The Adventures of MDawg (in progress)

[AxelWolf]

and you never know what an anonymous lunatic will do.

.

In fact, we have some examples of that and it's very serious in some cases. It would be an extra concern if you're giving semi live high roller trip reports. How many younger white guys are playing baccarat in the higher limit room while sporting a Rolex? IIRC MD even posted pic of his clothing in the closets.

[MDawg]

I've thought about that. You have a legitimate point. When mcap posted something in this thread about what a flamboyant shirt I was wearing that day at such and such casino I had an Oh shit! moment, until I realized that he was talking about a picture I had posted myself earlier that included my sleeve.

Should the Adventures of MDawg be time delay posted, a week or so after the fact? Of course then even more people will claim they are faked.


Hey I was just remembering something. Somehow Redietz got me thinking about this. When I first started playing at the Nugget before I even knew the ropes about getting limos or knew to even ask, if I wanted to go from downtown to the Strip, or to the Hard Rock, it was taxi all the way. Quickly figured out that if they took you on the freeway it was faster, but more expensive, or via Paradise, slower but lower fare.

So I used to tell the tax drivers "don't take the freeway" and some would play dumb.

"You want me to drive down the Strip?"

or

"If you know some other way, you may tell me Sir."

And then I would have to direct them down Paradise, although they all knew exactly what I wanted them to do, and why.

Anyone else ever had that experience?


When I graduated to limos, I'd always (and still do) tip them twenty for the downtown to Strip (or Strip to downtown) run, which was about the same as a taxi anyway (A taxi that went on the freeway ) but this was in the guy's pocket which I didn't mind helping him, and it was a limo ride not an old taxi.

[AxelWolf]

Should the Adventures of MDawg be time delay posted, a week or so after the fact? Of course then even more people will claim they are faked.

You should probably wait a year or two.

Of course, that's the wonderful thing about fake stuff you could just randomly posted up any time and still be safe

[MDawg]

Of course that's what I mean about Axel's two facedness. One day (or in this case, minute), posting something seemingly genuine and supportive, the next, back to being his a-hole self!

[Bob21]

MDawg, I wanted to thank you for your detailed response to my stock question. Like I said, I’ve agreed with pretty much everything you’ve said about stocks and options. I’ve done a lot of day trading and some option trading back in the day, but over time I realized I was just gambling, basically I won just enough to think I could beat the system. After several years, I gave it up and now I just have Fidelity mutual funds and a couple long stocks.

My best day trading stock was amazon and google back in the 2000 timeframe. I actually had as many as 2,000 shares of Amazon. I bought them around 8. (Yes, I got them under 10), and I think I sold them a couple days later for around 15. At that time, boy was I proud of myself, picking up a quick $1,500. Now I look at amazon and see it’s at 2,000 and think if I’d just held on and not day traded, I’d have about 4 million dollars. Oh well, live and learn.

Anyway, I’ve enjoyed your posts and the way you respond to your doubters. You’ve changed my mind....I’m starting to believe you’re the real deal, and you won all that money. And I get why you’d want to share your experiences in a forum. I mean it’s entertainment and most the people on these forums are pretty intelligent, although I’m still holding out judgment on my favorite poster, Tasha.

I’ve learned quite a bit from these forums too, and even though I give my favorite doomsday protagonist, Kj, a hard time I have learned a lot from him on blackjack, and I’ve use his advice to improve my game and minimize heat. Thanks Kj!

I’m only a small time AP, and enjoy the casino experience and everything that goes with it. So even though I don’t get to stay in your lavish suites, I feel I can relate. I like the way you tip too...that’s a big part of my game too. I mean you can’t take it with you, so you might as well help others while you’re down here. And who better to help out than a buxom waitress and great looking dealer. Btw, I tip men dealers too, so don’t get upset with me Kj.

[MDawg]

Thanks Bob. I do sometimes get carried away and argue with people a little too intensely, but that is mostly the lawyer in me. But seriously, if I had no personal experience with something, I would not hazard a guess I would just listen.

As you mention, this sort of thing, posting online in blogs, forums, etc., just somewhat builds on itself...something like the habit of writing in a Diary. Once you start, it's hard to stop.

[mickeycrimm]

I am no longer reading MDawg stuff. He's finally admitted to losing sessions. Even admitted to 4 losing sessions in a row. That's been my contention all along. Dude is bound to have losing sessions. Since I don't care for his adventures I no longer feel the need to read his bullshit. Its a waste of time.

[MDawg]

Woke up at 5am and wondered why my stock streaming app wasn't streaming. I decided it must be Good Friday. Then I realized it was Saturday! I really thought yesterday was Thursday.

I don't remember the date. The devil knows what month it was.

[AxelWolf]

Axel: you know what I am talking about. Click the URL, read the post, and respond.

Bob: Yes, exactly, covered calls are like selling your birthright for a bowl of cold porridge. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't had any experience with them. And you're even more spot on with mentioning how when you don't get called out you make little, but when you do, you lose a lot.

TSLA - I've made a number of "mistakes" with TSLA over the years, namely, selling it too quickly. Not as in day trading quickly, more like - position trading, short to medium term quickly.

I rebought it about a year ago on that dip to the 180s. I decided that this time I would hold it long term.

I kept thinking on each double, 380, 760, etc. that I would sell it, but I didn't. Of course now it's way down compared to the 950s that hit twice, and at that time when it was in the 950s I entered a GTC sell order for around 1050 which hasn't expired yet I don't think? so anyway that remains my target even though it is much further away now than it was when it hit 968.

As far as why I am a TSLA bull, the stocks I like to hold long term are industry leaders like AAPL GOOG/GOOGL TSLA NFLX AMZN (just to name a few, on the tech side). Of these NFLX and AMZN were unprofitable for a long time, no? as is TSLA now (most quarters). I believe that TSLA will sustain profitability at some point (as you know they have booked a profit here and there some quarters).

But, when it comes to electric cars, TSLA remains in my opinion the industry leader. All the other electric cars that have come out to compete from it, such as from Porsche, have been no comparison. The Porsche Taycan has barely a 200 mile range and I understand that in real world testing it has not even achieved that. TSLA's high end range is pushing 400 miles no? Until I see some competitors closing in on TSLA's electric car range, I don't see anything else as comparable.

Anyway, besides all that, TSLA stock has momentum and once this coronavirus mess clears I believe it will be be back on track for 1000 per share.

The only real argument against TSLA is that it will fail, as any independent auto maker in the U.S. has always failed. But as long as TSLA maintains its industry leader status, I don't think it will fail.

If you watch the market, yes we are in the toilet, but there are certain stocks like AMZN and TSLA that the buyers are still snapping up on some (not all) of the dips. I think that the street senses that something big is going to happen with stocks like these, and that to let them go entirely would be a mistake.

Yes I mean - stocks are real world. Gambling is what it is. I'm not trying to make a living at gambling.

TSLA is not going to go straight up, but I think it will get to 1000+ eventually.

I'm not clicking links you can just answer me without having me to click on links and look at a bunch of s***.

[MDawg]

Since I’m bored and I don’t post over at BJTF anymore, I thought I’d bring something I saw over there here, since it does relate to gambling, and I’ve seen this topic discussed here too.

A goofball over there that goes by the handle, Wave, started a thread that basically said if you had a smaller bankroll per shoe you should win the same, but lose less. Or something to that effect. It basically came back to the ‘ol “stoploss” theory, but it was disguised as “thinking outside the box”. It also had a very fancy title like “law of diminishing returns”, whatever that means?

This thread went on for about three pages, with much meaningless back-and-forth, until Don Schlesinger put the hammer down and correctly called it BS, and said the thread should turn yellow and put into the disadvantage forum, where voodoo concepts go.

What I found interesting is how some of the so-called intellectual wizards on that site, like Freightman came out of retirement and started pontificating on it as if Wave might be onto something.

I think it comes down to discipline. If you're disciplined, I mean robotically, to the level of an Android

then it shouldn't matter what you have or don't have in front of you.

But for the average human, if you're winning it doesn't take much, and if you're losing better to have access to less than more. This may be all this guy was getting at?

[Bob21]

Since I’m bored and I don’t post over at BJTF anymore, I thought I’d bring something I saw over there here, since it does relate to gambling, and I’ve seen this topic discussed here too.

A goofball over there that goes by the handle, Wave, started a thread that basically said if you had a smaller bankroll per shoe you should win the same, but lose less. Or something to that effect. It basically came back to the ‘ol “stoploss” theory, but it was disguised as “thinking outside the box”. It also had a very fancy title like “law of diminishing returns”, whatever that means?

This thread went on for about three pages, with much meaningless back-and-forth, until Don Schlesinger put the hammer down and correctly called it BS, and said the thread should turn yellow and put into the disadvantage forum, where voodoo concepts go.

What I found interesting is how some of the so-called intellectual wizards on that site, like Freightman came out of retirement and started pontificating on it as if Wave might be onto something.

I think it comes down to discipline. If you're disciplined, I mean robotically, to the level of an Android

then it shouldn't matter what you have or don't have in front of you.

But for the average human, if you're winning it doesn't take much, and if you're losing better to have access to less than more. This may be all this guy was getting at?

Yeah MDwag, you are probably right, and one poster actually made that point during the thread. But that was not what this was guy, Wave, was trying to say. He was trying to say he simmed it on a computer and it showed having a smaller bankroll meant you’d win the same per hour, but lose less.

This is just a stupid idea, no mater how you slice it, and Bosox understood that right away. I give him a lot of credit for never letting up. At one point Wave came back at Bosox claming he had hard data to show he was right. Common should tell anybody this makes NO sense! The size of your bankroll per shoe has no impact on minimizing losses, while keeping win rate per hour high.

Now Moses, I just read your post over at Zenzone, and I can tell you’re an intelligent person, but you have a blind spot for Freightman, so you’re defending him. Please go back and reread that thread, especially read the one post by Don Schlesinger where he called out this whole thread as a “claptrap”, which was a great description of it!

There is nothing to be learned by anything Freightman said, other than he wants to sound intellectual when he really doesn’t get simple concepts. His writing style is really bizarre. You can tell he thinks highly of himself.

I give a lot of credit to Bosox. He got it right away! Nothing Wave said made any sense whatsoever!

[MDawg]

I don’t think that if you carry it out to an infinite number of hands while still imposing a house limit that the size of your bankroll would make a difference. So I don’t see how his computer simulation would support his theory.

But, you also have guys that will say that it is impossible to win no matter what you do, and if you accept that, then what’s the point of discussing any strategies at all?

In any case, we don’t play an infinite number of hands and over the shorter term given variance the size of your bankroll could affect things. The question is, how, or, in what way?

I think it comes down to how you play. I see something like what the guy is talking about all the time at least at the Baccarat tables – mostly from Asian cash (not credit line) players. They pull out three hundred dollars and get three black chips, to “test” the shoe. If they lose it, they invariably pull out more cash anyway, which is why I never understood that concept of “testing,” but I suppose their theory is that if it is a bad shoe all they’ll lose is $300. However, if they come right in at the point of some monster run, then having only $300. will sell themselves short and wind up winning a lot less than for them if they had been properly capitalized.

I also see all the time, at the BJ and the Baccarat tables both, people coming in with only five hundred, or a thousand, TOTAL, which I believe is just not enough for a black chip minimum table. Not enough to handle the usually inevitable swings, and not enough to vary your bet properly.

Like I said, if you’re coming in from the side of “no matter what you do you will lose” then why discuss anything, but if you at least concede that certain strategies may increase your chances, my thought would be that having enough money to vary your bet at LEAST 1 to 10X for enough hands given whatever the table minimum is, would be the right amount to bring.

Getting back to stock trading, some people think that it is impossible to win at that consistently. Baloney. I do it all the time. But part of why I am able to win at it so consistently is something like what I am talking about here - having the capital to average in. Someone else who buys 1000 shares of whatever might be dead if it runs against him, but I am prepared and able to average in with at least another four 1000 share blocks even if it is a very expensive stock, and HOLD it for as long as necessary without having to pay margin costs, so my chances of winning are much greater than someone who has just one shot and must sell by the end of the day because he is maxed out. And this is not even including the discussion of being able to read charts or not read charts, or get a sense of when to buy or not to buy, which again, some people, looking from the outside, think means nothing.

So I do think that at a table game being under capitalized definitely could handicap you. And again we're talking real world, not an infinite number of hands in a simulation.

So this is it, huh? It's going to have to be just talking about casino play and not actually doing it for many moons, it looks like to me.

[BaccMaster]

I don’t think that if you carry it out to an infinite number of hands while still imposing a house limit that the size of your bankroll would make a difference. So I don’t see how his computer simulation would support his theory.

But, you also have guys that will say that it is impossible to win no matter what you do, and if you accept that, then what’s the point of discussing any strategies at all?

In any case, we don’t play an infinite number of hands and over the shorter term given variance the size of your bankroll could affect things. The question is, how, or, in what way?

I think it comes down to how you play. I see something like what the guy is talking about all the time at least at the Baccarat tables – mostly from Asian cash (not credit line) players. They pull out three hundred dollars and get three black chips, to “test” the shoe. If they lose it, they invariably pull out more cash anyway, which is why I never understood that concept of “testing,” but I suppose their theory is that if it is a bad shoe all they’ll lose is $300. However, if they come right in at the point of some monster run, then having only $300. will sell themselves short and wind up winning a lot less than for them if they had been properly capitalized.

I also see all the time, at the BJ and the Baccarat tables both, people coming in with only five hundred, or a thousand, TOTAL, which I believe is just not enough for a black chip minimum table. Not enough to handle the usually inevitable swings, and not enough to vary your bet properly.

Like I said, if you’re coming in from the side of “no matter what you do you will lose” then why discuss anything, but if you at least concede that certain strategies may increase your chances, my thought would be that having enough money to vary your bet at LEAST 1 to 10X for enough hands given whatever the table minimum is, would be the right amount to bring.

Getting back to stock trading, some people think that it is impossible to win at that consistently. Baloney. I do it all the time. But part of why I am able to win at it so consistently is something like what I am talking about here - having the capital to average in. Someone else who buys 1000 shares of whatever might be dead if it runs against him, but I am prepared and able to average in with at least another four 1000 share blocks, and HOLD it for as long as necessary without having to pay margin costs, so my chances of winning are much greater than someone who has just one shot and must sell by the end of the day because he is maxed out. And this is not even including the discussion of being able to read charts or not read charts, or get a sense of when to buy or not to buy, which again, some people, looking from the outside, think means nothing.

So I do think that at a table game being under capitalized definitely could handicap you.

So this is it, huh? It's going to have to be just talking about casino play and not actually doing it for many moons, it looks like to me.

There are no strategies that increase your chances. It’s not a matter of conceding anything. It’s simply a fact.

[Bob21]

I don’t think that if you carry it out to an infinite number of hands while still imposing a house limit that the size of your bankroll would make a difference. So I don’t see how his computer simulation would support his theory.

But, you also have guys that will say that it is impossible to win no matter what you do, and if you accept that, then what’s the point of discussing any strategies at all?

In any case, we don’t play an infinite number of hands and over the shorter term given variance the size of your bankroll could affect things. The question is, how, or, in what way?

I think it comes down to how you play. I see something like what the guy is talking about all the time at least at the Baccarat tables – mostly from Asian cash (not credit line) players. They pull out three hundred dollars and get three black chips, to “test” the shoe. If they lose it, they invariably pull out more cash anyway, which is why I never understood that concept of “testing,” but I suppose their theory is that if it is a bad shoe all they’ll lose is $300. However, if they come right in at the point of some monster run, then having only $300. will sell themselves short and wind up winning a lot less than for them if they had been properly capitalized.

I also see all the time, at the BJ and the Baccarat tables both, people coming in with only five hundred, or a thousand, TOTAL, which I believe is just not enough for a black chip minimum table. Not enough to handle the usually inevitable swings, and not enough to vary your bet properly.

Like I said, if you’re coming in from the side of “no matter what you do you will lose” then why discuss anything, but if you at least concede that certain strategies may increase your chances, my thought would be that having enough money to vary your bet at LEAST 1 to 10X for enough hands given whatever the table minimum is, would be the right amount to bring.

Getting back to stock trading, some people think that it is impossible to win at that consistently. Baloney. I do it all the time. But part of why I am able to win at it so consistently is something like what I am talking about here - having the capital to average in. Someone else who buys 1000 shares of whatever might be dead if it runs against him, but I am prepared and able to average in with at least another four 1000 share blocks, and HOLD it for as long as necessary without having to pay margin costs, so my chances of winning are much greater than someone who has just one shot and must sell by the end of the day because he is maxed out. And this is not even including the discussion of being able to read charts or not read charts, or get a sense of when to buy or not to buy, which again, some people, looking from the outside, think means nothing.

So I do think that at a table game being under capitalized definitely could handicap you.

So this is it, huh? It's going to have to be just talking about casino play and not actually doing it for many moons, it looks like to me.

There’s a lot to dissect here, so I’ll need to read this again in the morning. To me, you got a lot of different concepts going on that are not totally related. I don’t see gambling in a Casino, which is a math game and NOT influenced by outside event, as being related to the stock market, which is influenced by outside events, but I know a lot of people disagree with me here.

First about what the poster, Wave, said so we can clear that up. His whole point is if he came to the table with $1000 instead of $2000, he could win the same amount per hour, but if he’s on a losing streak, he’ll only lose $1000 instead of $2,000. So his point was to go to table with limited funds to limit what you lose, but you’ll keep winning the same amount. That’s just stupid. No matter how you look at it that’s called “stoploss” theory.

As far as the rest of your comments I’ll comment on those tomorrow.

[Bob21]

I don’t think that if you carry it out to an infinite number of hands while still imposing a house limit that the size of your bankroll would make a difference. So I don’t see how his computer simulation would support his theory.

But, you also have guys that will say that it is impossible to win no matter what you do, and if you accept that, then what’s the point of discussing any strategies at all?

In any case, we don’t play an infinite number of hands and over the shorter term given variance the size of your bankroll could affect things. The question is, how, or, in what way?

I think it comes down to how you play. I see something like what the guy is talking about all the time at least at the Baccarat tables – mostly from Asian cash (not credit line) players. They pull out three hundred dollars and get three black chips, to “test” the shoe. If they lose it, they invariably pull out more cash anyway, which is why I never understood that concept of “testing,” but I suppose their theory is that if it is a bad shoe all they’ll lose is $300. However, if they come right in at the point of some monster run, then having only $300. will sell themselves short and wind up winning a lot less than for them if they had been properly capitalized.

I also see all the time, at the BJ and the Baccarat tables both, people coming in with only five hundred, or a thousand, TOTAL, which I believe is just not enough for a black chip minimum table. Not enough to handle the usually inevitable swings, and not enough to vary your bet properly.

Like I said, if you’re coming in from the side of “no matter what you do you will lose” then why discuss anything, but if you at least concede that certain strategies may increase your chances, my thought would be that having enough money to vary your bet at LEAST 1 to 10X for enough hands given whatever the table minimum is, would be the right amount to bring.

Getting back to stock trading, some people think that it is impossible to win at that consistently. Baloney. I do it all the time. But part of why I am able to win at it so consistently is something like what I am talking about here - having the capital to average in. Someone else who buys 1000 shares of whatever might be dead if it runs against him, but I am prepared and able to average in with at least another four 1000 share blocks even if it is a very expensive stock, and HOLD it for as long as necessary without having to pay margin costs, so my chances of winning are much greater than someone who has just one shot and must sell by the end of the day because he is maxed out. And this is not even including the discussion of being able to read charts or not read charts, or get a sense of when to buy or not to buy, which again, some people, looking from the outside, think means nothing.

So I do think that at a table game being under capitalized definitely could handicap you. And again we're talking real world, not an infinite number of hands in a simulation.

So this is it, huh? It's going to have to be just talking about casino play and not actually doing it for many moons, it looks like to me.

To further comment on some of your thoughts. First off, the stock market and casinos are not the same, they are not even in the same ballpark. You’ll see people make comments like the stock market is the world’s biggest casino. That’s just naïve people saying stupid things.

Here’s one big difference between casinos and the stock market. In casinos there has always got to be a loser. It’s a zero sum game. Either you or the house wins. In the stock market, everyone can win. It is NOT a zero sum game. For example, take amazon. The investors are winning, the employees are winning, the people running amazon are winning, the customers buying something from amazon are winning, since they are gettting something they want for a good price. Everyone is a winner!

The stock market is a collection of companies owned by private investors, us, the people. It’s a collection of companies that give us one of the highest standards of livings in the world. Liberals hate it since it mostly rewards hard workers and innovation and doesn’t support the lazy, and do nothingers.

Yes, some companies will go bankrupt, so their stock goes to zero. For example, there are no more stagecoach companies around. That’s why average Joe Blow should invest in mutual funds, a collection of companies.

Can someone trade stocks and treat it like gambling? Of course. They can do the same thing with real estate, and most people don’t call real estate gambling. It’s called flipping house. And yes, some people can make money doing this and day trading stocks. But most lose at it. I agree with your stock strategy, averaging down with good stocks. With enough money, you’ll usually win with this strategy. It’s not like the Martingale with gambling.

The other thing different between casinos and the stock market, is the casinos games are based on math, so NO outside events impact them. The stock market is impacted by outside events, which change with time. Thats why math cannot be used to predict the stock market long term.

The reason so many people think math can be used to predict stock performance is because our markets are so stable. We have some of the most stable markets in the world. So yes, over a short period of time, like over 10 to 20 years, you can use math to predict short term movement in stocks, but you’re still taking on huge risks, because you don’t know when some outside event will make your math meaningless.

Take a current example, our current coronavirus pandemic. It’s having a huge impact on stocks, since it’s impacting companies. No math model could have predicted this a year ago, or even 3 months ago. In contrast, the coronavirus pandemic has not impacted the math behind Blackjack.

This brings me to one of my pet peeves, Ed Thorp, a legend in the gambling world. He doesn’t get what I just wrote here. He thinks the math behind blackjack and the stock market are similar. That’s one of the dumest things I’ve ever heard.

Ed has said repeatedly in interviews and in his book “The man for all markets” how blackjack helped him develop a math model for the stock market. I couldn’t even finish this chapter in his book, because it made no sense. Ed’s stupid math model failed him in 2008, during the financial debacle, when he lost a lot just like everybody else. His math only works during stable times, which nobody can predict. In these times he made a lot, but he was also highly leveraged so if something would have happened, he’d have gone bankrupt just like Lehman Brothers. He was taking on a lot of risk and lived through it, but this is not a good long-term strategy.

Enough for now. The short version is the stock market and casinos are not the same thing....they are not even in the same ballpark.

[monet]

I don't read this thread but it sure seems popular!
You guys type a lot in these posts lol.

[Bob21]

I don't read this thread but it sure seems popular!
You guys type a lot in these posts lol.

Yeah, not much to do right now, with everything closed and no sporting events.

[LMR]

I don't read this thread but it sure seems popular!
You guys type a lot in these posts lol.

They sure do. It takes a long time to even get rid of it, to quote it, to get to the last line, I guess, the only line some of us read.

Enough for now. The short version is the stock market and casinos are not the same thing....they are not even in the same ballpark.

Thanks for that. It made me think a bit about the old space-time, where it comes from, and, how, in some way(s), every thing is the same.

[MDawg]

I don't know how or why Bob Thorp claims that blackjack is the same as the stock market, but my mention of the stock market as in stock trading was to illustrate that being undercapitalized is a bad thing, whether it comes to trading stocks or playing at the tables. If you're at the black chip table no matter what you are doing, counting BJ or whatever, if you don't have enough to vary your bet or ride out the bad streaks, you will most likely lose.
It was not to claim that there are any kind of predictive mathematics that may be used across the board of casino table games and the stock market.

Also, it is not true that "everyone wins" in the stock market. You might be referring to long term investing - yes I do that. But when it comes to trading, actually whatever I win is taken from someone who loses, at least for that moment. Consider for example if AMZN opens at 1904 and closes at 1904 that day, but goes up and down all day long. I trade it and make $1000. That means that someone (or "someones") during the course of that day who lost $1000. gave it to me. Trading, at least in the short term, is actually a zero sum game.

Another example is stock options. Almost all options expire worthless. But along the way some people make money on them, and some people end up making money even by holding to the very end. But, somewhat like a sports pool, the end sum has to even out, where the winners are paid by the losers. You can read about how this is a myth, that option trading is not a zero sum game because each trader may hedge his bet, but still at the end of the day what pays the options winners has to come from the options losers, in the grand scheme of the options market.

[Bob21]

I don't know how or why Bob Thorp claims that blackjack is the same as the stock market, but my mention of the stock market as in stock trading was to illustrate that being undercapitalized is a bad thing, whether it comes to trading stocks or playing at the tables. If you're at the black chip table no matter what you are doing, counting BJ or whatever, if you don't have enough to vary your bet or ride out the bad streaks, you will most likely lose.

Also, it is not true that "everyone wins" in the stock market. You might be referring to long term investing - yes I do that. But when it comes to trading, actually whatever I win is taken from someone who loses, at least for that moment. Consider for example if AMZN opens at 1904 and closes at 1904 that day. I trade it and make $1000. That means that someone (or "someones") during the course of that day who lost $1000. gave it to me. Trading, at least in the short term, is actually a zero sum game.

MDawg, I thought I made the distinction between “investing” in stocks and “trading” in stocks clear. This is two different things. Yes,of course everybody doesn’t win trading. I expect most lose trading. But everybody will win investing in the stock market. In the long run stocks go up.

Now if it so happens our country gets overtaken by communist or a socialist liberal Democratic Party, yes, the stocks could become worthless while companies are taken over by the government. That’s why we got to make sure we keep the Democrats out of office.

Yes, of course you have to have a big bankroll to survive Variance. All APs believe this. Many don’t make it as professional APs because they don’t have a big enough bankroll to handle the variance. But varying your bet by itself has no impact on you winning long-term. You have to vary your bet when you have an advantage. It’s that simple!

As people have already stated here anybody can win short term and by betting into negative EV situations. It happens all the time with the people who win the lottery. But this is the exception, not the rule.

This is what I think most people have been trying to tell you here and why they question you’re winning. If your strategy is anything other than betting more in positive EV situations you will be a long-term loser. In the short term anything can and will happen.