tthree said:
Take your a example to an extreme and you will see the flaw in your logic. Make player B's goal be 10000. He will be playing many many days to win a session successfully and lose most sessions eventually if the RoR is high enough. Is player A going to stop gambling until B decides his session. I dont think by breaking it into sessions rather than time spent at the table is a legitimate comparison. If they use the same betting strategy and get the same cards for player and dealer you are drawing arbitrary lines in a continuous data stream. The difference is player A will bank win after win while my player B is very likely to bust his bankroll on his first session. Player A could adjust his betting strategy to misfortune while player B will over bet his bankroll as it is depleted increasing his RoR. If someone had a 100% RoR he should never hit his goal and either be play forever in one session or go broke, no other option. I dont see how one could view that as more profitable.
If player B played with a 60% RoR in your example of 10 unit BR to win 10 units as his goal.
Winning session total = .4 * (10) = 4
Losing session total = .6 * (-10 )= -6
Total sessions combined = -2
That looks like your higher RoR turned your +EV situation into a losing proposition to me. The math looks like elementary school level. In blackjack you lose more hands than you win. You rely on bonus blackjack payout and splitting and doubling to press your advantage(or lower your expected loss in some situations) to trim the HE down to a small number. Unless you only playing +EV situation(wonging) you play for a while at a disadvantage waiting for advantage to develop. If your bankroll is to small, you bust out before advantage can be developed cutting into your actual EV from the theoretical that you think you are playing with because this effect puts a negative bias to the average.
While increasing RoR can get a marginal bankroll to a more playable BR quicker it also makes it more likely that you will never get there. As you can see from my math it is a case of diminishing returns until the RoR finally takes your advantage away altogether.
There isn't a flaw in my logic. It's my problem, so I get to choose the parameters.
. You said, "You rely on bonus blackjack payout and splitting and doubling to press your advantage:. I said, "In a game with an EV of +1%". I understand that this is a BJ board, but this wasn't necessarily a BJ question.
As I said before, I understand that RoR and profit have no correlation. I thought I would bop in here, ask a super simple question, get a bunch of "Of course that's right. Who doesn't get that?" answers, show my friend, and that would be that. Instead, I got two types of answers (one person actually 'got it' - I
really appreciate that answer):
1. From smartasses who aren't nearly as smart as they think they are (life probably blows for them. It certainly does for those around them.).
2. Answers that were well-meaning, but changed the problem in such a way that the question wasn't answered at all.
If you were presented with this and had to make a decision:
"You are going to be given $1,000 each day for an indefinite period to bet on a BJ game that has an EV of +1% automagically built-in. Your bet for each hand must be $50. Standard blackjack rules apply (other than the 1% built-in advantage). You can either quit when you are up $200, $1000 (you must pick one at the beginning and you can't change when you bail after a win), or when you go broke. There are no other options."
Then you would have a choice to make: Settle for a smaller gain with more consistent results (smaller RoR), or make more money with wilder swings. One thing you wouldn't get to say is, "I reject the problem! Let's do it with $10,000 instead!" I've said it over and over - this question is a hypothetical, not a strategy. I was actually trying to prove exactly what everyone insists on trying to prove to me: that a lower RoR and increased 'profit' are not correlated. I happened to choose a data set that actually proved that the reverse
can be true. I wasn't saying that I think it's a grand strategy.
@tthree: I know what you're trying to say, and I've understood that all along - it wasn't the problem, though. I do appreciate the answer. I think you're a good guy who actually wants to help other people.
We create arbitrary lines all of the time. Many people do not like to lose more than
$x per day. They will quit playing no matter how good the game is. I know that no one will actually step up and agree with me, but there are MANY people here who have seen beautiful counts only to lose that day's "limit", even walking away while the shoe was favorable (maybe because they were broke, maybe because they just couldn't take it anymore - whatever). As a better example, we see it in poker all of the time, especially in the B&M rooms. A particular player's EV may be waaaaaay better than any advantage a BJ player will ever realize, yet he keeps getting sucked out on. Finally he just can't stand it anymore, starts to steam, and finally leaves, even though the game, over the longer term, is everything he could ask for. Doesn't mean he left broke, though, it just means that he couldn't stand the bad beats he was taking. Logic might say that he should keep playing because the game is so juicy, but he just can't do it.
Many people are trying to answer this from the perspective of a BJ player. It wasn't intended to be viewed through that narrow lens.
This wasn't a complex problem, it was a simple problem that apparently offended the sensibilities of some folks who couldn't/didn't want to get their head wrapped around the concept that there are questions where a decision must be made with the data that is given.
I'm done. I leave this thread knowing with 100% certainty that I'm correct re: the original problem, but respecting the well-meaning folks who misunderstood the problem and tried to take the time to show me my 'error' by changing the data set. To the people who jumped in with nothing useful to contribute (I think in the forum world they're called trolls), well, you have my sympathy, as you are exactly the kind of people that I try not to be. Life will always be worse for you than it needs to be. It's unfortunate, really.
Take care, and good luck at the tables. ~ LIA
