Originally Posted by Alan Mendelson View Post

1. With a truly random game anything is possible including a big string of wins or losses
2. It is possible to cash out more wins than losses
3. When you win it's a good idea to take the wins before you lose them back
4. If you play the best available pay tables you have the best chance of being in the game when the wins come and this holds true when making the lowest house edge bets in craps
5. If you limit your losses you have a better chance of being in the game when the big wins come

That pretty much sums it up. So what's the problem?
#1, #2, and #4 are true.

#3 is true, but "lose them back" is just likely to happen in your next session as it is in the current session. So I don't see why you bother going home a "winner" but then walk back right in a few days later and play the same game. The machine sees it as the exact same session, as if you never quit.

#5 is not true. You will get the same percentage of "big wins" whether you play a long session or a succession of short ones. For example, you will average a royal once every 40,000 hands. Sometimes you will get a few royals in 40,000 hands, and other times you will go over 100,000 with no royal. But you aren't giving yourself a better shot to get a royal by splitting 40,000 hands among 100 sessions, rather than cramming them all into 10 sessions. It's all the same thing.

I think that's where you and the "math guys" have a disconnect.

You say "I want to go home a winner, what's wrong with that?", and the math guys are saying back, "You aren't really going home, though. If you're right back there a few days later at the same machine, it's as if you never left."

You are just getting the psychological satisfaction of having a break in between, to where you can declare yourself a winner for the prior session.

Now, I will say that the psychological element is actually real and worthwhile. Nobody enjoys losing, and if you have more fun gambling when you can go home ahead sometimes, then by all means, leaving while up is the right play. It won't affect your overall results, but it's the right play for your happiness and general mood.

I did this tonight with poker. I won a whole lot in several consecutive sessions about two weeks ago, but then hit a wall and basically played a ton of hours without winning. I wasn't losing, but I was logging a ton of hours and breaking event. In fact, I hit a slump at the end and was down 6k from my peak. Tonight I won the 6k back very quickly, so I quit. Perhaps I would have won more, but after the frustrating two weeks of spinning my wheels, I was glad to be back at my peak and felt it would do me some emotional good to quit for the night. So I did.

But at least with regular poker, your mood/demeanor is important to your ability to play well, so there's a strategic reason behind quitting when feeling emotionally good about things.

Video poker is different, as you are just going through motions that are determined to be optimal plays, and no good player deviates much from those.