Myths in the Movie 21

[Kasi]

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"​

View attachment 821​

Variance to right of them,
Variance to left of them,
Variance in front of them

Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
  Rode the six card counters on the BJINFO team.

Honour the charge they made!
Honour the BJINFO team,
  Noble six!

Ain't that the truth.

:grin: :grin: :grin:

 

[sagefr0g]

Well, I don't know lol. How much are you betting and when? Are you betting to a $5K roll or a larger roll? Like any of us team counters may only sit down with $5K but we're still betting nonetheless to a $100K roll? If you are betting to a $100K roll, you haven't really doubled it yet. If you are maybe betting to a total $5K roll, maybe your dollar spread would be different, if you see what I mean.

Basically, I've always been a little unclear exactly which sim you may be betting to lol. Not to mention I'm not real clear with KO preferred or whether you are using indexes.

On the other hand, whatever roll you may be betting to, once you have doubled that roll that you are betting to, whether you actually ever had it or not in the first place, chances that you will money forever greatly increase.

So, how have you been betting?

stalkoid i mean aslan has been betting 1:10 ko (preferred i think)....
i ran him throught the ko spread sheet:http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showpost.php?p=90910&postcount=94
but i think he's been secretly using some advanced stalkoid technique.
probably fuzzy betting. :joker:
:sleep:

 

[aslan]

Variance to right of them,
Variance to left of them,
Variance in front of them

Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
  Rode the six card counters on the BJINFO team.

Honour the charge they made!
Honour the BJINFO team,
  Noble six!

Ain't that the truth.

:grin: :grin: :grin:

Here a variance,View attachment 830
There a variance, View attachment 831
Everywhere a variance;View attachment 832
Ole MacKasi had a farm, View attachment 833
Eee eye eee eye oh!View attachment 834

 

[Kasi]

Lifetime (real world) is not playing forever. Real world has a finite number of hands you are playing. So one can get so far ahead that given their lifetime they will not go broke! A very extreme case but it will prove my point. You have won 100,000 playing BJ, you are down to the last hour of your playing career. You only backcount and place a top bet of $25. Now this is an insane, perverse and extreme example, but I hope it shows a 0% ROR attainable in the real world.

sissy resizing?:whip:
resizing is where the magic is:joker:
most return/least risk:devil:

If real Kelly betting is continuous resizing and that is optimal, then the real question is how to mimic Kelly betting in the real world.

Oh I'm with you all the way, I think lol.

Despite changing, as perhaps I think you suggest, to a totally different spread in the last hour. That's that sissy re-sizing stuff I was talking about lol. Obviously your ROR for that last hour of play is actually 0% - I can't lose $100K in an hour betting $1/hand.

I'm only talking about any fixed $ spread in any game anyway. Kelly crap is basically irrelevant. I can turn it into Kelly crap if you really want to. Not constantly re-sizing, unreal-wordly Kelly crap, just fixed spread real-world, Kelly crap.

Winning $100,000? What's that mean? Was that in the first 2 minutes with a $50K unit or the first million hours with a $1 unit? Etc.

Start with a big enough unit roll, pick your length of time to be played, and your ROR is what you choose it to be.

Pretty sure we're on the same page here. It could just be wishful thinking on my part with all that :whip: stuff.

 

[Kasi]

Ole MacKasi had a farm, View attachment 833

Thanks for making me laugh my ass off at 3 am!

I gotta remember that.

And just how much it sucks as a real-world philosophy despite being oh so true in so many cases in my case.

John Day died defending his right-of-way.
Though he was as right as the day is long
He's just as dead as if he was wrong.

Thanks again.

 

[sagefr0g]

.. A very extreme case but it will prove my point. You have won 100,000 playing BJ, you are down to the last hour of your playing career. You only backcount and place a top bet of $25. Now this is an insane, perverse and extreme example, but I hope it shows a 0% ROR attainable in the real world.
..

now that would really be gambling, insane, perverse and extreme gambling.
nuthin wrong with that at least you could afford it lol. might even be fun.
the real gamble is when the gap between what you know and what you think you know becomes dangerously wide.

 

[blackjack avenger]

Math is Fun

So are we on the same page?

We have a hypothetical 0% ror if betting optimally (Kelly continuous resizing).

We can have in fact extreme casese of a 0% ror in the real world.

What is a reasonable way to obtain that close to 0% or dare I say practical 0% ror in the real world?

.03% ror (1/4th fixed kelly)
You have a 99.2% chance of never losing half your bank.
If you do lose half bank, cut back to half stakes and you won't lose everything.

If one is concerned about human error then perhaps 1/5th Kelly.

Now, having said all this. I don't play this way:joker:, it's a little to conservaitve.:whip:

 

[sagefr0g]

.....Now, having said all this. I don't play this way:joker:, it's a little to conservaitve.:whip:

yeah wouldn't that be dull? what a drag.
how or would you play if you hit a million bucks on a slot machine?

 

[blackjack avenger]

So Much Money, So Little Honeys

yeah wouldn't that be dull? what a drag.
how or would you play if you hit a million bucks on a slot machine?

Lets make it 1.4 million so after taxes I actually have a million.

First I would convert it to cash and wallow in it for a few days!:devil:

Then about 10% to upgrade my life - car, clothes and furniture. Either I have expensive tastes or I really need some upgrades.:joker:

About 25% to 33% in real estate.

The rest in a very diversified investment portfolio.

I would play bj for income and recreation. I like to be out and about and that is where the opposite sex is.:devil:

I would use about 100,000 to 250,000 for BJ. When not in use I would have it in liquid investments. Probaly money market, rotating CD's or a mutual fund.

Given most tables have a max of $500 or $1000 I would be betting with a low fixed ROR anyway. Possibly a 1/3 to 1/4th Kelly. If I am losing and my other investments were doing well I may not lower bets. If I am losing and my other investments are doing poorly I would cut bets. Wealth preservation would be a priority. After all I worked hard pulling on that slot machine!:joker:

 

[Kasi]

So are we on the same page?
We have a hypothetical 0% ror if betting optimally (Kelly continuous resizing).

Well, I'm not sure what you mean by "Kelly continuous resizing". Like I guess I think Kelly is really just an approximation anyway and maybe was originally meant to be applied to even-money bets. Like one has a 40% advantage, so one would bet 40% of one's roll. So, in BJ I guess this is approximated by betting adv/variance*roll or something like that. So with a 1% adv and $10K roll maybe you'd only bet $78 instead of $100 to maximize the growth rate of your bankroll.

But, say you know the next card is an Ace in BJ and you estimate you have a 50% adv, would you make a $4K bet if you could re-split Aces? You wouldn't be able to do it.

Not to mention, maybe if one's only goal is to maximize growth rate, maybe conventional BJ strategy that's designed to maximize EV would change if one's goal is to maximize growth rate of bankroll.

But, trust me on this one, I pretty much just cringe when logarithms and exponential growth stuff is mentioned. Or derivatives. Or infinite series. Or sinh functions whatever the heck they are. The list is endless but somehow all that stuff has relevance to BJ math.

We can have in fact extreme casese of a 0% ror in the real world.What is a reasonable way to obtain that close to 0% or dare I say practical 0% ror in the real world?

Have really a lot of units in your bankroll is my simple solution for a practical 0% ror I guess lol. Play something with certainty for a 0% risk. Even the Wise One might reluctantly bet $5 on certainty but still think he's gambling

.03% ror (1/4th fixed kelly)
You have a 99.2% chance of never losing half your bank.
If you do lose half bank, cut back to half stakes and you won't lose everything.

Well, of course, you'd still have some risk of losing your original roll. A very small one lol.

I think maybe your 99.2% (.5^7, is that what you mean?) might refer to the chances of having lost 50% of your original at some point and also maybe assumes you continue to play even when you have lost more than that 50%.

In other words it may not be the same thing as just stopping play at the moment you have ever lost 50% of your roll since, after all, sometimes you will make a comeback from having less than 50% of original roll on hand.

Or, maybe you could help me understand how this differs from using taking the square root of original risk as the chances of halving bank? Or are they both valid but one is for the logarithmic assumption and the other is for the maximizing EV assumption? Like I'd just take the square root of your original risk of 0.3% and multiply that by your original risk to get the chances of losing entire original roll with no more resizing.

And you say math is fun

It's more like self-flagellation to me :whip: :grin:

I should have been an ascetic monk.

 

[aslan]

After all I worked hard pulling on that slot machine!:joker:

And don't forget it!!! Lol And above all else, don't expect it to happen again!!!

 

[Kasi]

Lets make it 1.4 million so after taxes I actually have a million.

That was a test - you're supposed to say that is actually one of those real-life situations with 0% ROR since you'd never play it

OK - you knew the jackpot made it +EV lol.

Although the money of course wouldn't change you as a person, somehow, I bet alot more women would suddenly really really like you

 

[aslan]

I bet alot more women would suddenly really really like you

Ain't that the truth! :laugh:

 

[blackjack avenger]

Just One More Pull

That was a test - you're supposed to say that is actually one of those real-life situations with 0% ROR since you'd never play it

OK - you knew the jackpot made it +EV lol.

Although the money of course wouldn't change you as a person, somehow, I bet alot more women would suddenly really really like you

Might have to make that 10 mil to change the minds of those who know me

It was a free promotional pull:joker:. I offer this to the honeys all the time:devil:

 

[blackjack avenger]

Are You Trying to Take the Fun Out?

Well, I'm not sure what you mean by "Kelly continuous resizing". Like I guess I think Kelly is really just an approximation anyway and maybe was originally meant to be applied to even-money bets. Like one has a 40% advantage, so one would bet 40% of one's roll. So, in BJ I guess this is approximated by betting adv/variance*roll or something like that. So with a 1% adv and $10K roll maybe you'd only bet $78 instead of $100 to maximize the growth rate of your bankroll.


:joker:"Kelly Criterion" bet proportional to one's advantage. With bj the uneven bets and payoffs we adjust by variance. So yes, adv/variance * roll. The theory requires continuous resizing?, though one could bet less and then not have to resize downward so quickly.

But, say you know the next card is an Ace in BJ and you estimate you have a 50% adv, would you make a $4K bet if you could re-split Aces? You wouldn't be able to do it.


:joker:I agree, supposedly the theory can break down with a large advantage. Given a 42% advantage of an A, if you face multiple splits you are now out of funds. However, in the real world you can only get so much out quickly if you see an A.

Not to mention, maybe if one's only goal is to maximize growth rate, maybe conventional BJ strategy that's designed to maximize EV would change if one's goal is to maximize growth rate of bankroll.

:joker:Risk Averse indices? I am familiar

But, trust me on this one, I pretty much just cringe when logarithms and exponential growth stuff is mentioned. Or derivatives. Or infinite series. Or sinh functions whatever the heck they are. The list is endless but somehow all that stuff has relevance to BJ math.


:joker:See, just killed the fun

Have really a lot of units in your bankroll is my simple solution for a practical 0% ror I guess lol. Play something with certainty for a 0% risk. Even the Wise One might reluctantly bet $5 on certainty but still think he's gambling


:joker:I am enticed more by resizing, closer to Kelly criterion. Most probably resize at some point.

Well, of course, you'd still have some risk of losing your original roll. A very small one lol.

I think maybe your 99.2% (.5^7, is that what you mean?) might refer to the chances of having lost 50% of your original at some point and also maybe assumes you continue to play even when you have lost more than that 50%.

:joker:How I understand it, the chance of never reaching 50% lost

In other words it may not be the same thing as just stopping play at the moment you have ever lost 50% of your roll since, after all, sometimes you will make a comeback from having less than 50% of original roll on hand.

:joker:Yes, but if you cut your bets in half at that point or even again the ror falls through the floor. Though if you cut your bets of course it takes longer to win back your losses. The more frequently you resize the longer your long run. However, the more you resize the closer one is to optimal.

Or, maybe you could help me understand how this differs from using taking the square root of original risk as the chances of halving bank? Or are they both valid but one is for the logarithmic assumption and the other is for the maximizing EV assumption? Like I'd just take the square root of your original risk of 0.3% and multiply that by your original risk to get the chances of losing entire original roll with no more resizing.

:joker: the formula is f(x) = 1-a ^2x-1
a = fraction of bank .5 etc.
x = portion of kelly bank 4 for 1/4th
this is for fixed bets
mine is the chance that you never reach half, my formula is harder
yours is the chance that you reach half, your formula is easier, I believe yours considers doubling bank before halving with fixed bets?
at fixed 4th kelly your chance of never reaching half is .992
at fixed 4th kelly your chance of reaching half is .018

And you say math is fun

It's more like self-flagellation to me

I should have been an ascetic monk.

To read all my responses you need to read the sections with the "joker" in front of them in the above text.

nah, I like our discussions - you pressed me on this one:flame::whip:

Under "card counting" I started a thread "Bankroll Management" I thought it could be intersting, it died. Maybe you could take a look?

 

[Kasi]

It was a free promotional pull:joker:. I offer this to the honeys all the time:devil:

That's the AP player stuff I was talking about :joker:
:grin:

Shame on me for not earlier using such simple "Advanced Playing Strategies"

Screw that shuffle-tracking stuff :grin:

 

[sagefr0g]

......
Have really a lot of units in your bankroll is my simple solution for a practical 0% ror I guess lol. Play something with certainty for a 0% risk. Even the Wise One might reluctantly bet $5 on certainty but still think he's gambling
.......

your right and i'm even worse now. Kasi you got my hopes all up with your spread sheets and all and that standard deviation stuff and all.
so but now i'm reading this Taleb's Black Swan stuff. http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/GIF.pdf
something not really applicable to blackjack or casino games according to the author. so but of course you can't convince me of that.
so now i'm not just wanting to plunder the sweet side of standard deviation but i wanna catch one of those Black Swans too!
so you's guys can go ahead and not gamble with your infinitesimal ROR's if you want. i'm on a Black Swan hunt.
all that with out hopefully losin five bucks. :joker:

 

[blackjack avenger]

Credit Where Credit is Due

I failed to give credit
the formula
f(x) =1-a^2x-1
is from
william chin and Marc Ingenoso

 

[sagefr0g]

Investments require calculated risk with a warranted mathematical expectation of return.
Investors base all of their decisions on statistics and probabiltity

Gamblers have little understanding of the math behind it and bet with no calculated risk on unwarranted hopes.

A gambler would view others at the table as 'they effect the flow' and have an impact on their hands
An investor would view others at the table as 'their decisions do not effect the statistics of the cards' but can slow the game down.

here's a former hedge fund manager's take on it:

"One would tend to think that gambling is a
sterile activity that is meant to occupy those who
have not much else to do and others when they
have not much else to do. You would also think
that there is a distinction between “economic
risk taking” and “gambling”, one of them
invested with respectability, the other treated as
a vice and a product of a parasitic activity.
This book shows that the distinction
between what is called purely gambling and
“productive economic activity” is one of those
socially constructed ones that remain sticky in
our minds. While many may disagree with the
point (our economics culture is vitiated by these
mental boundaries between activities), it
remains that gambling injects currency in
economic life in the form of the expectation of
future cash transfers and that, and not just
narrowly defined “productive” activities, may
makes the world advance. We may not accept it
because economics is a narrative discipline and
this appears to be the wrong narrative. It is not
that gambling imitates economic life, but that
economic life is largely modeled after gambling.
That was the idea of the original thinker John
Law, made infamous with his bankruptcy; Aaron
Brown, another original thinker, revives it and
takes it further........"

http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/homoludens.pdf (Archive copy)

 

[aslan]

your right and i'm even worse now. Kasi you got my hopes all up with your spread sheets and all and that standard deviation stuff and all.
so but now i'm reading this Taleb's Black Swan stuff. http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/GIF.pdf
something not really applicable to blackjack or casino games according to the author. so but of course you can't convince me of that.
so now i'm not just wanting to plunder the sweet side of standard deviation but i wanna catch one of those Black Swans too!
so you's guys can go ahead and not gamble with your infinitesimal ROR's if you want. i'm on a Black Swan hunt.
all that with out hopefully losin five bucks. :joker:

I'm afraid no matter what you do, you'll probably end up with an ugly duckling instead of a black swan. On the other hand, without even investing $5, you may end up with a black swan, quite possibly without even looking for one. What?

Consider the Creator. Grant Him all the usual attributes. He decides to create Sagefr0g. Where do I put him? What place, what time, what circumstances. Being all-loving, He proceeds to view the infinite possibilities of placement and subsequent effects on the development of Sage from the beginning of his life to the very end. Being infinite, He can do this. Lol So he finally sees all the possible outcomes with all the free choices you would make in your entire lifetime. Ah! Here is the right one that ends up with the best outcome for Sagefr0g IMHO (advantage play, if you will). So, that's where I'll put him, He says.

You see, it is really the matrix after all, in so far that everything is preordained to happen, as we dance around events with our free wills, which are truly free, although their choices are all foreseen.

Now consider that He does this with everyone all at once. Wow! The fix is in.

Yes, the slot machine is random. What if you knew when it would hit? Would that change it's randomness? No. If you played the slot machine 50,000 times, would that increase your chances of winning? By the so-called laws of probability, yes, but by your intelligent placement in the world the answer is that you have as much chance to win with one play as you do with 50,000 plays. In other words, in the words of a famous man from Brooklyn, "Fuhget abaughtit!"

Did you ever gamble more than you wanted to and then at the very last moment you hit it big and got almost all your money back? What are the odds of that? Can you count on it? My guess is that just as soon as you begin to count on it you'll lose your life savings. Lol That's the way life is. When we win, it's a gift. When we lose, it's a lesson. When we have a good time gambling and don't lose more than we can afford, it's entertainment.

I think a good sign that you were meant to be a card counter might be if you found yourself successful from the start. I would never risk the farm on something as fickle as probability theory. A bird in the hand...

I guess what I'm saying is that I respect your desire not to lose even your $5 bet. Lol