Locking in Profits???

Shame on you, Green Squatter. You know better than to bet a game with 5.25% house edge. Glad you won though. If you quit now, you can join the lifetime roulette winners club. Or you can try to martingale it and get your money back. A word of caution. Never chase your money on a martingale. A martingale is the slipperiest creature in all of casino-land. It will take you to new heights and just as quickly throw you to the depths of the great abyss. Never trust that smiling, slippery little creature. He's got mischief up his sleeve, and he's guaranteed to use it when you least expect it. If he proves himself, take what he gives you, but don't trust him to keep it up forever. It's just an act to get you to bite down hard on that silver hook, and once you're hooked, the onlyest [<---Alabamian word I learnt] way you can ever get loose is to break the line with corresponding loss of blood, or take him and his whole rowboat down under until he gives it all back at the risk of both your lives. I'm telling you, it ain't worth the trouble!

I don't think so. Just because you happened to be up for that day, doesn't mean underbetting the count won't bite you in the a** in the long run. You're forgetting that your lifetime of play is just one long session.

The odds have no memory of the past. It's just as if you started over, providing you were already on track. If you quit off your advantage, yes, you would then have a greater distance to go.

True, if you quit play forever. However, if you continue this tactic, you will have more cumulative losses than wins because you're underbetting your advantage.

Not true. You can't look at it as a lifetime. Each and every time you start over, you're starting at the same exact odds. Because you had a lot of winning sessions in the past has nothing at all to do with how many winning or losing sessions you will have in the future. If you're thinking you need this full win now to offset some future loss, you're wrong. In the future, the cards do not know that you had a win in the past and now it's time for a loss.

As it turned out, had I finished the shoe at max bet, I would have been down more but still above my advantage. My voodoo play actually saved me money in this instance only. But still, none of it has anything to do with future events. That's the gambler's fallacy (ie, I'm due for a win or a loss).

Also, the long run refers to when you have achieved your expected advantage. It then starts over. You may have thousands of long runs in your lifetime, and I sincerely hope that you will.

At least, that's the way I see it.

yeah me to, i really wanted that money back, lol, right now not in the fuzzy future. dumb i know but i a'int gonna lie about it.
so i really don't know that 5.25% HA is that for the game of roulette as a whole? how about if you just play the black or red deal and not the other stuff? just askin cause i haven't the fuzziest.
oh oh i guess i'm off topic.

I don't think we're ever going to agree

I'm not saying your past performance has anything to do with the future. What I'm saying is if you make a habit of underbetting your advantage, for whatever reason, in the long run, you will be a loser.

lol think maybe we are all in agreement. just talkin different stuff.
not sure about that, isn't this guy saying the past has some effect or portent?
http://krigman.casinocitytimes.com/...-in-a-casino-prove-youre-a-good-gambler-43005

Let's Try Again

I agree with 21forme
We have both been saying about the same thing.

This one time act will not destroy you, well because it has not.

However, if you continue this into the future it can possibly cause major problems. It is the equivalent of lowering your spread. If you spread is low enough; especially in a play all situation, you cannot win!

Every time you start over, yes you are starting again. However, if you move forward with a bad plan you can get into trouble. How can it be anything else?

Another way to look at it:
Over time you make more if you bet properly when you have an advantage. We take the time and effort to learn how to play properly in order to make money. It seems like a waste of time to then not use the information in order to make money!:joker::whip:

So if you don't like to make money, but do like to increase your potential ror then you can continue on your current path.

I do not say these things out of malice but as a comrade in arms:joker::whip:

True, if you make a habit of doing it regardless of whether you are certain to achieve your long run advantage.

And all I'm saying is that if you only underbet your advantage when you are already certain of realizing your long run advantage, it is not a factor in making you a long run loser, because you are quitting as a long run winner. (I am not advocating you ever do it except when it meets some specific interim goal that is especially important to you.) The math always supports going forward at the proper bet; about that we both agree.

At the beginning of my next session I will be beginning a new long run with exactly the same odds as anyone on earth just beginning their first session of blackjack. None of what I earned or failed to earn in my last long run has any influence on my next long run. Over a lifetime, somewhere around 51% of the times I underbet in a plus count (while being certain of meeting my long run advantage) I would have earned more if I had bet correctly. Assuming perfect play, good game selection, proper RoR, in no case would it be a factor in being a lifetime long run loser. It's mathmatically impossible. The only long run loss that is ever possible is if you stop playing before you reach your expected advantage, which can only happen if you choose to quit, possibly because you are six feet under or because you are babbling away in a senior living home somewhere while someone changes your diaper.

All things being equal, I doubt seriously that your single long run loss will ever amount to all your cumulative long run wins over a lifetime. That defies imagination.

You're missing the key to my decision to underbet. I only did it after I was already certain to achieve my long run advantage. No one disagrees that it is more lucrative in the long run to always play the proper amount in plus counts. I had an interim goal, which in this case was more inportant than maxing out my advantage. In general, such behavior if habitual will tend to lessen the amount of one's cumulative long run gain.

this is an interesting topic. this one long session idea. i think it's a useful way to think about certain aspects of advantage blackjack play but in a sense the idea (perhaps like any idea) can be the chains that bind. ultimately if you want to add any degree of sophistication to your play (ie. be in any sense of the word creative with respect to what you do) then you might want to take that idea with a grain of salt. perhaps try and understand what this one big long session idea means with respect to playing in a multitude of ways rather than so recursive and one dimensional of an approach that a simulation is so happy with.
wouldn't that not be true in the case where this lowered betting level was still high enough to reap an advantage?
granted lowering the bet level is gonna bring lower profits long term unless one gets lucky.

Yes. It depends how much the big count bet is cut.

What is luck? It's short-term positive variance. While it happens, it shouldn't be used as strategy because you have no control over it. And don't forget there's no such thing as "luck" in the long term. Are the casinos lucky? No, they have the advantage because of the large number of hands played.

Yes. I suppose the long run for them is less than a day!

20 tables X 70 hands an hour X 24 hour = 33.600 hands

[Official study by the Aslan Group, Inc. of the Blackjack Info Forum, 2008, all rights reserved]

BTW, luck can also be long-term variance, although not near as likely. Gee! That raises a good question. If, say, a million hands represented the long-term, I wonder how many times one might get lucky out of a billion people. My guess is that about half would be marginally lucky, not worth counting, and maybe one in 1,000,000 might get notably lucky. Just a swag! Not scientific, probably stupid, wild-assed guess. Any math whizes out there who can do the numbers?

Another question--Does a person play a million hands in a lifetime?

Player played from age 21 to age 71 = 50 years

Player plays 40 hours a week

50 years X 40 hours a week X 52 weeks a year X 70 hands an hour = 7,280,000 hands in this pro's lifetime Wow!

Ha, Got Ya LOL

Give a man enough words and he will hang himself.
I guess like the game hangman:joker:

You are claiming that you are not hurting one long run time frame vs another. However, play is continuous. When one long run stops another immediately begins. Those few hands in between long runs do matter!
You may be hurting your lifetime play by 1% or 2%.

In the long run (lifetime) you are hurting your ev.

Got me, nah. You are correct only if you consider a lifetime the long run. I have freely admitted in posts above that habitually not taking advantage of the proper AP bets in plus counts will reduce profits over one's lifetime. It will not influence whether you achieve your next long run, defined as the next future session ending in achievement of your expected advantage. We are probably in total agreement.

PS--You know, I am an argumentative guy, probably due to my upbringing with five brothers, but I hope I don't go too far as to drive away my friends here. I really do treasure their friendship, and I do grieve when I am perceived to overstep my bounds, and push them over the edge. Probably no argument is worth alienating one's friends, even causal ones. So please forgive my overzealousness for what I perceive as the truth sometimes. OTOH, some I have noticed consider you an enemy if you don't simply concede that they are right and you are wrong. I guess it would be fair to say that these are not my friends, for a friend will not try to impose his will on you. They respect your right to disagree.

just shooting the breeze here because it's so interesting but really i haven't a clue

ok and like aslan was saying it's just possible that when he cut his bet that he may in that instance have avoided some negative variance. so if that were the case he's 'locked in some loot' (for the time being) and if it's not the case and either he would have hit his mark for further ev or even positive variance then he is till making some loot (albeit less than optimal).
sounds like a win/win situation that is in a non-predictable situation to me for a given moment in time! (given it's short run and even to some extent if it were long run being that ROR is a distinct possibility)
let's assume he was a high roller (just the relative idea of putting a lot on the line sort of thing). in such a case when compared to a regular run of the mill but expert counter that plays it orthodox but with some modest (ie. normal bankroll) then it would not be unlikely that aslan would be days, weeks maybe even months ahead of such a player and he might well have even started with the same ROR as such expert.
but the beauty of it is that aslan could at any moment in time decide to then later on play just as stringently (same bet size, same game whatever) as our hypothetical expert orthodox player and would then be on an even playing field with such player excepting having a lot more loot in his pocket.
lol i don't know and neither do you or anyone else! that being the case if you should either have it or be able to position your self to profit by it then you are 'light years' ahead of the game relatively speaking with respect to the rest of your friends in the world.
it's for me right now the most fascinating subject of fancy there is:
http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?t=11094
yes & no as some famous person once said.:joker:
variance is really a 'watered down' version of luck. luck is something completely unexpected while variance is very much expected. it may sadly be the case that variance is the best we can hope for luck wise in a casino. so if that's the case i'll take it. lmao.
that's a point i hope is open for debate but to be truthful i wouldn't know where to start. isn't in a sense what kelly betting is based on is taking advantage of an analogous noisey communication channel albeit with an advantage? at the very least the effect of standard deviation is a part of the reality upon which the equation is based.
regardless by some stroke of luck it seems to be our nature that we can easily recognize standard deviation when it happens. we can even measure it with a fair degree of accuracy. it just seems ludicrous the idea that their would be no way to take advantage of it. not that i know.
in some small way it's my sense that what aslan suggests in his opening post may have some relavence to the question.
well yeah that cancellation factor really more likely comes into play then doesn't it?
queston might be if one could capture some in the short term that the results of a bunch of short terms would add up.
very true and in a sense that is their achilles heel when it comes to players luck or a players skill. and the reverse is true as well, however the player and not the casino has the option of walking away. that in it's self is an advantage for the player.:cat: