Spread needed to win question

A few days ago I used PowerSim to sim a 4D game with decent rules and decent pen. Since then I’ve been playing around with different bet ramps, and decided to see what the minimum spread would be to still win. To my surprise, a 1:2 spread will still win. Granted, your advantage is only 0.1%, and the SCORE is about 0.6.

I think no one here would suggest that a 1:2 spread is enough to beat 4D. My question is, when people say you need a 1:X spread to beat a game, do they really mean you need a 1:X spread to make this game worthwhile?

correct. additionally, the lower your edge, the bigger and longer your swings.

i dunno but i think that is a good bit what is meant by those sort of statements. i guess fluctuation has a good bit to do with the sentiment as well but i don't really know about that either. lol
but i've notice the same sort of thing that you are referring to.
what interests me about that is the idea that i dunno say you have some bankroll that can support the 'accepted' spread of oh say 1-12.
the thought or question comes to mind of the idea of having some sort of two tiered bet spread scheme. just for example maybe tier one 1-6 and tier two 1-12. i mean i've thought of this because using the fuzzy count i really never know for sure where i'm at. but i can get an idea of the 'quality' of the situation. mediocre quality i might go 1-6 and high quality 1-12.
but i'm not sure about the down side about a lower bet spread as far as maybe it raises your ROR or what ever i don't know. could look at that with a simm also.

yes, that's the kicker.

Going in with a microscropic spread will get you a result that is virtually indistinguishable from a coin flip. And at least then you wouldn't be gambling with a dis advantage, but there really wouldn't be any profit expectation.

At lower stakes, the target is usually at least a 1% advantage. At higher, comfortably bankrolledtakes, a slightly lower % might be acceptable.

For a $100-unit player that adds up to $10/hr and a huge bankroll requirement. Also, with such a tiny advantage there is very little chance of actually realizing that EV. The N0 is probably somewhere around 13,500 hours. That’s a long time to play just to overcome one SD (about 6.5 years of 40-hour-a-week play). Two SDs would be about 54,000 hours and 3 SDs would be over 121,000 hours of play. That may be alright for someone who is getting lots of comps in return, but most players would want more of a return for their effort and a more reasonable chance of getting it.

-Sonny-

Ah, I hope no one is thinking that I'm advocating a 1:2 spread for anything! I just thought it was a bit interesting that it would work at all.

That's what SCORE is supposed to - give you the ability to compare different games and decide what you want to do.

All you ever really have are TC frequencies and advantages at each count. Up to you how to bet it and decide if that's how you want to bet your roll.

so is there a perfect SCORE ie. an ideal one pushing the envelope so to speak.
isn't it as far as TC's goes that the whole schlmeal works out about 25% of the time positive and 75% of the time negative or zero where the house has the edge.....

Not really. It was originally intended as a way to measure various games against each other assuming same roll and betting optimally kind of thing. So the higher the SCORE, the better. In other words, I think anyway, the higher it is the sooner one will reach N0.

It takes risk into consideration since it's the square of the Desirability Index which is basically one's per-hand win rate divided by one's per-hand SD. Multiplied by a number so one can compare integers instead of decimals.

Some games may have a lower average win rate as a percentage than other games but still have a higher SCORE.

It has sort of come to be often used as a win-rate in dollars per hour. I think.

It keeps in mind that one's optimal bet is inversely proportional to the variance.


Pretty much. That's basically it lol.

It only really tells you win rate for a given game/spread if you are betting precisely full-Kelly to a $10k bankroll.

It's best viewed as a risk adjusted win rate.

Well I agree with you but sometimes it seems someone may have a $30K roll, quote a SCORE, which really isn't a SCORE, and then someone else might think, looking only at the SCORE, that it's a better game than someone else who quotes a SCORE with a $5k roll in some other game.

You know what I mean?

yes, these other, modified SCOREs (ie not based of the 10k bank), are called c-SCOREs per BJA3.