"Quitting When Ahead" as Strategy: What Would It Mean? Maybe A Million Dollars?

[redietz]

Alan, I'll try to pin you down on this one. First, do you honestly think that "quitting while ahead" will contribute to your bottom line? Second, do you think it can turn a negative expectation game into something that can be beaten?

The reason I bring this up is because if it does either of these, you have busted up the laws of probability. Now this has consequences. You would be a very special person.

Basically, the only way you could accomplish this is if (1) the laws of probability are wrong, (2) you have telekinetic abilities that affect the RNG or other aspects of the machine, or (3) you are clairvoyant and know when you are about to lose.

I brought this up to Rob more than a year ago: the James Randi Educational Foundation has a one million dollar award for people who can demonstrate, under controlled conditions (of course), that they have paranormal powers. Make no mistake about it. If quitting while ahead has a significant affect on your bottom line, you have paranormal abilities.

If things pan out for you with the "quitting while ahead" strategy, I would seriously take a shot at the million dollars. It's free. You just have to sign something saying that if you fail, you admit to being wrong and having no powers.

[Alan Mendelson]

I don't think there is anything paranormal about it. If the stats show that 96% of players are "ahead" at some point in their gambling, and if they knew to quit when they were ahead, wouldn't 96% of gamblers show a net profit?

Why do you confuse the issue with silly questions? You don't need any super powers to quit when you're ahead, do you?

redietz, you've raised the issue about short term vs long term. Let me pose this question to you: if the long term is made up of many short term sessions (I think you'll agree it is) then wouldn't small profits from all of your short term sessions help create a more favorable long term result? In other words, if you made one penny per day, after a hundred days you would have a dollar. And in a casino, if you won $10 in a session after ten sessions you would have $100.

Let me ask you to do this: the next time YOU play, tell us if you ever showed a gain during any point in your session, day or trip? I don't think I have EVER played in a casino when I didn't show a gain -- even if it was for only $1. (My latest $1 in a session example was playing craps a week ago. Very first roll of the dice I had $25 on the passline and a $5 horn high ace-deuce and the shooter threw a 12 which paid $26. I lost my $25 passline bet and had a $1 profit. Had I quit then I would have had a net profit.... lol... because it was a miserable session at craps.)

[arcimede$]

I don't think there is anything paranormal about it. If the stats show that 96% of players are "ahead" at some point in their gambling, and if they knew to quit when they were ahead, wouldn't 96% of gamblers show a net profit?

Nope, the point where a gambler is ahead occurs most often within the first few hands. How many players are going to go to a casino to win 5 credits? Obviously, the cost of getting to the casino would be more than the win unless you bet extremely high denominations. In addition, you would still approach the ER over time. I realize those 4% of losses sounds like very few, but they eat up all the wins and more.

Why do you confuse the issue with silly questions? You don't need any super powers to quit when you're ahead, do you?

No, but you do need superpowers to turn a negative game into a winning proposition.

Keep in mind that my 96% wins is the result of having a loss limit of $2500. However, if a person was going to cash out whenever they got ahead they probably wouldn't want to have a $2500 loss here and there. So, what happens if I reduce the loss limit to something like 25 credits? Well, my simulator provides the answer ... you win 63% of the time instead of 96%.

In addition, 10,000 sessions only led to about 70K hands altogether. That's a lot of trips to a casino for so few hands. The return on the run I did was 95.9% but it could go either way. The lower number of hands widens the bell curve.

[slingshot]

OK. You guys are still stuck on $5 like it's the norm. Sometimes it's $10-sometimes $30. Sometimes $2. Sometimes it's $200. For the next few weeks I'm gonna keep up with mine for this forum This is good 'cause it will force me to do what's right. Yesterday I was up $150 and ended up continuing to play and lose it. I see I have a gambling problem-knowing what to do and not doing it. Thank God I have enough sense not to go above quarters. This will be good for me and if I can show by discipline I can do it, I believe anyone can do it. I will start when the sick feeling leaves=the one that says you SHOULDA won.

[arcimede$]

No one is stuck on $5. It is just an example to show what happens. In my previous example in the other thread I used a win goal of $500 (500 credits really so you can equate that to $125 on quarters).

[slingshot]

No one is stuck on $5. It is just an example to show what happens. In my previous example in the other thread I used a win goal of $500 (500 credits really so you can equate that to $125 on quarters).

I do believe you asked how many people are going into a casino just to win 5 credits.

[redietz]

Alan, you're being too modest. If you can turn a negative game into a positive one by knowing when to quit, make no mistake, you are the guy JB Rhine was searching for. You have super powers.

[arcimede$]

I do believe you asked how many people are going into a casino just to win 5 credits.

That was in response to the assertion that people always get ahead. I was simply pointing out that most of those times a person playing negative machines is ahead is due to getting ahead by 5 credits early in their session. So, in fact, I was claiming that it is not an important value since almost no one would go to a casino to get ahead by such a small amount.

[arcimede$]

A little analogy may help. Although not completely random I think we could use a baseball hitter as a similar situation. Alan is claiming essentially that if a baseball hitter gets a hit early in a game then his slugging percentage would be higher than it would be if he continues to bat.

I think most people will see this as rather silly. The batters chances for hits are basically the same as his batting average at every plate appearance. If he averages .300 then he gets a hit 3 times out of every 10 plate appearances independent of when these appearances occur within a game. If he hits a single every 5 at bats, a double every 20 at bats, etc., then his slugging percentage does not change with more or fewer at bats.

VP is similar. You get a winning hand ("hit") about 40-50% of the time dependent on the game. You could look at straights and below as singles, flushes/FHs as doubles, quads/SFs as triples and RFs as home runs. Your expected return is the equivalent of the baseball players slugging percentage.

Clearly, a batters slugging percentage would not be affected by leaving the game after a hit. The same holds true in VP.

[Rob.Singer]

Redietz, I DID respond to JREF, and once I explained what I do they turned it down for good reasons. First, they said gambling was all about chance, and since they assumed that anything can happen, my issue would not be involved with the paranormal. Secondly, they did not want to spend the time it would take to convince them my strategy would beat a series of -ev games. I tried for ten sessions and even that was too lengthy.

I feel I lost out on an easy million dollars, not because they were lazy, but because this just wasn't what they were looking for.

[Rob.Singer]

Essentially, what we have here are amateur gamblers saying, over time, "play positive ev games and you will win; & play negative ev games and you will lose." Arci goes a step further by claiming that my special plays, which deviate from optimal strategy about 5% of the time, will cause a player to lose even more. Classic textbook fallback positioning.

I attribute such ignorance to a misrepresentation to oneself how all issues in life are solidly bounded by mathematical concepts, and how it would somehow be a re-writing of the math books, or a paranormal event (as redietz describes it) if it were possible to beat the negative ev vp games over a period of time. Clearly that is not the case, as my professional career's results have shown. Heck, I'm even still winning these days with helter-skelter play on basically the same lower denomination machines without true strategy. And you know what? In the past Harrahs & Bellagio wanted no more of me, and these days it's the Silverton who's afraid of my play.

The reason why AP's can't see past their nose on this is because they are unable to comprehend that, in a human vs. machine computer game such as vp, there are methods which the human can formulate that will give him an advantage over the machines and those who operate them. Not a mathematical advantage, but an operational one based on unique structure and capability, which is exactly how the SPS works. And it is these properties that have caused math-baked geniuses like Mike Shackleford to not want to go up against me, Dancer to not want to publicly debate me on his show or anywhere else, arci to lie as usual, and really just a handful of others to criticize behind the safety of their computer keyboards. And you know what? I can't really blame any of them. After all, how do you think they'd feel after a superior video poker intellect such as myself, taught them something they really didn't want to know--and in front of their peers?

It is, as they say, lonely at the top.

[Alan Mendelson]

Bingo, Rob: "Not a mathematical advantage, but an operational one..." That is exactly what "cashing out when ahead" is all about.

[arcimede$]

Bingo, Rob: "Not a mathematical advantage, but an operational one..." That is exactly what "cashing out when ahead" is all about.

How do you add up your results without using math. This should be really funny.

As for the dufus, his claims are worthless as he has been caught lying over and over again.

[redietz]

Am I an "amateur gambler?" I sure hope so -- after all these years, maybe I'm still eligible for the Olympics.

[Rob.Singer]

How do you add up your results without using math. This should be really funny.

As for the dufus, his claims are worthless as he has been caught lying over and over again.

Let's see....Operational advantages while using the math to add it all up! I got a royal in four hands this past week on a 6/5 dollar BP machine up at Harrahs in Lake Tahoe, I cashed out, and came home with a $3980 profit. And just tonight when I went to the bar to p/u some bbq for dinner, while waiting I won $6. I cashed out and took it home. Happens over and over again--not as often as it did when I used a real gambling bankroll within a structured strategy, but it sure beats wasting my life away in 6 hour marathons at Indian casinos computating all those phantom bucks when the missus needs me to help her be comfortable at home.

Funny, indeed

[quahaug]

Arc, please explain something. I don't understand the idea of being ahead if vp is one life long session, in other words, when do you actualy take money out of your bankroll to spend on groceries or golf clubs? If you have say 20,000 bankroll and you are over 1000 on a given day do you remove 1000 as profit? or if you lose money and your bankroll is down do you not touch it until you get it back over 20,000 again? If thats the case the goal would be to have your bankroll perfectly balanced on the day you die I suppose.

[arcimede$]

Arc, please explain something. I don't understand the idea of being ahead if vp is one life long session, in other words, when do you actualy take money out of your bankroll to spend on groceries or golf clubs? If you have say 20,000 bankroll and you are over 1000 on a given day do you remove 1000 as profit? or if you lose money and your bankroll is down do you not touch it until you get it back over 20,000 again? If thats the case the goal would be to have your bankroll perfectly balanced on the day you die I suppose.

Since I'm not a professional gambler I treat money more like other recreational gamblers. I do maintain a log so I know exactly where I'm at at any time. I don't have a specific gambling account. I have money that goes into my bank account from my income sources and I take out money as I need it. I'm fortunate that my income sources easily cover all my expenses. Every now and then I do move money from it into longer term investments.

So, I might take money out to pay for golf, I might take money out for groceries, etc. and I take money out for gambling. The big difference is I put money back into the account when I win. (which is almost half the time).

So, you can see that gambling income ends up just like my other income sources. I don't treat it special.