The Sisyphean Gambler

[Alan Mendelson]

Rob, they are "too smart" to understand what is being said. That's the only way I can explain it. People do win playing negative expectation games, and they do win on multiple days, multiple sessions. And when they quit when ahead they too can have a lifetime with a net win.

Little old ladies in casinos with buckets of quarters do this all the time. They know when to quit. You can hear them say it as they push the "cash out button" when they smile and announce "that's enough for the buffet."

What got us into the discussion about quitting when ahead came from our discussion, Rob, about your system for increasing denominations so that a win at a larger denomination can wipe out your losses at lower denominations. If they can't grab the concept that it is possible to "win" at a negative expectation game, they will never understand how your system allows you to win at a higher denomination to wipe out your previous losses and put some profit in your pocket.

I've used your strategy, but not formally. When I first started playing VP at the 25-cent level and found myself losing perhaps a hundred dollars, I would switch to playing dollars where a four of a kind would wipe out my losses at 25-cents. Did it always happen? No. But when it did happen, it was nice.

But as I played more and more over the years I found that quads are not that elusive.

But the bottom line, that our math friends still won't recognize, is that it is still gambling. You hope that the long term math works -- and there are many who will say it doesn't work for them because they are way behind in royals.

What is true and never changes is what's showing as wins and losses. Pocket the wins and you will never be a loser. As my father told me when he explained the stock market, "no one ever went broke selling at a profit." And the same is true in video poker: no one ever went broke cashing out a net win.

[arcimede$]

Pocket the wins and you will never be a loser.

When are you going to back up this claim with real examples? You have no problem spewing this nonsense but when it comes to actually tracking your results you can't quite do it. Gee, I wonder why.

Tell us your win goals and loss limit and then try it in casinos. Get out of the rabbit hole and put your money where your mouth is.

[Alan Mendelson]

Arc, you're on!! What proof do you require?

[arcimede$]

Arc, you're on!! What proof do you require?

I'm not looking for anything for myself. I simply want you to walk the walk. Define whatever you like and tell us your results. Just define your approach beforehand so we all know what you are doing.

[Alan Mendelson]

On my last two trips that is exactly what I did, but these were not true examples because only free play was used. In both cases I ran the free play through the machines and cashed out ahead.

In the future: my bankroll per trip will be $2500, and I will cash out with a win of 10% or greater. I expect to be able to do that at least 90% of the time. We'll see.

[arcimede$]

In the future: my bankroll per trip will be $2500, and I will cash out with a win of 10% or greater. I expect to be able to do that at least 90% of the time. We'll see.

One problem you will encounter is you will get tired before reaching your win/loss limits quite often. This will skew your results somewhat. However, if you could play through every time my simulator says your should win around 65% of your completed sessions playing BP.

You could avoid the problem of not reaching your limits by continuing a session that was not completed the next time you play. For example, if you are down $2000 or ahead $200 just start off your next session at that point.

[arcimede$]

I modified my program to stop at a specified number of hands instead of win/loss limits. I wanted to see what it came up with for number of wins. Remember I stated above I won between 40-50% of the time.

Well, the simulator came out with around 43% wins at 4000 hands and 45% wins at 5000 hands. I usually play somewhere between those numbers. Looks like reality is captured quite nicely by the simulator.

[Rob.Singer]

.... and you win 12 of 13 years playing those marathon, life-wasting six hour sessions (when you should be home, btw....) while the casino watches and has never had a problem seeing you walk away with the money! Yep, sure looks like reality is really taking hold!!

Alan, I'm sure you've learned that no matter what you put up for numbers, if it is a loser then arci will give you an "I told you so and the numbers don't lie, dufus". But if you put up numbers that just don't jive with his math book theories, you'll get called even more names while hearing claims of "liar liar!" along with the usual escape clause of "if that really happened you're so far on the other side of that bell curve that an LA quake couldnt't cover it up!"

In other words, arci can't handle that kind of truth just as he couldnt't stomach my results.

But he IS getting better at reading gauges, mixing oatmeal, and sneaking out the back door for 8 or so hours after administering an extra sleeping pill or two

[arcimede$]

.... and you win 12 of 13 years playing those marathon, life-wasting six hour sessions (when you should be home, btw....) while the casino watches and has never had a problem seeing you walk away with the money! Yep, sure looks like reality is really taking hold!!

Your envy is showing yet again, dufus.

BTW, isn't it funny that the dufus tries to claim casinos wouldn't let me win, yet somehow they let him walk out with close to a million dollars. If he had really won that much why would he think I couldn't have won? A logical person might start doubting his claims of winning.

[Rob.Singer]

So now arci doesn't find it convenient to criticize how I stopped using slot club cards while playing SPS after being banned by Harrahs & Bellagio in 2003....Why, that calls for another !

It's also fun seeing the guy try his Minnesota best not to react to the additional home run I hit that was slightly better than the home runs the Red Sox hit during their sweep up there this week, but the frustration in his response gave it away again. BTW my daughter and her husband were in Minneapolis this week and went to the game. Too bad you and the missus didn't meet up with them for some enjoyment outside the casinos for a change. She's a nurse, so all "bases" would have been covered.

[arcimede$]

So now arci doesn't find it convenient to criticize how I stopped using slot club cards while playing SPS after being banned by Harrahs & Bellagio in 2003....Why, that calls for another !

The problems with all your lies is they keep conflicting with each other. Good old dufus was bragging not that long ago about getting $1500 in freeplay in just a single month. I guess the casinos must have just sent that freeplay to a random address since they couldn't have known about a player who plays without a card.

[Rob.Singer]

Your confusion has to do with a propensity to keep lying along with a true unfamiliarity with how the casino system works. I continue to receive lucrative and regular offers from properties I haven't even been to in a year or more, and it has always been that way. Why? Because of the level of play and the high number of W2G's I've always had. If you had any business sense at all you'd understand what those mean to businessmen running casinos, even without using a slot card.

Now, don't you really wish you spent more time understanding your habit when you were in LV instead of just nervously jumping out of bed and dragging the missus to places she should have stayed away from?

[arcimede$]

Your confusion has to do with a propensity to keep lying along with a true unfamiliarity with how the casino system works. I continue to receive lucrative and regular offers from properties I haven't even been to in a year or more, and it has always been that way. Why? Because of the level of play and the high number of W2G's I've always had. If you had any business sense at all you'd understand what those mean to businessmen running casinos, even without using a slot card.

Once more the dufus treats us to his usual brand of lies. Wasn't it just yesterday he claimed that casinos were so smart that they would never let an APer like Dancer or myself win for many years? Now, he goes 180° the other way and says the casinos keep sending him freeplay even though all he has done is collect it for, what, like 9 years. Totally hilarious.

Now everyone should know why he's such a complete dufus. He keeps trying to invent one lie after another to try and cover for the last one. All he succeeds in accomplishing is showing everyone his true make-up.

[Alan Mendelson]

When I hit two $20,000 royals about five weeks apart at Pechanga, a couple of years ago, they immediately cut my weekly free play dramatically. Rincon, about two months ago, cut EVERYONE'S free play, whether you were winning or not.

I think that "free play" has been getting cut all over for the past two or three years, about the same time that casinos were cutting back on cash back. I remember about three years ago when I could leave Caesars at the end of a weekend with three or four hundred of cash back. Those days are g o n e.

[Rob.Singer]

I must be touching arci's nerve for him to go off the edge like that....or maybe he's coming to the end of his rope at home with having to be cooped up so much!

Either way, he's a carbon copy of that dunce Robert Gibbs, who can't argue the facts so he manufactures misrepresentations and lies. SPS is but one of five winning strategies I developed, as our friend who plays nurse has always known. And a slot club card has always been used with them since they average much less in dollars per hand bet on -ev games. So freeplay & offers have always come like water flowing into and out of a bed pan. Even so, those places I put in significant $25 & $100 play with and without a card years ago, still send offers, or in the case of Harrahs, I get as many comped rooms as I want even though I'm now just lowly gold. I think you'll find how it's mostly AP's and those who lose that cry foul about slot club fluff these days.

As for freeplay diminishing overall, I don't see that Alan from the places I currently play. Harrahs I can see because they're in a constant state of belt-tightening. Indian casinos I wouldnt't know about because I don't allow myself to be scalped by them. But the smart money says they should be cutting back too--except of course while still allowing arci to win as often and as much as his watch alarm will let him, and looking the other way as he outsmarts them all by using the 'ol pull-the-card trick!

[Alan Mendelson]

Well, there is no "free play" from the Caesars/Harrahs properties now unless you elect to take free play instead of their offers such as gift cards to Macy's or Shell or department stores. Usually it's either a gift card or free play for the same dollar value.

Rincon, being an Indian owned casino that is managed by Caesars is a bit different. They still have free play and cash back but Rincon does not give "bonus credits" like you get in Vegas. At Rincon you only get tier score -- no "bonus rewards" for extra comps. You lose those extra comps for the cash back and free play... and frankly I think that's a better deal.

Also, one more change may have happened and I haven't confirmed it yet:

Rincon used to send a monthly "rebate" or bounce back that could be cashed out or used as free play. But last week when I tried to cash out this "rebate" the machine would not let me and a screen popped up that said it must be played. If that is indeed a change I think some people will be disappointed because it was always nice to know you could take the cash home with you.

[arcimede$]

I see the dufus is scrambling big time to try and make sense of his conflicting claims. All I can say is he feeling big time.

The one thing that really amazes me is that anyone could take him seriously ... ever. There's an old saying that goes something like this. There's a limited supply of genius in the world, but stupid is in a never ending supply. Anyone that falls for the BS the dufus continually spews certainly proves that axiom.

[Rob.Singer]

That was certainly apropos to the issue arci. I see my little taunts are really getting to you - as they have always done BTW Thank you for the compliment at your etc. expense!

[Alan Mendelson]

I've let the comments by Arc and Rob continue -- without editing -- to allow the two of them to get all their venom out and return to a civil discussion about video poker. Both have done a good job of jabs and insults and attacks. But I'm starting to realize that there is no end to the pool of venom.

[redietz]

It is ridiculous to drag spouses into what's supposed to be an intellectual debate. Wait -- I know -- why don't Alan and I volunteer to judge whose wife gives the best ****. That would have as much to do with video poker as who is sick or who is traveling in an RV -- and it might be more fun for the readers as Alan and I report on the competition. Slingshot, Vegas Vic, want to get in on this?