The Long Run - And Other Fiction

[Machinist]

Careful

SD careful about that VP.... You have been warned , remember? How in the heck do you yet up 2 grand? What kind of pay schedules did you find? And last you must have been on one hell of a heater to be up 2 grand.
I know you weren't playing J/B. hhmmmmm could it have been DDB or DB with all those lovely high payin ACES........LOL
Glad you had fun...
Perhaps Aces with a kicker?
Being this is a BJ site did you also Work a little BJ magic....
Machinist

 

[sagefr0g]

SD careful about that VP.... You have been warned , remember? How in the heck do you yet up 2 grand? What kind of pay schedules did you find? And last you must have been on one hell of a heater to be up 2 grand.
I know you weren't playing J/B. hhmmmmm could it have been DDB or DB with all those lovely high payin ACES........LOL
Glad you had fun...
Perhaps Aces with a kicker?
Being this is a BJ site did you also Work a little BJ magic....
Machinist

i warned her to, i just thought you must have taught her something really magic. :laugh:
she at least knows how to not blow up in the market, i think.

 

[RJT]

I have to say i've found some of this thread quite ammusing - you really should have an understanding of the concept of risk before you involving yourself in any form of advantage play. The front of most books on counting state quite clearly that using these tehniques does not guarentee that you will win.
Counting in of itself is little seperate from gambling mathematically. Yes you are expected to win in the long run, but most of the people posting here are unlikely to play enough hands in their lifetimes to get even remotely close to reaching what could be mathematically considered 'long run'.
This is a well accepted fact that anyone who is serious about playing with an advantage in a casino has to accept. You're solutions are simple and three fold;

a) gamble with a long term advantage but accept that you are gambling as you are very unlikely to be able to meet the constraints to reach the long run

b) find a way to massively increase the number of hands that you are capible of playing (team play for counting and bot usage online are two perfect examples of this)

c) find a stronger edge

Both options b and c vastly reduce the amount of time required to reach the long run and hence make it reasonably achievable, but most of the posters here will end up going with option a. There's nothing wrong with that, it wouldn't be the option i would choose but that means little. Most people don't have the time or inclination to play seriously enough to get a strong enough advantage or enough hands down to reach the long term.

RJT.

 

[sagefr0g]

I have to say i've found some of this thread quite ammusing - you really should have an understanding of the concept of risk before you involving yourself in any form of advantage play. The front of most books on counting state quite clearly that using these tehniques does not guarentee that you will win.
Counting in of itself is little seperate from gambling mathematically. Yes you are expected to win in the long run, but most of the people posting here are unlikely to play enough hands in their lifetimes to get even remotely close to reaching what could be mathematically considered 'long run'.
This is a well accepted fact that anyone who is serious about playing with an advantage in a casino has to accept. You're solutions are simple and three fold;

a) gamble with a long term advantage but accept that you are gambling as you are very unlikely to be able to meet the constraints to reach the long run

b) find a way to massively increase the number of hands that you are capible of playing (team play for counting and bot usage online are two perfect examples of this)

c) find a stronger edge

Both options b and c vastly reduce the amount of time required to reach the long run and hence make it reasonably achievable, but most of the posters here will end up going with option a. There's nothing wrong with that, it wouldn't be the option i would choose but that means little. Most people don't have the time or inclination to play seriously enough to get a strong enough advantage or enough hands down to reach the long term.

RJT.

excellent point imho, RJT.

like me, i've been playing blackjack for just over four years and i'm not sure exactly how many hands or rounds i've played but i believe it's in the range of 75,000 through 100,000 hands. and that for various games of dubious quality.
so yeah, doubtless a gamble.

then too most around here i think know i play a pretty loose blackjack game, lol. thing is, though, i have learned one heck of a lot from four years ago, reading these forums, books, videos, sophisticated software, practice, playing and the experience of rubbing elbows with some for real AP's.

always something new to learn (thank goodness )
but your post kind of edifies something that seems apparent to me, something i'm not sure about cause heck there is always that gamblers fallacy demon and confirmation bias stuff lurking in the shadows, lol.
but the point is, ok me at least i know i'm not, even if i tried ever going to be able to play the game like a computer can.
but the point is, with the knowledge, experience and thoughtfully trying sincerely best i can albiet not always counting orthodox, it's been my experience that all that together then luck becomes your friend.

so i'm in category a.), with an eye out for c.)
category b.) is out for me if it's blackjack cause i don't want to mess anyone up and i'm just not good enough to play it as perfectly as it should be done.

machinist, if your reading, that doesn't mean machine strategy, lmao.

 

[StandardDeviant]

SD careful about that VP.... You have been warned , remember? How in the heck do you yet up 2 grand? What kind of pay schedules did you find? And last you must have been on one hell of a heater to be up 2 grand.
I know you weren't playing J/B. hhmmmmm could it have been DDB or DB with all those lovely high payin ACES........LOL
Glad you had fun...
Perhaps Aces with a kicker?
Being this is a BJ site did you also Work a little BJ magic....
Machinist

I did it the old fashioned way...I got really, really lucky! :grin:

1. I hit a straight flush in my first hour of play on a $1 8/6 JOB machine
2. Then I hit 4 of a kind with a kicker on a $0.50 8/5 DDB machine

These two items netted me about $1,000. The rest came over 4 additional hours of play.

I did play some BJ, but not much. Tables were crowded and conditions not good generally.

 

[StandardDeviant]

I have to say i've found some of this thread quite ammusing

You must be easily amused. :laugh:

 

[RJT]

I did it the old fashioned way...I got really, really lucky! :grin:

1. I hit a straight flush in my first hour of play on a $1 8/6 JOB machine
2. Then I hit 4 of a kind with a kicker on a $0.50 8/5 DDB machine

These two items netted me about $1,000. The rest came over 4 additional hours of play.

I did play some BJ, but not much. Tables were crowded and conditions not good generally.

Playing with or without an advantage?
8/6 isn't a great payout schedual for JoB.

RJT.

 

[sagefr0g]

I did it the old fashioned way...I got really, really lucky! :grin:

:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:
see! that is exactly what my point was with my response to RJT.

1. I hit a straight flush in my first hour of play on a $1 8/6 JOB machine
2. Then I hit 4 of a kind with a kicker on a $0.50 8/5 DDB machine

These two items netted me about $1,000. The rest came over 4 additional hours of play.

I did play some BJ, but not much. Tables were crowded and conditions not good generally.

like ok, say you learn to milk some machines, thats plus EV.....then every so often bamm luck happens.
and from your post to meistro, i'm pretty sure you know how not to blow up, ala black swan lessons.

 

[StandardDeviant]

Playing with or without an advantage?
8/6 isn't a great payout schedual for JoB.

RJT.

8/6 was the best JOB I could find. I guess full payout is hard to find, at least around here. I saw some 8/5 and even 8/5 with 2 pair paying 1:1. That is criminal, and yet people were playing it. The DDB wasn't that better. The best payouts I could find were ~98%.

I got lucky, and I know I will be unlikely to repeat the performance.

That said, it was a nice Thanksgiving present!

 

[StandardDeviant]

:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:
see! that is exactly what my point was with my response to RJT.


like ok, say you learn to milk some machines, thats plus EV.....then every so often bamm luck happens.
and from your post to meistro, i'm pretty sure you know how not to blow up, ala black swan lessons.

I haven't learned how to milk the machines If there's a way to do that, and get more than the published payouts, I'm all ears!!

 

[psyduck]

I find the long run discussion interesting.

A long run is composed of numerous short runs. Any short run you play is already contained in the long run. No matter how you try to manipulate a short run, you cannot escape the fate of the long run because your short run is alway one of the numerous short runs in the long run.

If you have the SKILLZ to improve the short runs, that still does not disprove the existence of long run expectations. It only means you have the SKILLZ to improve YOUR long run expectation.

 

[daddybo]

I find the long run discussion interesting.

A long run is composed of numerous short runs. Any short run you play is already contained in the long run. No matter how you try to manipulate a short run, you cannot escape the fate of the long run because your short run is alway one of the numerous short runs in the long run.

If you have the SKILLZ to improve the short runs, that still does not disprove the existence of long run expectations. It only means you have the SKILLZ to improve YOUR long run expectation.

Exactly.. you have to learn to play for YOUR "Long Run", or more to the point the results of the mathematical long run should at least be > or = to your physical Long Run expectations. The "length" of the Mathematical Long run to achieve these expectations should be < or = to your Physical Long Run.

Does that make sense?

 

[SleightOfHand]

Well, the long run obviously exists, as that is how our expectation and statistical calculations come from. The problem is so much in its existence, as in the fact that the long run is so damn far, relative to what we are used to in daily life (we like immediate results).

Exactly.. you have to learn to play for YOUR "Long Run", or more to the point the results of the mathematical long run should at least be > or = to your physical Long Run expectations. The "length" of the Mathematical Long run to achieve these expectations should be < or = to your Physical Long Run.

Does that make sense?

Well, assuming that you are playing the same way as your sims have been playing, you will experience results >= your long run EV 50% of the time, no matter how long you play But I think that what you are saying is that you should play a strong enough game in which that you will be able to have a high probability of being (relatively) near your long run expectations depending on how long you expect to be playing. In this case, as SD pointed out, that could be a verrrry long time for CC. However, that does not mean that we should not be CCing, compared to BS.

To be near the EV is going to be a very long road, but to just play in the black is a lot shorter. With an N0 of 20k (which is a weak game), you need ~200 hours of play to have an ~85% probability of being higher than when you started, which is a lot better than the many decades that SD claimed to be near EV. Short run results are a reflection of the long run (albeit a poor one), and are not to be ignored.

So once again, the problem with the long run is not that its not reliable, its the sheer distance of it that we don't like. So what do we do? Find a bigger edge. Decrease variance. There are plenty of ways to do this.

 

[sagefr0g]

not at liberty to say

I haven't learned how to milk the machines If there's a way to do that, and get more than the published payouts, I'm all ears!!

erhh i dunno about more than published payouts, but ok yeah probably, in the much discussed long run.

can't of course give specifics, as that would be betraying a trust, a kind gift (stemming from the bash), one that i will return if i discover any unknown milk machines, lol.

i'm too much a greenhorn myself, ok? .... to fully understand all the principles.

just, ok, i know, or i think i know you have an understanding of the markets and black swan stuff.
well, the casino if it has any, then it sure doesn't have much in the way of good black swans. but black swans are i think you may know a matter of virtually off the scale stuff.
what casino's do have that is similar is the high scale stuff that machines can present.
the trick is essentially to work them (the milk machines) at plus EV or at least even.
then you've opened your self up not only to blackjack equivalent sort of EV (while protecting yourself against bad black swans) but good sort of black swan like events as well.

there are other considerations that i wont mention, hopefully i haven't said to much as it is, but i don't think i have.

that said i'm off to do some milking, lol and probably some bj as well.

 

[StandardDeviant]

Well, the long run obviously exists, as that is how our expectation and statistical calculations come from.

Infinity exists too, but you can't ever reach it.

Players never play in the long run, they only play in the moment. And while the long run can be "defined" for a specific game, bet size, EV, etc., if the player increases her bet at her bankroll grows (which would be the logical thing to maximize growth of the BR), then the game changes and there is a new long run.

In "the long run" the size of the cumulative EV in relationship to the cumulative SD is such that ROR is small. But at the start of one's playing career, she is not in the long run, by definition. No one starts in the long run. If a player maintains the same ROR over time to optimize BR growth, and therefore has the same ROR as she did when she started, can she ever be said to be in the long run?

I'm afraid to say it, but this would be a form of Zeno's Achilles and the tortoise paradox.

 

[psyduck]

With an N0 of 20k (which is a weak game), you need ~200 hours of play to have an ~85% probability of being higher than when you started,

What is your opinion about a 6-deck shoe game with only 1-4 spread to achieve N0 = ~ 4000 (SCORE > 200)? Worth playing?

 

[SleightOfHand]

Infinity exists too, but you can't ever reach it.

Players never play in the long run, they only play in the moment. And while the long run can be "defined" for a specific game, bet size, EV, etc., if the player increases her bet at her bankroll grows (which would be the logical thing to maximize growth of the BR), then the game changes and there is a new long run.

In "the long run" the size of the cumulative EV in relationship to the cumulative SD is such that ROR is small. But at the start of one's playing career, she is not in the long run, by definition. No one starts in the long run. If a player maintains the same ROR over time to optimize BR growth, and therefore has the same ROR as she did when she started, can she ever be said to be in the long run?

I'm afraid to say it, but this would be a form of Zeno's Achilles and the tortoise paradox.

I never said anything about being able to reach the long run, as that is more of a theoretical idea (like infinite), but more of the implications of the long run. By basing our decisions on the long run, we maximize our potential. By constantly changing our BR, it is indeed like starting over. However, by consistently playing with a calculated expectation and standard deviation, we are able to make statistical predictions as to where we will be after a set period of time.

Even with constant bet sizing, one thing will not change very much, and that is N0. This is a number that is relative to our EV and SD, which means that even with the constant bet sizing, after 200 hours (for a 20k N0 game), we still have the 85% chance of being ahead. We don't try and predict exactly how much money we are going to win, we try to predict our probability of being within a desired range.

 

[itrack]

135,

You also know that the very experienced Pro players on this site do not even consider counting as AP play :yikes:. They have at time ridiculed it and straight counters. Now I know you pride yourself in being a skilled shuffle tracker and that being the case you SURE AS HELL should not ever accept any loss when you have a game that can be tracked. Were you tracking the game where you lost so big?


CP

I also don't believe that counting certain games is a reliable form of advantage play. However even with things such as holecarding, which im sure people would consider a form of AP, I have still had losing sessions. When a dealer continuously makes 20 or 21 off of a stiff hand such as 16, you have a very good chance of losing. Thats all there is to it. There is nothing to re-examine, there is nothing to change. You made all the right plays according to your knowledge at the time, and put yourself in a very favourable situation. However, you lost. Im not saying it should happen often, but it sure as h*ll will happen.
Could you please explain how to "not accept" a loss?

 

[creeping panther]

Itrack

I also don't believe that counting certain games is a reliable form of advantage play. However even with things such as holecarding, which im sure people would consider a form of AP, I have still had losing sessions. When a dealer continuously makes 20 or 21 off of a stiff hand such as 16, you have a very good chance of losing. Thats all there is to it. There is nothing to re-examine, there is nothing to change. You made all the right plays according to your knowledge at the time, and put yourself in a very favourable situation. However, you lost. Im not saying it should happen often, but it sure as h*ll will happen.
Could you please explain how to "not accept" a loss?

Accept= Receive willingly. To receive favorably. To submit to. resigned to. To believe in.

Are you sure you want to "accept a loss". If I offered you PAIN would you also accept that??


"According to your knowledge at the time"......................................


CP

 

[creeping panther]

Machinist

AAAAHHHHHHAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There is is CP in all his glory!!!!!!!!! I knew it, I knew it!!!!!!!!!!!!
CP what exactly happened to make you have this feeling inside, to rip this game apart????? IT'S NOT FOR THE MONEY, i knew it!!!! Hey everybody from the Bash, i don't think CPs act is an act!!! This guy actually becomes that deranged, BJ killer we witnessed.!!!! Kind of like the HULK...
Sorry to all that haven't seen CP in action, please attend a Bash then you will know what i talk about.
"For some of us it's not about the money" Does Brett Favre play football for money, hell no when you look at how he plays, its for the love of the game!!!! You can see it in Bretts laugh, his smile, when he cries at interviews about retiring , he absolutely loves the game and knows his end is near ..
Fortunately the game of BJ doesn't squash you like a linebacker into the turf... Mentally yes i would say thats possible for the newbies. But CP is a well seasoned pro, and the mental stuff is nuttin !!!!!! LOL
I too have a desire to crush the stores at their own games. It comes from a incident in my younger days, that sparked my desire. I wonder of CP?????
Thanks CP.....

Machinist,

:laugh::laugh::laugh::grin:

You are truly an amazing individual, very unique, and most insightful.

I am very happy to have you here, as you bring great talents to this fine site

CP