I'm doing a little research. I'm curious -- why do otherwise mathematically competent people use win goals? I'm not asking for your theory or your rationale here. If you have used win goals, and continue to use them, there should be some evidence that they somehow provided you with an advantage. So what's your evidence? Not your beliefs, mind you, but your evidence?
As the King of win goals, I'll offer this. First, although I only play one of my strategies very infrequently these days, I not only continue to utilize pre-determined win and loss goals then, I usually sit down with some sort of idea or goal as to when or what will cause me to go home. It is the smart way to approach a casino visit, and I believe a player is not a strong player unless they do so.
You ask, I presume, if it's mathematically feasible to use win goals as a method of winning. Of course it is, but you would have to ignore your propensity to look at any given session as something tied to a lifetime of playing. If you're able to clear that strange fallacy from your mind, you will learn something today. People who go into play and who claim they know the math, but refuse to accept--out of ignorance, stubbornness, drunkenness or whatever--that it is only the casino who has any type of edge because of the "long-term" and mistakenly believe, for reasons that can only be described as a justification to play more than they know they should, that because a machine theoretically calculates out to anything over 100% that they have any type of an advantage for the very short time they'll be playing there, are trying to bring incomplete theory to life in some distant corner of Fantasyland. It just does not happen.
Instead, use the math to help determine the situation you are actually in: as in TODAY's play. Look at each hand individually and calculate out what outcome would present you with the best opportunity to attain your win goal and go home--whether on that single hand or with a combination of individually analyzed hands. My videos on this site explain some--but hardly all--of how this is approached.
There's plenty more of course, but to be courteous to the less fortunate, let's give arci a chance to do some more screaming and jumping up & down like a dissatisfied little boy, as it gives his dull life at least some meaning these days....in-between the oiling sessions
If you have a win goal, and achieve that win goal, you have most likely at that point exceeded the expected return on a positive game. On a negative expectation game, you have already exceeded the expected return and the mathematicians would say you could only go downhill from there. So other factors aside, how can it be bad to have a win goal.
Now, for those of us that don't believe in the "long term" and the math, and/or those of us who can only play on a negative game, win goals and loss limits are all the more important. I don't know if I would go so far as Singer to say "[U]it's mathematically feasible to use win goals as a method of winning"[U][U], but again, how can it hurt.
Guys, those are beliefs. What's your evidence? Are you saying that you kept records and you clearly did better using win goals than without? Or are you saying something else?
You are a math guy. Just do the math. If you have outperformed the expected return, you believe it will "even out"---so you will start to lose. So logically, and per the math, it will work.
Even if I had records to offer as evidence, it would prove nothing because the RNG (hopefully) ensures that we don't know what would have happened if we kept playing. But you will never convince me that leaving with a reasonable profit or limiting my loss is a bad thing--MATH be damned.
I have been ahead EVERY trip I've played at the casino. If I had stopped at a reasonable win goal, I would be a winner and not an overall loser. These wins were not always the same way. Sometimes I kept playing machine after machine and STOPPING after playing a predetermined set of spins, or on vp credits. FINALLY, after all this STRICT discipline, a machine would finally-IF I STOPPED=send me home. Take it from a LOSER who has set back recently and reviewed his past play.
What do you mean by "where's your evidence" redietz? If it's in any given session prior to playing, it starts with the individual dealt hand/hold values such as I've shown in my videos, and ends with which holds provide the greatest opportunity to hit the go-home winner. The math will always show that in any short term situation, the plays shown along with many others are clearly superior to the optimal long term holds.Originally Posted by redietz
On the record-keeping end, you know I kept a cumulative as well as session record on my site as well as discussed almost every session in my column, and as stated, every session was always bounded by win/loss goals.
Sling, what you're saying are the exact type of facts that the math guys cannot and will not compute. Yes I agree, anyone who quits when they get ahead--and it's a very unusual casino visit where a smart vp player never gets ahead--would easily be ahead overall. But the critics will complain that one loss will wipe out all the smaller wins, totally & purposely ignoring the fact that more and bigger winners come more often than those big losers.Originally Posted by slingshot
Then add in SPS, where after quitting upon a hit at a higher denomination, the next session always starts at the lowest denom. Now the critics, because they aren't as good with the math as they portray, can only counter with the "distribution" argument, which immediately discredits them.
You're mixing apples and oranges. Win goals do not challenge the math of any game. The math is the math. Win goals let you pick a point to stop playing, either because you feel as though you have won enough and you don't want to risk losing what you won, or because you have lost all that you are comfortable losing.Originally Posted by redietz
The "advantage" is not something in math, but in a feeling of comfort with your gambling experience.
When you don't use a win goal you run the risk of giving back all that you won in a string of bad luck --- even at so-called positive games. All gambling has risk... otherwise it would be called work.
What you are fishing for by your question is for someone to say that win goals will make a negative expectation game positive. And win goals will not make a negative expectation game positive. But win goals give you an exit strategy to utilize when you play so you can keep what you won at the negative expectation game.
I'm not fishing for anything. I'm looking for hard evidence that a "win goal effect" exists. And I'm looking for why, if there's no evidence of one, people still believe.
"Feeling of comfort with a gambling experience" comes close to a reason to believe in light of no evidence, so thanks for that. Rob presents an interesting situation, in that win goals are linked to his bouncing around between levels. We don't know the origin of his style of play, so we don't know if the limit switching pre-dated the win goals stuff. Did he try limit switching without win goals in his early days? Did it work? Did it not work? How much of his "success" does he attribute to win goals?
The problem with "comfort with a gambling experience" is that it's purely subjective. Some people may experience more comfort without win goals. Some may experience more comfort having a blond cocktail waitress with a big chest. Is "comfort" something that one should reasonably make a large factor in gambling decisions?
And if so, don't you think casinos would have designed the gambling options you have to be as comfortable as possible? Have you considered that comfort may be a signal that you're doing, as Rob says, what the casino wants?
Red-in other games, whether gambling, stock market, poker, etc. , where the math may not be against you as it is (for most of us) in VP, would you agree that win goals and loss limits can be beneficial? Is it not good to avoid the devastating loss by having a loss limit when you're just having a bad day--when whatever you do on that day is wrong. And again, how can taking a profit be bad?
I don't think you can quantitate the what ifs--what if you kept playing--maybe you would have stopped losing or kept winning. But those are unknowns, whereas taking a profit is a known.
I don't think you can show hard evidence that when you quit after reaching a win goal that you kept yourself from winning more later at the same session. You might as well ask: why should you cross a street at the corner instead of the middle of the block? What proof do you have that you won't get hit by a car crossing at the corner? Well, you can get hit at a corner just as you could get hit crossing in the middle of the block, but crossing at the corner gives you certain advantages such as traffic control devices and visibility. It's the same with quitting with a win goal, you know that quitting when you have a profit allows you to quit with a profit and to enjoy the win. Too many times I have been up a lot -- and lost it all back -- because I didn't "quit when ahead."Originally Posted by redietz
But Alan, you have also recently had wins and kept playing and won some more--and taken heat from Rob for doing so. So we can never be certain what will happen if we keep playing or what would have happened if we kept playing but didn't. So again--taking your profit can't be bad, and limiting how much you give back if you continue to play after a hit can't be bad.
regnis, I agree... take your profits and run, set and stick to win goals.
(I kept playing after some of my wins because my win goals are higher, and my win goals when "free play" are involved have a higher percentage than other folks' win goals. Rob has discussed how he has a relatively low win goal for "free play" -- and I don't. I totally agree with win goals and use them.)
I am surprised by claims made by you and others that you are almost always up at some time. I seem to always be down big early in VP and struggle all day to get even. That is why I have done 2 things in the last few years and it has helped dramatically.
1. I start with Bonus rather than my preferred DDB, Super Aces, and TDB. It helps avoid the early big losses although I hate blowing those Aces with a kicker.
2. I have used a Singer like progression in denominations effectively.
Only a few times in the past year have I ever sat down at a video poker machine and lost from the very first hand and never got into the profit column playing BONUS (ace and faces included). But playing DDB and other games that don't give you a 2 for 1 payoff on two pair I almost always have had losing sessions.
When I report being ahead most of the time playing BONUS I am ahead by a few hundred dollars at some point playing at the $5 level... it's not like I am ahead by thousands at any given time.
It's relatively easy to be ahead a couple hundred dollars ($200) playing $5 bonus. One full house on an 8/5 game pays $200. Two pair pays $50. Meanwhile, about 45% of the hands you play will at least give you your money back.
I have been ahead in every session played this year at BONUS. My "weakness" was switching over to DDB or TDB with my profits from Bonus/aces and faces where I have always LOST all of my profits. (That's happened five times so far this year.)
Both of my royals this year came playing Bonus/Aces and faces because those are the games I play the most. I found I get a lot of play at those games with a much smaller bankroll than I need playing DDB or its varieties.
OK. Here's the thing. I get ahead $200 and tell myself I'm gonna pocket $100 and play on the rest. That's fine if after playing the $100 I leave. But almost every time the casino action and the belief that maybe with "expert" strategy I can get more (greed) has a powerful influence on my resolve and many times wins the OTHER $100 I SAID I wasn't gonna touch. So if you're able to do what you say, that's fine-in my book. Then there's one more powerful influence to consider- how if affects your HABITS. Stopping when a winner and GOING HOME becomes a habit and believe it or not the wins become easier after a while. That, and the fact you have time to regain your common sense and savor the fun.
Please don't compare VP to the stock market. The return of VP is fixed while the return of the stock market varies continually.
As for win/loss goals they are fine when playing negative games since they tend to limit the total amount of play and hence losses. They are worthless for positive games.
This is interesting. I wonder if you might want to rephrase this, Arc, based on the other thread and the discussion about a game that is supposed to be a 100%+ game? You agreed that it would be difficult to come out ahead on that other game at the bar, yet here you say win goals are worthless for positive games. The point is, you don't necessarily win at positive games, do you? Otherwise, you wouldn't have said this in the the other thread:Originally Posted by arcimede$
Originally Posted by regnisOriginally Posted by arcimede$
Quantitate. Really? Last time I quantitated I almost broke my abdula oblongatta.Originally Posted by regnis
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