Long run and profit

N

no_fear

Member
Hi, I was wondering after how long it is that you can say you are in the long run and making a profit?

For example - if you have played 100 hands and made 2000, could you call that a profit or what?
 
No Worries, You Probably Won't Make the Long Run

Some people will define the long run differently. However, most would probably agree that it takes 100s or 1,000s of hours.

Another way to look at it:
If you place a bet you are risking that money.
If you play for an hour or week you face the SD of that time period. The % of time you are at an all time is in the single digits, so if you play you stand to lose some at any given time.

A hundred hours is not the long run, but yes it is a profit.:joker::whip:
 
no_fear said:
Hi, I was wondering after how long it is that you can say you are in the long run and making a profit?

For example - if you have played 100 hands and made 2000, could you call that a profit or what?
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My definition of long run : "The Long Run is the length of time measured from your First Wager placed to your Final Wager settlement."
 
Originally Posted by no_fear View Post
Hi, I was wondering after how long it is that you can say you are in the long run and making a profit?

For example - if you have played 100 hands and made 2000, could you call that a profit or what?
Click to expand...

daddybo said:
My definition of long run : "The Long Run is the length of time measured from your First Wager placed to your Final Wager settlement."
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lmao, i guess that's a special case, heck if i know.
just it reminds me of an old army buddy that was a horrible pool player but a great CPA. the guy would make some hopelessly miserable shot and see that i was ready to celebrate. his response to my amusement of his attempt would always be "the ball is still rolling".:laugh:

i'll just take a guess and say the long run applies if the law of large numbers applies. and additionally say the associated 'normal' standard deviation for a given case complicates matters but given enough trials the expected value weighs in often enough to make the standard deviation relatively insignificant.
so if all that is valid then the keys to understanding the kingdom of the mystery of the long run is understanding the influence of standard deviation with respect to the expected value.:rolleyes::confused::whip:
 
no_fear said:
Hi, I was wondering after how long it is that you can say you are in the long run and making a profit?

For example - if you have played 100 hands and made 2000, could you call that a profit or what?
Click to expand...

No i call it "noise", long run is when you have played enough hands so that your accumulated expectations are equal or greater to the accumulated standard deviations.
 
See this link for a good discussion of "the long run"

http://www.qfit.com/book/ModernBlackjackPage412.htm

This is from Norm Wattenberger great eBook, "Modern Blackjack."

Long run is somewhat in the eye of the beholder, but it's somewhere around 500,000 hands - give or take a few hundred thousand.

100 hands is around one hour of play. You need about 4,999 more and then you're there.
 
Anytime you win more than you lose, you played at a profit. Just don't confuse making money with playing at an advantage.
 
I try to convince myself that every time I play a hand correctly I've "won" my EV for the hand despite the actual outcome of the hand. Imagine the fun I have trying to convince my wife that the hand she just played on intuition just cost is the EV, even though she won the hand on a big double down. :)
 
Sonny said:
From the Frequently Asked Question thread:

Q: What is the “long run” that I keep hearing people talk about?
A: The long run is the point where you overcome the variance (luck) of the game and can be assured of reaching your EV. It is the point where your results are no longer affected by luck and only your skill remains. Here are some threads about the long run:

http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?t=5913
http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?t=4891

-Sonny-
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Except that you can never take the luck factor out of the game. It's always going to be there no matter how many hands you play. Each session is an independent event...there aren't card gods that start steering good cards into your favor after a certain number of hands and you can still get bad hand after bad hand no matter how positive the count is and no matter how many thousands of hours you've been counting cards. Conversely you can win hand after hand when the count is negative. In fact I think I'm going to start betting more when the count is negative as that seems to be when I get the vast majority of my winning hands.

I realize this post is going to make me very unpopular here, but I think this needed to be said. All I keep reading about is that you have to commit a larger bankroll through thousands of hours of play while counting cards...and all that's likely to do is to bankrupt an individual. I'm sure that counting cards works well for some people, but it's certainly not going to work for everyone. Yeah I know, counting cards can give an overall 1% or so advantage, but it's not going to be 1% for everyone. It may be 2 to 3% for some individuals and -2 to -3% for others.

Let the flaming begin.
 
21gunsalute said:
Except that you can never take the luck factor out of the game. It's always going to be there no matter how many hands you play. Each session is an independent event...there aren't card gods that start steering good cards into your favor after a certain number of hands and you can still get bad hand after bad hand no matter how positive the count is and no matter how many thousands of hours you've been counting cards. Conversely you can win hand after hand when the count is negative. In fact I think I'm going to start betting more when the count is negative as that seems to be when I get the vast majority of my winning hands.

I realize this post is going to make me very unpopular here, but I think this needed to be said. All I keep reading about is that you have to commit a larger bankroll through thousands of hours of play while counting cards...and all that's likely to do is to bankrupt an individual. I'm sure that counting cards works well for some people, but it's certainly not going to work for everyone. Yeah I know, counting cards can give an overall 1% or so advantage, but it's not going to be 1% for everyone. It may be 2 to 3% for some individuals and -2 to -3% for others.

Let the flaming begin.
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Where are all of these new people coming from who voice all sorts of bad theories about blackjack that don't have even the most rudimentary understanding of statistics? *baffled*

Counting and playing correctly, the advantage is roughly 1-2% for EVERYBODY. Whether that realizes a profit or not does, to some degree, depend on luck (variance). But if you are not overbetting your bankroll, your odds of going bankrupt are exceedingly small.

But if you play correctly for long enough, your average win will converge to a constant value. When you are "close enough" to this value for whatever purpose you define, that's the long run.

Yes, each hand is an almost-independent event, but when there are enough hands behind you, the variance (luck) contributes an ever-decreasing amount to your overall average and aggregate result.
 
21gunsalute said:
Except that you can never take the luck factor out of the game. It's always going to be there no matter how many hands you play.
Click to expand...

That's true. Luck will always be a big factor on every hand you play, but it becomes less significant the farther you advance from the starting point. The results of the past 300 hours will begin to smooth out quite a bit, but the next few hours are anyone's guess (within reason).

21gunsalute said:
In fact I think I'm going to start betting more when the count is negative as that seems to be when I get the vast majority of my winning hands.
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I think we’ve all been tempted to do that during some sessions. :)

21gunsalute said:
All I keep reading about is that you have to commit a larger bankroll through thousands of hours of play while counting cards...and all that's likely to do is to bankrupt an individual.
Click to expand...

It all depends on the individual. A great player with a great game can approach the long run much faster than an average player, and with less bankroll requirements (as demonstrated in the link). An average player might play for hundreds of hours and still end up poorer (or broke!), and we try to prepare newbies for that reality, but that is not the fault of the system. I admit that counting cards is one of the weakest ways to get an advantage, but it is a solid method if you know how to use it to its full potential.

-Sonny-
 
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Different Runs for Different Folks

So we have several long runs:
fixed betting
kelly betting
certainty of being ahead
certainty that kelly betting beats fixed betting:joker::whip:
 
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