Quit While You're Ahead... Revisited

[Rob.Singer]

Shame on you. You know his wife passed away. You have now fallen to a new low.

All his fault Alan and he receives everything he asks for...from beginning to end to right now. And be assured: the folks care more than he does.

[Rob.Singer]

Let's get this back on track.

Quitting "while ahead" is only psychological. It has nothing to do with your chances of being a long-term winner, except for the fact that you more likely than not save money by quitting a -EV game earlier. But if you're going to repeatedly visit the casino and play those same games in the future anyway, quitting early in one session is negligible.

However, if winning is important to you, then quitting early (when ahead) does give you the nice feeling of leaving a winner.

That 4-5 hour drive home from Vegas (longer if it's Sunday) can be brutal if you either had a big loss or threw away a big win, so for your emotional health, it's sometimes better to quit.

Also, aside from places in the middle of nowhere, there's always things to do besides gamble.

Of course what you're saying is misleading and I've proven it so many times. You are so wrapped up in the long term theory of it all that it keeps you from seeing that no player ever enters into that realm, while the casinos and their machines do.

Yes, there actually is something called the short term, which once again is how every single vp player plays--like it and/or believe it or not. While any machine can be considered on a long term journey, we as players happen upon it for a simple short point within its lifetime. So if you attack it that way and you pack an effective, sensible strategy, you basically understand that the long term math does not have to and never will be able to snatch back the big profits, because you never give it the opportunity to.

Then we get into how simple this would all be if you did what Alan said. Regular, single denom. players do, at some point in their play, get ahead in the majority of their sessions. I take this a very effective step further, by climbing in denom. as well as game volatility, so in the VAST majority of my sessions I am ahead. So say you quit at that point EVERY SINGLE TIME. You still claim the math will grab away those bunch of profits? Of course not.

Without a doubt, the people who will never do this and who like to claim their theories are more powerful than reality will continue to misunderstand and diss this. That's why we have the terms "weak players" & "strong" ones.

[jbjb]

NO-ONE has seen one iota of proof from Singer. Just nonsense and hearsay.

[redietz]

jbjb -- beware of asking someone for proof of a past event. If by proof, you mean mathematical proof, okay. But results proof? That's like going around and telling people they have no proof they won the lottery. Eventually, you run into someone who has won the lottery.

[jbjb]

Honestly, I really don't care whether he's truthful or not. It'll never affect my life one bit. If he is truthful, excellent for him. If he's not, suckers beware. One thing he certainly is, is he's highly entertaining!

[redietz]

in a Danny Devito kind of way.

[RS__]

Dan everything you say makes sense.

But I would only ask you and everyone else to try this:

Starting January 1, 2016 keep a log of all of your play, and in that log record only ONE thing: were you ahead at ANY TIME in any given session of play?

I think I have been ahead at some point in almost every session of play. Wouldn't it be wonderful if a red light would go off when you have reached that point when you are ahead and you quit right then? How would your yearly profits change for the full year?

Please try it. Make it a New Year Resolution. Again: were you ahead at any point in a session of play?

You're ahead at least one point in almost every session of play. Not sure why you'd keep track of that though. We already know that happens. You can certainly quit as soon as you're ahead. That's certainly no fun for gamblers. And would be devastating to AP's income.

[Alan Mendelson]

Thanks for confirming the strategy. Most of us have real jobs and don't try to be APs. What we want is the chance for a cheap or low cost getaway. Winning some money doesn't hurt.

If Vegas visitors realized that if they stopped playing when they were ahead they might enjoy the trip a bit more.

The APs of the world have their own set of problems like trying to find a game to play.

The rest of us can get by nicely on "regular Joe" games like 8/5 or even 7/5 Bonus video poker. We might not break the casino but if we play smart the casino won't break us.

[Rob.Singer]

Honestly, I really don't care whether he's truthful or not. It'll never affect my life one bit. If he is truthful, excellent for him. If he's not, suckers beware. One thing he certainly is, is he's highly entertaining!

I've tried, jbjb, Just ask Fezzik, Anthony Curtis, Wizard etc. etc. If you had said that you, Dancer, or any AP anywhere has never shown, let alone offer, to prove their claims of winning, that certainly would have carried a whole lot more strength. But you can't even say who you are or where you play. You just want to be an anonymous poster with silly assertions that you wish others would believe for I guess self-confidence building purposes.

I suspect all we'll ever get out of you is theory. That's all we ever got out of Wizard, and you see the humiliation he put himself thru. Perhaps you & RS__(I love those initials....don't you!?) by hiding, are trying your best not to suffer the same?

[jbjb]

I don't need anyone to believe me for self confidence. You or anyone here can easily do what me and my team do. In fact, I think you'd make a great "BP." You just have to go scout for the opportunities. It's very easy and a lot of plays on table games do not need a large amount of money. The difference in what we do, is that our plays can be proven to work and to work forever. Yours cannot.

[Alan Mendelson]

I don't think this thread should turn into a discussion about special plays, or team play, or hole carding or anything else. The subject of this thread is about the strategy of quitting when ahead and allowing those wins to add up.

Even RS___ who is a self described AP and Vegas craps dealer acknowledges that at some point in a session players can show a profit. So why not quit when you have that profit?

getting back to that point and that point only:

1. When you quit with a small profit, early in your play, everyone is probably tempted to play more to win more.
2. When you quit with a small profit at the end of a trip you can feel relieved that you are leaving with some of the casino's money.
3. No matter when you quit with a small profit, in theory (we are reminded), that you really haven't quit and you really haven't won your session -- because it's all one continuous session.

Frankly, I reject #3. I don't look at casino gambling as one continuous session. To me, the trip I make to a casino on October 1, 2015 was a session only on October 1, 2015 and that's how it is recorded by the casino and how the IRS wants me to record it as well.

[redietz]

Alan's priorities regarding having winning sessions, however small, remind me of that line from Whale Hunt in the Desert, where the superhosts make fun of gamblers for "eating like birds, and shitting like bears."

In other words, the hosts found it amusing that players went out of their way to record "winning sessions," however small, but then had no similar rules about quitting when behind, however small the loss.

[Rob.Singer]

Alan's absolutely right. What you win on an August 3rd trip is in the books and has zero to do with your next or future trips. And since the IRS cares most about your contemporaneous log, it all ties in nicely.

When I go on a gambling trip and win, I either & usually spend the money or dump it into a savings account. Sure, people who don't have a proper bankroll for gambling would rather add some winnings into it, and I'm sure that's what the AP's do.

People think too much into the "I made the trip in order to gamble, not get up and leave after I got ahead X amount". If you like to stay on and don't want to go home thereby locking up that profit, well, that's what casino losers usually do. I choose differently.

jbjb, I soured on the thought of team play as soon as Frank Kneeland said he never played a single hand of vp with his own money. Of course, he was always broke and from what he directly told me, he had little if any hope for the future. He believed 50 would be a divine miracle. I don't need other people's money to play, and I don't need to pool my money with others in order to afford a play.

[RS__]

Alan, next time you're up $25 on the $5 machine, quit, lock up the profit, and enjoy yourself for the remainder of your getaway. Next time you're in town, do the same thing. See how long you'll last. Either you won't be able to do it, or Caesars will cut you off.

[jbjb]

...jbjb, I soured on the thought of team play as soon as Frank Kneeland said he never played a single hand of vp with his own money. Of course, he was always broke and from what he directly told me, he had little if any hope for the future. He believed 50 would be a divine miracle. I don't need other people's money to play, and I don't need to pool my money with others in order to afford a play.

I wasn't talking about vp. But as per Alan's request, I'll leave it at that. As for quitting while ahead, absolutely nothing wrong with it.

[Rob.Singer]

Alan, next time you're up $25 on the $5 machine, quit, lock up the profit, and enjoy yourself for the remainder of your getaway. Next time you're in town, do the same thing. See how long you'll last. Either you won't be able to do it, or Caesars will cut you off.

Talking smack like that doesn't cut it. Alan may not like being "cut off" but I regularly pop in to a lot of casinos and hit them for less than a hundred bucks each. Comps & freebies are not the name of the game for strong players. I'll take the money.

[jbjb]

Cash always comes first. Extra freebies play seconds fiddle.

[redietz]

Here we go again. Okay, all you "quit while ahead" dudes -- do you mean during each session, during each day, or during each trip? And please define session and/or trip, then, so we know what you are talking about.

Quitting while playing negative expectation machines is, of course, a good thing. It reduces your losses, so you'll get no argument from me.

And then we'll get into the debate about -- if Rob wins such a huge percentage of his "sessions" -- why doesn't he just play a session, call it the end of a session, walk around the parking lot, and start another session. He must not need the money. So then someone will ask, "Well, if he doesn't need the money, why does he play in the first place?" And someone else will say, "He does it for recreation." And then Rob will explain that he is not a recreational player, and he does not do multiple sessions in a day because he does not need the money, which leaves us with the mystery of why Rob does it at all.

[slingshot]

Talking smack like that doesn't cut it. Alan may not like being "cut off" but I regularly pop in to a lot of casinos and hit them for less than a hundred bucks each. Comps & freebies are not the name of the game for strong players. I'll take the money.

Gotcha!! Thanks.

[RS__]

Cash always comes first. Extra freebies play seconds fiddle.

Absolutely.

Here we go again. Okay, all you "quit while ahead" dudes -- do you mean during each session, during each day, or during each trip? And please define session and/or trip, then, so we know what you are talking about.

Quitting while playing negative expectation machines is, of course, a good thing. It reduces your losses, so you'll get no argument from me.

And then we'll get into the debate about -- if Rob wins such a huge percentage of his "sessions" -- why doesn't he just play a session, call it the end of a session, walk around the parking lot, and start another session. He must not need the money. So then someone will ask, "Well, if he doesn't need the money, why does he play in the first place?" And someone else will say, "He does it for recreation." And then Rob will explain that he is not a recreational player, and he does not do multiple sessions in a day because he does not need the money, which leaves us with the mystery of why Rob does it at all.

Or someone will have the excuse against playing multiple sessions in a day because, "I'm not greedy." LOL.