Quit While You're Ahead... Revisited

[Alan Mendelson]

All any of these goals, win or loss, do is shorten the exposure your money has to the casino.

Okay. Is there anything wrong with that?

[jbjb]

Not at all Alan. It just limits exposure. Nothing wrong with it.

[Alan Mendelson]

Not at all Alan. It just limits exposure. Nothing wrong with it.

Exactly. Win goals and loss limits will limit your exposure when you've won and when you are losing. Makes perfect sense to me, and a lot more sense than playing for 5,000 tier points per day or playing for 4 hours per day.

[arcimede$]

This time you got it wrong. I said I've been ahead in 90-95% of my sessions. And my downfall was not leaving when ahead. And yes, sometimes I have to put in $1800 before hitting quad aces for $2000.

Even at 95% you should win every time .... right? Give it a try and tell us what happens.

[Alan Mendelson]

Even at 95% you should win every time .... right?

Your statement makes no sense. But I'll try to make sense out of it.

If you're ahead by some amount in 95% of your sessions it doesn't mean you will finish ahead, does it? It's hard to quit when you're only one bet ahead. But it's sickening when you're hundreds or thousands ahead and don't quit.

[jbjb]

I'm up $18.80 so far today. Should I quit?

[jbjb]

I'm up $18.80 so far today. Should I quit?

I take that back. Two minutes after I posted that I got quads x 3 vulturing on 10¢ BDX for another $120+. Up $140.30 now.

[Alan Mendelson]

I take that back. Two minutes after I posted that I got quads x 3 vulturing on 10¢ BDX for another $120+. Up $140.30 now.

I think you said you're a professional gambler... or you don't have another job. Can you afford to quit? Or do you need that money to try to win more?

[jbjb]

I think you said you're a professional gambler... or you don't have another job. Can you afford to quit? Or do you need that money to try to win more?

Do I need it? No. Do I want more? Yes! It's a vulture day (no tables) so any future loss today will be minimal. I'm not DG'ing -EV games today.

P.S. Since I posted the edit, I've won $36 more. So my total so far today is $181.

[Rob.Singer]

But then, wouldn't that be....*GASP*.....the same thing as just playing straight on through? Just play and play and play and....of course you'll end up winning! Surely Alan, a math and statistics expert, knows you will!


Rob, over your "10+ years of consistent winning", how many sessions did you play? How many losers did you have, and how much did you lose on those sessions? What was the average win and what was the win goal?

An example response might be:

100 sessions
4 losing sessions: -$950 each
96 winning sessions. Win goal of $50. Average win is $85.

It's over 15+ years now. But I expect you're referring to the 10 years I played as a professional gambler.

My site had all this detailed information, but here's what I remember. I played around 425 sessions, but for this exercise there were about 275 SPS sessions with the other 150 being ARTT, RTT, 5-Play, & Multi-strike sessions. These other four strategies all had a $500 or less win goal instead of the $2500 with SPS.

I kept a cumulative ytd avg. session profit, a ytd. avg. winning session profit, and a ytd. avg. losing session profit. 87% of my sessions were winning sessions. My overall avg. session played profit was around $2100. The avg. winning session and losing session figures are of course higher numbers but I don't remember them.

You guys all misleadingly think there's no way to win using goals, esp. on -EV machines. Yet while you all agree it's a lot easier to win any particular session using them--ESPECIALLY if also using my increasing denomination/increasing volatility structure--it's a wonder why you just have to believe that it can't happen over & over & over again, and with HUGE winners sprinkled in that far more than offset the less frequent big losing sessions.

I live these results every time I play. Few others do--esp. not AP's. Their forte' is to make up theoretical reasons why it just can't be true. And you're wasting your time.

[jbjb]

There's that word again..."theoretical"... None of this is theoretical, it's fact!

BTW, I'm going home up a paltry $206.05

[arcimede$]

Your statement makes no sense. But I'll try to make sense out of it.

If you're ahead by some amount in 95% of your sessions it doesn't mean you will finish ahead, does it? It's hard to quit when you're only one bet ahead. But it's sickening when you're hundreds or thousands ahead and don't quit.

I meant to follow the strategy I outlined. Cash out whenever you are ahead, add it to your win column and then start over. Let us know you overall results.

[Alan Mendelson]

I meant to follow the strategy I outlined. Cash out whenever you are ahead, add it to your win column and then start over. Let us know you overall results.

Again it depends on how much I am ahead and what my loss limit is for the sessions when I lose.

I want YOU to keep track of the percentage of times YOU are showing a profit so you can see it's possible to have profits on -EV machines.

Your net profit will be based on your total wins less your losses. Some would say any profit is a player victory.

[Rob.Singer]

There's that word again..."theoretical"... None of this is theoretical, it's fact!

BTW, I'm going home up a paltry $206.05

It's all theoretical when you guys claim that no one can win over time on -EV machines. Why? Because in REALITY, it has and does happen. And yes, by people who have histirical data and not probability charts.

[jbjb]

It's all theoretical when you guys claim that no one can win over time on -EV machines. Why? Because in REALITY, it has and does happen. And yes, by people who have histirical data and not probability charts.

And people do and can win on that highly -EV Powerball or Mega-Millions too.

[redietz]

And people do and can win on that highly -EV Powerball or Mega-Millions too.

I've made this point half a dozen times. Rob and Alan argue that video poker is different, evidently, from other forms of gambling. You can win using win goals and stop losses at video poker because, because, well -- they aren't very clear on that. But I'm sure they have a theory.

A theory, however, would be theoretical, so now I'm really confused. Alan and Rob, why is it again that win goals and stop losses work at video poker but not craps or keno or the lottery?

[jbjb]

The reason why I say they don't help is simple. Let's say you have a $100 win goal. Now, will having that goal actually help you win $100? Never! Stop losses on the other hand can be a tool to keep you from going on tilt, reassessing your BR, etc. But neither will help you in the grand scheme of things. As been mentioned countless times. Quitting at a predetermined amount, AND THEN COMING BACK LATER is no different than continuing on. Now if you plan on never coming back, that's a whole different ball game.

[slingshot]

OK. First post and go ahead and rip me-but I did it. We were invited to see Ben Portsmouth-Elvis impersonator-at Margarittaville. I decided to slip a $100 into my favorite Random Rewards game on bp- the same machine that paid me TWICE $500 for just a normal full house. That sort of evaporated after about 30 minutes. I still had an hour before going after my wife-sooo- I stuck another in and sorta--kinda=maybe-in a way-like Rob's strategy went for ddbp-same game. After being down to $40, I hit 4 A's with a 4 kicker for $504. Have no idea about the $4- just what was the random amount. I tucked tail and went for my wife-great show, BTW.

[Alan Mendelson]

Redietz - Win goals and loss limits do work at craps. Players do color up and leave after a big win and use wins to press bets to conserve their bankrolls and keep to loss limits.

Lotteries are not structured to have enough small winners so I doubt it would be viable. But you can have win goals and loss limits in anything and everything.

In college we had win goals and loss limits when we dated the sorority girls. Our loss limit was three dates. You can imagine what our win goal was.

[jbjb]

I watched a guy yesterday get a $2000 AWAK x 4 on 25¢ UTX after only being the machine three minutes. I've hit a royal as early as my 6th hand on a single line game while my flashing dealer was on break and I quit on it too. Again, there is absolutely nothing wrong having goals.