I have won. The fact is when the smoke clears, as long as I have chosen my games well and have played with skill it all trends towards the positive. Anybody can beat this game on a lucky day, but in blackjack, luck won't pay the bills
as i usually end up saying when ever i have the pleasure of corresponding with you i gotta say again hats off to you. and it just should be said also that your stead fast holding to the proper way of doing things is not only repsected but the information related is appreciated. it can't be said enough that due respect is put forth and i apologize if i seem argumentative in any way.
