Suitable ROR levels

[matt21]

hi everyone - i did a search on ROR and read through some of the relevant threads but could not find what i was looking for.

i am interested to know what counters would typically aim for in the ROR figure. I believe i am currently playing with ROR in the region of 4-5% and am using approx 0.5 Kelly to set my betting schedule.

Do others also play with ROR in the range? Or higher? Or lower?

Thanks in advance for any comments!!

Matt

[BlodiaInc]

From what I know, 2% seems to be a very safe guideline no?

[Sonny]

I play with a lower RoR, but it’s a personal decision. There is no right or wrong answer here. You should play with whatever level of risk you are comfortable with. Everyone’s opinion will be a little different.

-Sonny-

[kewljason]

I think it also has a good deal to do with whether your BR is replenishable or not. Mine isn't so I play with a very very low RoR.

[blackjack avenger]

Originally Posted by matt21

hi everyone - i did a search on ROR and read through some of the relevant threads but could not find what i was looking for.

i am interested to know what counters would typically aim for in the ROR figure. I believe i am currently playing with ROR in the region of 4-5% and am using approx 0.5 Kelly to set my betting schedule.

Do others also play with ROR in the range? Or higher? Or lower?

Thanks in advance for any comments!!

Matt

If you set your bets to .5 kelly; assuming fixed bets?, that is an ror of 1.83%. Which is fine.

[Automatic Monkey]

Originally Posted by Sonny

I play with a lower RoR, but it’s a personal decision. There is no right or wrong answer here. You should play with whatever level of risk you are comfortable with. Everyone’s opinion will be a little different.

-Sonny-

Exactly. You have to consider what it will mean to you as an individual if you lose that money. That's the only role for emotions in AP.

[callipygian]

Originally Posted by Sonny

There is no right or wrong answer here. You should play with whatever level of risk you are comfortable with. Everyone’s opinion will be a little different.

Especially people who play with different purposes!

I don't play with any real long-term goal. It's simply something that's fun to do for a few hours while my lazy-ass friends are sleeping the mornings away on our Vegas trips. My bankroll is virtually inconsequential to my long-term financial health (I lost about 10x my bankroll in the last 2 months of stock market decline and even that wasn't crippling, as I have plenty of liquid assets to ride out stock market variance).

With those warnings, I played with a 40-50% lifetime ROR when I first started. I haven't calculated my lifetime ROR recently, but it's probably still higher than 10%.

[FLASH1296]

What your level of Risk Tolerance is varies from what mine is and from what any random person's is.

R.O.R. is a very fine example of what economists and mathematicians term a "UTILITY" function.

If I am rich and my bankroll is easily replenshed I may tolerate a very high R.O.R. - perhaps as high as 20%

If I am a working stiff and/or a person who cannot tolerate (emotionally) the idea of being "broke" I would be looking for a R.O.R. that is quite low - perhaps even as low as 2%

If you have a bankroll of $5,000 and I offer to bet that if YOU flip YOUR coin and YOU call it correctly I will pay you $6,000.

You have a higghly profitable 20% advantage.

That is spectacular, but the RISK is so high [50%] that putting all of your bankroll at risk would be folly - unless it is easily replenished and you would not lose sleep if you lost.

There is more than just "advantage" to consider when betting.

The Kelly Criterion actually uses a R.O.R. of 13.5% - which is precisely why so many pros use 1/2 (or even 1/4) Kelly Betting.

Thinking about your Risk of Ruin, your e.v. plays into this but not by as much as one might think. Your bet spread is crucial. The wider the spread the greater the risk, even though the expectation will be higher. The most important factor of all is what % of your bankroll your top bet is. The tradeoff of risk vs. reward is crucial. Profits are inversely proportional to Risk in investment matters. Ergo, GREED KILLS !

Blackjack is a high variance game, meaning the Standard Deviation can be very high - resulting in perfectly "normal" situations where you can win or lose very very large sums even with a modest spread.

A Confession:

When I began to play seriously I won over 1/4 million bux in my first year, with an aggressive 25-1 spread at a fine shoe game with an expectation off-the-top of -.31.

I was so "full of myself" that I thought that I was invincible. I went to Las Vegas with a cash bankroll of more than $300,000. I found a good DD game and promptly lost $96,000. How did I do that I spread $1,000 to $10,000 and at times actually bet three hands at a time at 10K per spot. THAT was IDIOTIC. Nobody in his right mind has a Max bet of over 2% of their (total) bankroll. If your bankroll is a healthy 1,000 units a Max Bet of 20 units would be 2% So, at a $10 game that would be $200. Plenty !

If my Max Bet was 2% I could have spread as high as $6000, not multiple hands of $10,000.

In retrospect I imagine that my Risk of Ruin was well over 40% - Years later I would strive for R.O.R. well under 10%.

So, I really should have spread $500 to $3,000.

Almost needless to say NO casino will accept more than a 6-1 or 8-1 spread on a DD with good rules from even a (semi- skilled) Basic Strategy player.

My DD skills were not that powerful 25 years ago. They were very sloppy.
If they weren't sloppy they would have thrown me out, (and saved me a bundle). Aaargh!

It would be a long time before they would TRESPASS me at that well-known whale-habitat.

[matt21]

Wow - that's a lot of comments ... and so quickly! Thanks very much for all your comments. Very helpful stuff

BlackJack Avenger, is it possible for you to elaborate on the link between ROR and the Kelly fraction?

I also don't really understand SCORE - so I will ahve to study up on that.

[callipygian]

Originally Posted by matt21

BlackJack Avenger, is it possible for you to elaborate on the link between ROR and the Kelly fraction?

I apologize if you wanted to hear specifically from him, but I'll jump in.

Kelly betting and ROR don't really jive, because Kelly betting means constant resizing of your bets. The ROR for Kelly betting is theoretically zero, because as you keep losing you just bet less and less. (Practically, you need to meet table minima, so you there's a nonzero ROR, but we'll ignore that for the time being)

There's pseudo-Kelly betting, which means you size your bets periodically, but within each chunk of time, you're betting with a constant unit. This is what most people do.

A full Kelly pseudo-bettor would be equivalent to betting a 1-5 or 1-6 spread with Wonging in/out at +1 and a 200 unit bankroll.

A half-Kelly pseudo-bettor would be equivalent to betting a 1-10 spread with Wonging in/out at +2 and a 200 unit bankroll. The difference is that the units here are generally smaller.