luck

[aslan]

yes to all that with a few variations on the theme that are reflected by theological and philosophical questions that mankind and individuals are wrestling with. :whip:

and this is fine with me as well as long as we don't confuse it with the question of dealing with uncertainty.
this goes for advantage play. advantage play as percieved by this most fun and esteemed community of forums on blackjackinfo.com et. al is not a matter of Truth. advantage play as such is a body of knowledge, in essence a theory only analogous of truth in the sense of logical conclusions drawn from assumptions for which there is no way possible to prove that those assumptions are truth.
if you still want to play blackjack according to the premise "Yes, it is our job to play the best game of Blackjack that we can." and if you want to "know a certain course of action is the right thing to do, do it. Take the shortcut and do what is right. Quit the rationalizing. Quit the double agenda. Quit being double minded. Choose the straight and narrow."
then consider the theory of blackjack and consider the implications about theories, science and mathematics compliments of Goedel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_incompleteness_theorems
hence:
too me (according to my current state of ponderance) in essence the question of blackjack advantage play boils down to uncertainty and therefore for the prudent minded risk, risk that is above and beyond theoretical ROR. this is true for me for two reasons:
1. i'm not capable to understand the complete logic and maths of blackjack theory.
2. even if i were capable, i'd still (in my mathematical & scientific enthusiasim) have to realize that Truth it is not. close maybe, but no cigar.

so in the end i'm stuck with my trembling fearful self and the uncertainty/risk of the theory of blackjack when i take a seat at a blackjack table.
in short just like all of the other challenges of life i'm not about to reliquish my rationality over the theory of genius's when faced with uncertainty and risk.

i've seen in my escapades in casino's obviously groups of young fellows putting all of their faith in blackjack theory. the dejected looks as they leave the tables with pockets turned inside out stands testimate of a likely large and unknown cemetary of failed AP's. unsung hero's that don't post on blackjackinfo.com.
lol, no brag just fact, i'm still here posting after nearly three years. not rich by any means from my blackjack endeavors but not broke either.:cat:

It all fits with my understanding of things. If you ran enough simulations you would finally come to a series in which everything worked exactly opposite to the way that probability theory would predict. That series could be 100 years long, if you could express it in time. The thing to remember is that even though random laws are in effect, it does not mean that we will experience that randomness in our lives, in out blackjack play, or in any of our activities or observations. Why? Because we are non-randomly inserted in this random milieu. You have seen positive variance--in fact, you have experienced it firsthand in the Weekend Warriors. lol How long does it last? Well, for you it lasted quite a while. Now how long can it last? There are infinite possibilities, so we must concede that no matter how unlikely, it could last a thousand years in any given instance. Wow! Talk about the long run! Now add to the equation that you were placed on this mortal coil by an Intelligent Being. He could choose from all the infinite possibilities just where to position you. Wow again. What if he put you in the unlikely path of a lifetime of positive variance in every game of blackjack you would ever play? Why, you'd be the luckiest blackjack player in the world! His foresight could actually find the one place in the universe where your every wager would find a positive outcome. It would not actually matter which way you bet, because by His foreknowledge He had you in a place where you could do no wrong. This is the fallacy in probability theories. It correctly calculates the probabilities on an average basis, but it can tell you nothing about a particular circumstance except what its perceived odds are. In effect, it is only certain to be useful if you can be assured that you are in average circumstances and that no Intelligent Deity had His hand in it. For a God fearing man, this is not a valid assumption. We may know that "on average" we are in average circumstances, but we have no way of "knowing" that we are actually in average circumstances. Probability theory is very clever in realizing that while odds may approach certainty, they never quite get there as a predictable outcome. The perfect blackjack player can go broke and the most hopeless ploppy can win a million. Go figure!

 

[sagefr0g]

It all fits with my understanding of things. If you ran enough simulations you would finally come to a series in which everything worked exactly opposite to the way that probability theory would predict. That series could be 100 years long, if you could express it in time. The thing to remember is that even though random laws are in effect, it does not mean that we will experience that randomness in our lives, in out blackjack play, or in any of our activities or observations. Why? Because we are non-randomly inserted in this random milieu. You have seen positive variance--in fact, you have experienced it firsthand in the Weekend Warriors. lol How long does it last? Well, for you it lasted quite a while. Now how long can it last? There are infinite possibilities, so we must concede that no matter how unlikely, it could last a thousand years in any given instance. Wow! Talk about the long run! Now add to the equation that you were placed on this mortal coil by an Intelligent Being. He could choose from all the infinite possibilities just where to position you. Wow again. What if he put you in the unlikely path of a lifetime of positive variance in every game of blackjack you would ever play? Why, you'd be the luckiest blackjack player in the world! His foresight could actually find the one place in the universe where your every wager would find a positive outcome. It would not actually matter which way you bet, because by His foreknowledge He had you in a place where you could do no wrong. This is the fallacy in probability theories. It correctly calculates the probabilities on an average basis, but it can tell you nothing about a particular circumstance except what its perceived odds are. In effect, it is only certain to be useful if you can be assured that you are in average circumstances and that no Intelligent Deity had His hand in it. For a God fearing man, this is not a valid assumption. We may know that "on average" we are in average circumstances, but we have no way of "knowing" that we are actually in average circumstances. Probability theory is very clever in realizing that while odds may approach certainty, they never quite get there as a predictable outcome. The perfect blackjack player can go broke and the most hopeless ploppy can win a million. Go figure!

that's it, uncertainty is a wierd thing. especially in the short run or short stretch observations. but in a casino, with a well understood game like blackjack it's really supposed to be a Gaussian normalized sort of thing for the long run. far as my emotions and knee jerk reactions to the game it all fools me for the most part. i guess that's cause we live in the short run not the long run. so but yes it's a lot to be said for, probability, basic strategy, bs departures and optimized betting strategy played around a solid understanding of risk for a bankroll. it's a tribute to blackjack theory where one can experience the stability and profit that basic strategy, bs departures and optimized betting strategy lends to ones game. it can also be mind numbingly dull or emotionally nerve rattlingly intense as the case may be all too often when one 'faithfully' follows blackjack theory.
the short run interests me far more than the long run. it's where you see virtually immeadiately uncertainty play it's self out. long run improbable things happen in the short term as well as the long run probable things. and glaringly obvious those events tend to be when you hold them up against expectations. voodoo as it may be it's in the realm of the 'untame' short term i smell advantage and not just the advantage of orthodox methods. advantage in terms of pressing one's luck and in terms of taking risk averse measures according to thoughtful judgement, experience and even intuition all using the tools of blackjack theory. virtual sacrelige i know but it's what i believe. i believe it because i know that a human can realize and understand things that no computer or computer simulation will ever be able to realize. just me i guess, i want to control the tools of blackjack theory rather than have them control my actions.
maybe it means less than optimal results, maybe even worse risk but at least i can blame myself to some degree when it all goes wrong rather than just completely abandoning my fate to luck and expectation. i guess the hope is to tinker with the luck factor and still have the promise of advantage plays expectation sort of thing. i guess a recreational player can fool around a bit. :cat::whip:

 

[aslan]

that's it, uncertainty is a wierd thing. especially in the short run or short stretch observations. but in a casino, with a well understood game like blackjack it's really supposed to be a Gaussian normalized sort of thing for the long run. far as my emotions and knee jerk reactions to the game it all fools me for the most part. i guess that's cause we live in the short run not the long run. so but yes it's a lot to be said for, probability, basic strategy, bs departures and optimized betting strategy played around a solid understanding of risk for a bankroll. it's a tribute to blackjack theory where one can experience the stability and profit that basic strategy, bs departures and optimized betting strategy lends to ones game. it can also be mind numbingly dull or emotionally nerve rattlingly intense as the case may be all too often when one 'faithfully' follows blackjack theory.
the short run interests me far more than the long run. it's where you see virtually immeadiately uncertainty play it's self out. long run improbable things happen in the short term as well as the long run probable things. and glaringly obvious those events tend to be when you hold them up against expectations. voodoo as it may be it's in the realm of the 'untame' short term i smell advantage and not just the advantage of orthodox methods. advantage in terms of pressing one's luck and in terms of taking risk averse measures according to thoughtful judgement, experience and even intuition all using the tools of blackjack theory. virtual sacrelige i know but it's what i believe. i believe it because i know that a human can realize and understand things that no computer or computer simulation will ever be able to realize. just me i guess, i want to control the tools of blackjack theory rather than have them control my actions.
maybe it means less than optimal results, maybe even worse risk but at least i can blame myself to some degree when it all goes wrong rather than just completely abandoning my fate to luck and expectation. i guess the hope is to tinker with the luck factor and still have the promise of advantage plays expectation sort of thing. i guess a recreational player can fool around a bit. :cat::whip:

Yup! There is room for a lot of playing around and still stay in the ball park so to speak. This week I won $300 at AC and nearly all of it was due to a simply great run of luck on a $25 table when I won I estimate every hand but three and a few that pushed over the period of two shoes. The only time that a positive count came into play was in a session where I got about three hundred behind but the count got good so I increased my bets as if to double up and catch up sort of thing and I did manage to pull off a $50 win in that session on a $15 table. In another session at a $10 table I got myself stuck a lot but managed somehow to get even mostly through flat betting and getting lucky. There were very few positive counts in that session and I do not remember betting max bet at any time. The other side of the story is that I blew $550 on Deuces Wild. I'm hooked, sage. Hooked! But I figure I'll get most of it back eventually when I hit the royal or a few quad deuces. lol I didn't hit a thing the entire two days. Oh! I wnet to a casino where I had lost a bundle last year, and I found that they had $50 in bonus dollars waiting for me, I just cashed it in and left. The place didn't have a decent VP machine anywhere. They were all gimmick machines that took away any chance of winning.

 

[sagefr0g]

Yup! There is room for a lot of playing around and still stay in the ball park so to speak. This week I won $300 at AC and nearly all of it was due to a simply great run of luck on a $25 table when I won I estimate every hand but three and a few that pushed over the period of two shoes. The only time that a positive count came into play was in a session where I got about three hundred behind but the count got good so I increased my bets as if to double up and catch up sort of thing and I did manage to pull off a $50 win in that session on a $15 table. In another session at a $10 table I got myself stuck a lot but managed somehow to get even mostly through flat betting and getting lucky. There were very few positive counts in that session and I do not remember betting max bet at any time.

wow three hundred smackers! see for me that would be a humongous win.
i think i've only ever won that much once or twice in a session.
but yeah the games i mostly play it's like your only ever gonna see a 'significant' positive count when the moon is blue sorta of thing. doubtless it's a great part of how come i gave up orthodox counting and just wing it with the fuzzy count. and yeah it's like with these games it's the vast majority of hands just playing basic strategy. and to me when that's the case and if i get up ahead some amount in a time span where that amount is equivalant to the expectation or positive standard deviation of a card counter i'll just go ahead and end the session unless the count actually is positive. probably i'm in essence wonging out of some degree of a negative count anyway to boot. maybe i'll take another shot at another table after a while, maybe even wong in on one. mostly it just seems to me i'm taking advantage of some luck or positive standard deviation of basically basic strategy play for the most part. where your typical basic strategy player might just sit there and play hour after hour eventually probably losing some loot.

The other side of the story is that I blew $550 on Deuces Wild. I'm hooked, sage. Hooked! But I figure I'll get most of it back eventually when I hit the royal or a few quad deuces. lol I didn't hit a thing the entire two days. Oh! I wnet to a casino where I had lost a bundle last year, and I found that they had $50 in bonus dollars waiting for me, I just cashed it in and left. The place didn't have a decent VP machine anywhere. They were all gimmick machines that took away any chance of winning.

vp ehh, i a while back studied up on all that, some guy Dancer i think his name was. i never could find a vp machine with the kind of pay offs he touted. i only really learned jacks or better strategy. long since forgot it.
would be cool to hit one of those royals.

 

[blackchipjim]

God and luck.....

I would imagine God doesn't involve himself with luck. I don't rely on God for luck just direction and inspiration. My beliefs tell me not to be superstitous or rely on the occult. Power sought that involves luck or physic ability is usaully not coming from him but from his enemy. blackchipjim

 

[aslan]

wow three hundred smackers! see for me that would be a humongous win.
i think i've only ever won that much once or twice in a session.
but yeah the games i mostly play it's like your only ever gonna see a 'significant' positive count when the moon is blue sorta of thing. doubtless it's a great part of how come i gave up orthodox counting and just wing it with the fuzzy count. and yeah it's like with these games it's the vast majority of hands just playing basic strategy. and to me when that's the case and if i get up ahead some amount in a time span where that amount is equivalant to the expectation or positive standard deviation of a card counter i'll just go ahead and end the session unless the count actually is positive. probably i'm in essence wonging out of some degree of a negative count anyway to boot. maybe i'll take another shot at another table after a while, maybe even wong in on one. mostly it just seems to me i'm taking advantage of some luck or positive standard deviation of basically basic strategy play for the most part. where your typical basic strategy player might just sit there and play hour after hour eventually probably losing some loot.

vp ehh, i a while back studied up on all that, some guy Dancer i think his name was. i never could find a vp machine with the kind of pay offs he touted. i only really learned jacks or better strategy. long since forgot it.
would be cool to hit one of those royals.

I Probably already told you that I hit my first royal straight flush in Vegas in October. I was chasing my money trying to leave without a loss on the night before my plane departed so I had upped the ante from 5x25 cents to 5x50 cents in an effort to make enough to get back to close to even. Lo and behold I hit that sucker around midnight--$2,000. My first RSF and in hearts. I will never forget it. What is it? 1 in 40,000 hands, something like that. A Black Swan yields to the power of prayer. lol I slept well that night. View attachment 1679

 

[sagefr0g]

I would imagine God doesn't involve himself with luck. I don't rely on God for luck just direction and inspiration. My beliefs tell me not to be superstitous or rely on the occult. Power sought that involves luck or physic ability is usaully not coming from him but from his enemy. blackchipjim

yeah, thing is maybe just maybe try and not PO Him off just to be safe sort of thing lol.
per Pascal's Wager sort of thing: http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showpost.php?p=101285&postcount=145
edit:==>> but i'd have to agree to disagree of advantage that involves luck as a portent of evil. me thinks luck is our friend, at least when she's in a good mood.
maybe luck, serendipity and coincidence kind of phenom have a natural function in the playing out of events of the natural world. such as maybe how in that evolution stuff where some random genetic event just happens on a quantum sort of scale but it turns out to be an advantage. next thing you know you have a whole new species with winning ways sort of thing.

 

[sagefr0g]

oh Lord won't you give a Black Swan, my friends all drive porches i must make ammends

I Probably already told you that I hit my first royal straight flush in Vegas in October. I was chasing my money trying to leave without a loss on the night before my plane departed so I had upped the ante from 5x25 cents to 5x50 cents in an effort to make enough to get back to close to even. Lo and behold I hit that sucker around midnight--$2,000. My first RSF and in hearts. I will never forget it. What is it? 1 in 40,000 hands, something like that. A Black Swan yields to the power of prayer. lol I slept well that night. View attachment 1679

yep that's right you did. good story lol. reminds me of how i ever even started gambling. probably you heard this story too before lol.
it was like for nearly fifty five years i prudishly held my self back from ever gambling excepting for maybe an annual or less trip to the boats or what ever.
then while on a cruise i happened to wonder through the ships casino and happened to see this guy hit some ridiculous jackpot on a nickle machine. the coins were just flying out of that machine lol, tic, tic tic.
ever since lady luck has had her hooks in me.:cool2::whip:

 

[aslan]

yep that's right you did. good story lol. reminds me of how i ever even started gambling. probably you heard this story too before lol.
it was like for nearly fifty five years i prudishly held my self back from ever gambling excepting for maybe an annual or less trip to the boats or what ever.
then while on a cruise i happened to wonder through the ships casino and happened to see this guy hit some ridiculous jackpot on a nickle machine. the coins were just flying out of that machine lol, tic, tic tic.
ever since lady luck has had her hooks in me.:cool2::whip:

Yea, my wife met this lady who hit it big in Vegas on a slot--get this--$50,000 a year for life! I don't know how much she put in to get it, but that's one heck of a prize.

I like these stories where someone only played once and hit the jackpot.

Back a few years I was playing VP at the Rio. I said to myself, I will play until I at least hit four of a kind. I played all day and lost twenty after twenty until I was $300 or $400 down as I recall. I never hit four of a kind and I decided to quit. I went about looking for my wife, which brought me to the other side of the casino. If you're ever been there, you know how large the casino floor is. I found her, but suddenly I realized that I had left my club card in the machine. I headed back in search of the machine I had been playing. It was a long walk. I arrived at the machine and someone was playing my machine. I asked about my card, and he said that he had removed it and set it aside, pointing to where he had placed it. And there it was. As I picked it up he spoke in a heavy English accent, remarking how easy this machine was. He related how on the very first pull it gave him four of a kind!

It's experiences like this that have shaped my beliefs about reality. These things couldn't be planned better, They do not happen by accident!

 

[sagefr0g]

no such thing as an accident

Yea, my wife met this lady who hit it big in Vegas on a slot--get this--$50,000 a year for life! I don't know how much she put in to get it, but that's one heck of a prize.

I like these stories where someone only played once and hit the jackpot.

Back a few years I was playing VP at the Rio. I said to myself, I will play until I at least hit four of a kind. I played all day and lost twenty after twenty until I was $300 or $400 down as I recall. I never hit four of a kind and I decided to quit. I went about looking for my wife, which brought me to the other side of the casino. If you're ever been there, you know how large the casino floor is. I found her, but suddenly I realized that I had left my club card in the machine. I headed back in search of the machine I had been playing. It was a long walk. I arrived at the machine and someone was playing my machine. I asked about my card, and he said that he had removed it and set it aside, pointing to where he had placed it. And there it was. As I picked it up he spoke in a heavy English accent, remarking how easy this machine was. He related how on the very first pull it gave him four of a kind!

It's experiences like this that have shaped my beliefs about reality. These things couldn't be planned better, They do not happen by accident!

lmao, what a classic story.
me thinks you got hit by the opposite of serendipity if you had only had the sagacity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serendipity

 

[aslan]

lmao, what a classic story.
me thinks you got hit by the opposite of serendipity if you had only had the sagacity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serendipity

LMAO Yes, you're certainly right about that!

 

[sagefr0g]

serendipity, black swans

a good read:
http://www.cleanlanguage.co.uk/articles/articles/224/1/Maximising-Serendipity/Page1.html

edit: i like this part especially:
Use an unequal barbell strategy:
“A method that consists of taking both a defensive attitude and an excessively aggressive one at the same time, by protecting assets from all sources of uncertainty while allocating a small portion for high-risk strategies.” (p. 307, Taleb)
In other words, most of what you do should follow standard operating procedures but a small proportion can be devoted to going for something out of the ordinary on the off chance that it points to something much more significant.

a kind of way of leveraging safety and getting the chance to enjoy the possibilities of risk.

 

[josh3623]

some think it has nothing to do with luck. there is no gamble.
maybe that's close to right or has some significance. maybe there is no luck in a casino. maybe it's all standard deviation and expectation and it's all known what can happen, no surprises.
if that's the case the question would be is there a factor that can change that above and beyond the dull known expectations? what could it be other than us who might throw a monkey wrench straight into the heart of the guts of the ever grinding casino machine monster lol? yeah we know how to mimic the casino machine and turn the tables on it. that's advantage play and with it we can grind out maybe a decent little profit for our selve's.
wouldn't luck if it were possible be more than that? i like the idea that you allude to. the idea of using advantage play so as to expose ourselves to the possibility of luck.
so maybe if there isn't luck in a casino there is something like it. that's standard deviation. and another thing that's like luck in a casino is shooting for a goal and making it. those can be short term events. here and now sort of things. the stuff that feel good is made of. the orthodox advantage player experience's that feel good stuff rarely. the rest of the time he's if he's human miserable. he's gonna get his money but what is he gonna do with it? he's gonna buy something to feel good lol. maybe it's like the old bed time story of the ant and the grasshopper. lol. where the ant worked his a$$ off and the grasshopper played. what was it the ant was warm and cozy in his house when winter hit and would have let the grasshopper in if he wasn't so big and fat. lol. did the grasshopper end up freezing to death or just end up feeling like a dumb schlemeal while he mooched off the ant?
so we don't want to be like the grasshopper that's for sure.
maybe luck is finding the balance between being a miserable but warm ant and a happy but frozen grasshopper.

Let us define luck as the positive or negative effect of random variation which is beyond our control, upon our lives. Ie, if a guy driving a mac truck falls asleep at the wheel, veers into our lane at the las possible second, flattenning us, we call this bad luck; conversely if we buy a two dollar lotto ticket and win eighteen million dollars, we refer to this as good luck.

Luck has nothing to with advantage play, or should I say, it has nothing to do with its application; However it has everything to do with the result. Ie,
Let us take a hypothetical example of 2 individuals both applying the exact same system of counting, bankroll and camoflage perfectly without error.
the only differenceis one has extremely good luck and the other has extremely bad luck.
The one with good luck after 250,000 hands has made enough to retire, because at the beginning he had a long series of winning sessions that allowed him to increase his bets and bankroll, to the level of high roller quite quickly.

After 250,000 hands the one with bad luck has struggled to make a modest profit, because at the beginning he got ruined and had to re-up his bankroll.


Lets not get confused, like everything, but especially with blackjack, chance is a major factor, even for the advantage player.

 

[aslan]

a good read:
http://www.cleanlanguage.co.uk/articles/articles/224/1/Maximising-Serendipity/Page1.html

edit: i like this part especially:
Use an unequal barbell strategy:
“A method that consists of taking both a defensive attitude and an excessively aggressive one at the same time, by protecting assets from all sources of uncertainty while allocating a small portion for high-risk strategies.” (p. 307, Taleb)
In other words, most of what you do should follow standard operating procedures but a small proportion can be devoted to going for something out of the ordinary on the off chance that it points to something much more significant.

a kind of way of leveraging safety and getting the chance to enjoy the possibilities of risk.

What the picture says to me is Keep All Options Open. That's why I subscribe (yearly subscription) to the Virginia Megamillions. As they say, you can't win if you don't play. But I don't stay awake at night wondering if I will win. lol Fat chance!!!

 

[josh3623]

What the picture says to me is Keep All Options Open. That's why I subscribe (yearly subscription) to the Virginia Megamillions. As they say, you can't win if you don't play. But I don't stay awake at night wondering if I will win. lol Fat chance!!!

It doesn't make sense to pray that you win the lottery, if you don't a buy a ticket, right?

Anyway, what is virginia megamillions? Is it like the Lotto?

 

[josh3623]

a good read:
http://www.cleanlanguage.co.uk/articles/articles/224/1/Maximising-Serendipity/Page1.html

edit: i like this part especially:
Use an unequal barbell strategy:
“A method that consists of taking both a defensive attitude and an excessively aggressive one at the same time, by protecting assets from all sources of uncertainty while allocating a small portion for high-risk strategies.” (p. 307, Taleb)
In other words, most of what you do should follow standard operating procedures but a small proportion can be devoted to going for something out of the ordinary on the off chance that it points to something much more significant.

a kind of way of leveraging safety and getting the chance to enjoy the possibilities of risk.

Excellent article, thanks, and it describes advantage play very aptly. In a sense thats what advantage play is, Maximising Seridipity. Discovering a way of knowing when the odds are in our favor in blackjack, and ramping up our bet to maximize our advantage. The cards will be in our favor many times for many causes, that have nothing to do with the deck being 10 rich, but if we don't know or can't predict these causes, then they don't help us, unless we are lucky.
However we do know through research and one can safely say that it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that when the deck is rich in ten cards, the odds swing in our favor as players, provided we strictly adhere to some form of basic strategy. Since we can determine when the deck is 10 rich we can maximize our bets on these serendipitous occasions, and win the game in the long term.

 

[aslan]

It doesn't make sense to pray that you win the lottery, if you don't a buy a ticket, right?

Anyway, what is virginia megamillions? Is it like the Lotto?

Yes. I think it is worth $86 million this week. It really gets up there, like lotto. It's 5 numbers and a sixth called the Mega Ball.

I misspoke when I said Virginia Mega Millions--it's just Mega Millions and is available in 12 states.

 

[sagefr0g]

What the picture says to me is Keep All Options Open. That's why I subscribe (yearly subscription) to the Virginia Megamillions. As they say, you can't win if you don't play. But I don't stay awake at night wondering if I will win. lol Fat chance!!!

so you buy a ticket once a year? or maybe i don't understand the terms (yearly subscription)?

but yes i agree the picture says keep all options open but as well it's pointing to the premise of the purposeful disparitous manipulation of risk with respect to maybe likely disparitous gain. it's kind of like taking advantage of what you do know and hopefully taking advantage of what you don't know at the same time. taking the bulk of your risk on what you do know and a far lower amount of risk on what you don't know (while all the time knowing that small risk has the potential for huge gain). so, but for the article and the picture it's mainly focused on the market and life in general. ie. trying to take advantage of our ignorance about black swans through our awareness that they do happen and that such occurences can be life changingly significant. an appropro example of not following such a tack might be how banks over a long period of time take some risk and build up huge profits only to lose that much and more in a matter of months. the example seems almost analogous to how a progression better operates.
too me the trick for an advantage player (who by definition operates in a more mundane risk environment) would be to exercise decisions against known expectations of norms and deviations in the short term where 'luck' really does happen. lol, it's as if the casino environment is an upside down Alice in Wonderland looking glass image of the real world sort of thing.
advantage play i guess puts a handle on that whacky world by planned knowledgeable action, and i guess my question is what if one uses both planned knowledgeable action and knowledge?
or in my case with voodoo fuzzy counting & betting applying a lesser degree of knowledgeable action and hopefully (lol) more empahasis on the knowledge.

 

[sagefr0g]

Excellent article, thanks, and it describes advantage play very aptly. In a sense thats what advantage play is, Maximising Seridipity. Discovering a way of knowing when the odds are in our favor in blackjack, and ramping up our bet to maximize our advantage. The cards will be in our favor many times for many causes, that have nothing to do with the deck being 10 rich, but if we don't know or can't predict these causes, then they don't help us, unless we are lucky.
However we do know through research and one can safely say that it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that when the deck is rich in ten cards, the odds swing in our favor as players, provided we strictly adhere to some form of basic strategy. Since we can determine when the deck is 10 rich we can maximize our bets on these serendipitous occasions, and win the game in the long term.

lol, you took the words right out of my keyboard.

 

[aslan]

so you buy a ticket once a year? or maybe i don't understand the terms (yearly subscription)?

but yes i agree the picture says keep all options open but as well it's pointing to the premise of the purposeful disparitous manipulation of risk with respect to maybe likely disparitous gain. it's kind of like taking advantage of what you do know and hopefully taking advantage of what you don't know at the same time. taking the bulk of your risk on what you do know and a far lower amount of risk on what you don't know (while all the time knowing that small risk has the potential for huge gain). so, but for the article and the picture it's mainly focused on the market and life in general. ie. trying to take advantage of our ignorance about black swans through our awareness that they do happen and that such occurences can be life changingly significant. an appropro example of not following such a tack might be how banks over a long period of time take some risk and build up huge profits only to lose that much and more in a matter of months. the example seems almost analogous to how a progression better operates.
too me the trick for an advantage player (who by definition operates in a more mundane risk environment) would be to exercise decisions against known expectations of norms and deviations in the short term where 'luck' really does happen. lol, it's as if the casino environment is an upside down Alice in Wonderland looking glass image of the real world sort of thing.
advantage play i guess puts a handle on that whacky world by planned knowledgeable action, and i guess my question is what if one uses both planned knowledgeable action and knowledge?
or in my case with voodoo fuzzy counting & betting applying a lesser degree of knowledgeable action and hopefully (lol) more empahasis on the knowledge.

You lost me--what are you calling knowledge as opposed to knowledgeable action? How is anything other than the rules of counting something one could call knowledge? How can you follow the rules that lead to a near sure thing in the long run and not follow them at the same time without jeopardizing the long run. How does lack of discipline translate into knowledge? Doesn't it just compromise your near certain chance to win for the sake of a long shot that is a billion to one?

I have a yearly subscription that costs $102 and applies $1 twice a week to the lottery, which has two drawings a week. I don't have a snowball's chance of winning, but with quantum physics, who knows, maybe a snowball can exist in hell. lol It's my application form, if you will, for a black swan. No one in history ever won the lottery without a ticket. Of course, I could just buy one ticket a year and save $101; the chances are close to the same. Maybe I'll do that next year--it would save over a $1,000 in ten years. Now that's something worth thinking about. lol

Maybe, I should stop playing the lottery altogether, If the Lord wants me to get rich quick, I think He might have other ways at His disposable. No? lol I think I just talked my way out of this wasteful spending. lol Thanks, Sagefr0g. You really are a wise frog!

The fly in the ointment of this entire desire to hit it big is that it flies (no pun intended) in the face of Providence and what should be our moral underpinnings. If our concentration is on acquiring riches, we are probably the worst candidate for actually acquiring them since our focus should be on things of lasting value, not silver and gold. Also, what are we saying? I trust You Lord, but I am trying for a little extra on the side as well? As if His Providence is not sufficient. Maybe we don't really want to go to His kind of heaven. Ever think about that? lol Maybe that's why many don't go there IMO. Like Mark Twain said, people can't wait for an hour Sunday service to be over, yet they think they will be content in heaven where all they do all the live long day is give worship and praise and do other good stuff. I doubt that something magic happens when we die that makes us want to worship and do good stuff all the time, so I guess there must be a long, long training course. perhaps a few million years, to get us to that place. That's why Catholics put a purgatory in there I suppose. (actually there are some scriptural references--I'm just being funny) Boot camp for heaven. lol