sagefr0g said:
help me out here, really truly confused and uncertain on this issue, here.
Yes, you do seem confused. Sometimes you seem to “get it”, and other times that voodoo streak you have comes showing through. Right now I’m going to deal only with what is in this thread.
Earlier in this thread you suggested that someone could estimate how close they were to getting a royal flush by estimating how many hands had been played without the royal being hit. This caused everybody and his brother to jump on you with both feet.
sagefr0g said:
well expecting stuff to happen in the short term when relying on averages is folly, imho.
This. It’s all about averages. And randomness. And realizing that with random outcomes, the past does not affect the future. (Thinking that the past
does affect the future is the crux of the Gambler’s Fallacy.)
Here’s a little quiz for you:
Suppose you’re playing a game, the outcome of which is randomly determined. It can be mathematically shown that your chance of winning is 1 in 40,000.
1. You’ve already taken one shot at this, and lost. What are your chances of winning on your second try?
(A) 1/39,999
(B) 1/40,000
2. It is now much later, and you’ve lost 20,000 times in a row. What are your chances of winning on your 20,001st try?
(A) 1/20,000
(B) 1/40,000
3. It is now much later still. You’ve played and lost 39,999 times. What are your chances of winning on the 40,000th try?
(A) Winning is a certainty.
(B) 1/40,000
Well, I’m hoping you picked answer (B) every time. If you did, congratulations! But if you did, how could you say what you said about royal flushes?
If you did NOT pick (B) every time, then you think the Gambler’s Fallacy is not a fallacy, and I don’t know what we’re going to do with you.
Note to Machinist: Keep trying to chip away at Mr. Fr0g’s voodoo streak. Just because something may seem impossible is no reason to give up!