Originally Posted by
Rob.Singer
You're using selective reasoning, as usual, when it comes to basically anything really. (The basketball game is a very poor example by the way.)
I'm not sure what Alan does, but my approach is unlike any other. Sure anyone can win (or lose) in a short term scenario. Similarly, anyone can win in a long-term scenario. Just as you'd "suspect" an AP to be a long-term winner, not all are. Why is that? Because (and I'll use VP for simplicity) the expected cards just did not continue to come out at the mathematically expected (not guaranteed) rate. The LoLN's does not predict at 100% accuracy. Another reason may be that the person playing, even though they've played millions of hands, simply has not yet played enuf for his or her results to meet expectation yet.
In my case, where the vast majority of my play has always been on very slightly negative EV games (I've never used cash back/comps/slot club fluff in any of my play scenarios) my rational is a bit different while still retaining some of the aspects shown on the AP above.
During CY's 2000/2001/2002/2003 I played my SPS exclusively, and I won around $375k. I don't remember how many weekly sessions I played, but I'll use 150 total just to keep it simple. Since my progressive AND regressive strategy had an 80%-85% chance of obtaining my minimum $2500 win goal--which was a mere 5% of my session bankroll--I ended the majority of my sessions winning, with the largest being $95k or so. There were some losing sessions of course, with the largest being about $33k. Never did I wave goodbye to my $57,200 session bankroll (which was 1/3 my total gambling-specific bankroll).
So was this playing in the long-term or short-term? I have no idea, but if I was "expected to have a slight loss" after the 4 years then I simply did not perform to expectation. However, I expected to win overall, because I used a strategy that squeezes every single advantage out of the various aspects of my play. It is a strategy that depends on luck to have worthwhile wins, and it ultimately depends on the ability of the player to quit the session as soon as either the win goal is reached, or all 6 denominational levels have been played thru. THIS is the part that 99.9% of players with money remaining in their pocket cannot do.
The simple way of looking at this to those who ignorantly always want to think that +EV means you win and -EV means you lose, is each session having an 80-something% of winning. Win 8 of 10 and the critic says "but gee Rob, you won $20,000 in those 8 wins, but you lost $40,000 or more in the 2 losing sessions".
This is typical twisted critic-logic with a side of stupidity. They use the minimum win goal of $2500 for each of the 8 winning sessions, while they claim the 2 losses were devastating losses. Complete BS of course, as the huge winners far outnumbered the larger losers. Why? BECAUSE THE STRATEGY TAKES MAXIMUM ADVANTAGE OF LUCK, BY GIVING IT THE BEST OPPORTUNITY TO APPEAR WHILE SOMETIMES SHUNNING INSIGNIFICANT LITTLE WINNERS TO GET THERE.
Redietz' "University Math Professors" might scoff at some of this stuff and ask if these results could be duplicated by anyone I trained. The answer to that is "most likely, no, because I have yet to meet anyone as capable as I am in life as well as in video poker, which is precisely what it would take to duplicate my results". I'm not saying there isn't anyone who qualifies, but if these people exist I really wouldn't expect to find them hovering around a game enjoyed by white trash like Tonya Harding.
These Professors would, in fact, agree that winning over time on slightly -EV games is entirely possible, albeit somewhat rare.
These past dozen or so years I am also quite a bit ahead, by playing recreationally (no particular strategy) and infrequently, by playing maybe 10% Hi-limit games that have hit big winners, and by staying away from greed by continuing to mostly play low limit afterwards. Addicts typically jump up in denomination after an unexpected big hit. Winners go down.