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I think we all need to understand exactly what Alan is claiming. He is claiming there is a vast conspiracy of 1000s of mathematicians worldwide to hide the reality that random processes can be managed by simply choosing when to use them. You can control dice, coins flips, roulette wheels and VP machines just by choosing when you will invoke the random process. I suppose they are being paid off by the casino industry to keep this a secret.
Maybe I should get in line for a check.
I guess you need a more simple, direct answer: sure there were times when I was ahead but continued to play and then lost to where I reached my stop.
But once you reach your stop, you stop. You don't keep playing after you reach a stop.
I don't think being ahead one bet would make me rich. Do you understand what I wrote? Apparently not.
My point is that if you knew when you were at your peak and cashed out at your peak you can do better than the pay table and the expected return, and I said that in 9 out of 10 sessions I have been ahead of the expected return on the paytable.
I have asked others to keep track of their own sessions. In how many of your own sessions (and by sessions I mean a day or trip to a casino) have you been ahead by at least one bet?
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Last edited by Alan Mendelson; 09-29-2014 at 11:47 AM. Reason: edited for clarity, additional comments
Why are you changing the hypothetical?
I asked if thousands of Alan Mendelsons would bust CET, and your answer was that CET would change the games so that couldn't happen.
So I clarified that I was asking what would happen if thousands of Alans went to CET, played just like you, and CET didn't change anything, and you won't answer. Why is that?
Obviously you know the reason I'm asking this. If your system is really profitable, beats the -EV odds, and produces overall wins, then thousands of people just like you would bust CET, despite playing -EV games.
Rob likes to point out that I'm "a loser" at video poker. You even echoed that in an earlier response to me, albeit in a more polite fashion.
I'll go on record to say that, yes, I do lose in video poker. I expect to lose. Barring some unexpected luck with hitting more than my share of royals, I will lose in VP, and that will be a product of my playing -EV games.
I accept those expected (and likely actual) losses because I get value out of the perks of Seven Stars, as well as have fun while I'm playing the VP itself. By no means do I see my VP play as a way to make money, but rather to gamble with a relatively low expected loss, where I also get some valuable benefits either way.
You and Rob are saying that you have figured out how to beat VP long-term through money management schemes. The cornerstone of your claims seem to be, "If I quit when I hit a big winner or am up overall, I've just beaten the odds, and thus my overall expected return is also now higher, because next time I won't be starting from zero like the expected odds assume you do."
That almost makes sense until you think about it.
The problem here is that, for every time you run above expectation, eventually you will run below expectation the equivalent number of times.
If you cash out ahead, yes, you just beat the odds.
But if you play $5000 of coin-in and lose $500 and then quit, you've just been beaten by the odds. The odds say that you should have only lost $37 at a 99.26% Aces and Faces machine, but you just lost $500. So that negates some or all of your "above expectation" when you quit ahead. I think that's what you're missing. You seem to believe that you can always resolve just to "quit ahead", but there will be times when you're never ahead, and other times when you're only slightly ahead, keep playing, lose, and quit at your stop-loss point. The only way to avoid that is to be able to see the future as to which sessions will win and which will lose, which is obviously impossible.
You also like to say, "I like to cash out and go home a winner, is that bad?"
No, it's not bad. It feels good psychologically, and there's value in that. You are also doing yourself a favor by playing fewer -EV hands by quitting sooner.
But as has been said over and over, playing 200 hands today and 200 hands next week is identical to playing 400 hands today and zero next week. So stopping is meaningless, unless you're stopping for good.
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Dan-unlike Alan I am rarely ahead and therefore couldn't even attempt his "system". But if you do get ahead, it can't be bad to take it and run. Now you and Arci and others feel that it is all one long session so it doesn't matter unless you never play again. This is where I differ with you. In the short term, we all agree that anything can happen. So if you are lucky enough to get ahead, why stay long term and lose it. It is only by insisting on playing long term that you insure that you lose it back. Session by session is very different than long term.
No--the math and the probabilities haven't been altered. And no, I don't believe there is any guarantee that I'll ever be ahead on any given day. It just makes sense that if you are ahead, you are more likely to lose if you keep playing, so it can't be bad to take the profit.
Alan, I concur with the others. Your new girlfriend looks terrific!
What I am saying is that in my own experience there have been those sessions when I lose from the very first bet and never catch up.
Again, I am asking all of the rest of you to keep track of your own experiences: are you ever ahead by at least one bet (in video poker that might be 5 credits) in a session?
My experience has been that I am ahead by at least one bet at some point in 9 out of 10 sessions
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My only point was to demonstrate that it is possible even on negative games to have more profits than losses if you use good money management. I wouldn't quit if I was only one bet ahead but I might if I were 5 bets or 10 bets ahead depending on the denomination. On a $5 bonus game any 4 of a kind is worth at least $625 and that's a nice day's pay.
So what, does anyone really care about the number of winning sessions vs. losing sessions. If you won $5 for 10 straight sessions and then lost $1000 on the 11th session I doubt anyone would be celebrating. I've made this point before, you can win over 90% of your sessions with a small win goal but over time you will still approach the return of the game.
Yeah, but they only happen every 425 hands or so. If you get the average return over those other 424 hands you still end up behind. So, the bottom line is to end up ahead over many sessions you need to get a higher than average frequency of good hands such as 4oak. Unless the machines are not random (and you know how to manipulate them) how does one go about fooling the machines into giving you those better hands?
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