A Little Luck Can Be All or No Difference
ahmen brotha.
blackjack avenger said:
In this mathematical marathon of long run vs losing all, think of the importance of winning the first time you play.
yep i get your drift. problem there with me is i'm not able to be honest with myself about what my bottom line lifetime bankroll is in the first place. i can only come to the point of saying ok ideally such and such is my lifetime bankroll.
but i know probably when it gets down to the nittly gritty and say i lost some 'mind numbing' portion of that roll that i'd probably chicken out or at least make some change in an attempt to mitigate the loss of the rest of the roll.
If you don't resize you are closer to ruin and you have to run far to get even.
yes, yes and yes.
If you resize your bets downward you are less likely to lose all but you are even farther behind in number of hands needed to get even.
exactly.
Perhaps if you had just a little luck:joker::whip:
luck certainly wouldn't hurt the situation would it?
but to me these are very interesting points your making. not just for AP play but maybe for some voodoo stuff (some betting system) as well. both instances suffer under the same scenario that you illustrate. of course the voodoo suffers the worst from it. and yeah the voodoo is hopeless in the long run. but still maybe not in the short run and maybe not at all if backed up by advantage play.
but for either how about the idea of how one balances the risks involved?
like in AP play if for some reason we think it's a good chance of getting a blackjack, more successful doubles than not and good insurance bets then it might be worth it for us to take a bigger risk and conversly if we think it's just a chance of getting a normal hand then more risk isn't worth it. so in AP play the risk scenerio is balanced properly and to my mind the bet resizing falls in line with all that. so the scenerio you make is just the facts of life. and luck will do what it's gonna do such is life. expectation reigns supreme and risk is what it is and you can resize affecting risk under certain constraints (kelly) with certain consequences (needing to play more or less hands). and maybe resizing has it's limits for AP's since table min's are a fact of life.
the voodoo part with luck is more complicated. it's a purer gamble. you have more degree's of freedom with respect to risk because of your virtual complete ignorance. like again back to this example:
http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?p=95946#post95946
in the shortest most simple way to say it. is say for some negative ev game a flat betting basic strategy player with unit X loses some amount Y. lets say that amount Y is the amount the player expects to lose over some amount of time or hands played.
so now the player changes his unit to Y and plays on in the same manner.
chances are not so bad that the player will be up a unit in fairly short order and hence be back to even from where he started bankroll wise. so now he can go back to betting unit X or what ever. but lets just say this player wants to break even and with luck maybe come out a 'little' ahead.
but here your scenario really weighs heavy. it's like ok you've lost some amount Y and you decided to resize. so but now the question becomes how many hands is it gonna take to get up a unit? how much deeper am i gonna have to dig my self in before i get up a unit if i ever get up a unit? when should i stop and maybe give up and maybe try some AP to dig my way out?
problem being until you infact make up that unit you need to play more hands but what can happen is you just dig your self deeper and deeper, way deeper than that original amount Y that your trying to make up. it's a pretty dreadful situation that can arise from what started out as a fairly promising propostition. it's not in essence much differant than the math marathon race scenario's you mention. resizing with possible consequences and hands to play to hopefully get back on track again.
so for this voodoo scenerio when the player is risking the X unit it's a fairly even game albeit losing over time however he could get lucky and come out some amount ahead or break even in the short run. but in the case where he lost Y then when he's risking the Y unit his play has greater risk relatively speaking if either scenerio was to play out until some bankroll was nearly completely lost. so the player having the goal of either breaking even after some amount of play or even comming out a little ahead by luck has the two risk scenario's to contend with. (let's not worry about the question of how much luck is enough luck as far as the goal goes).
the first scenario where player bets an X unit is the least risky. that's where he wants to play all of his hands if possible. the real problem comes should he happen to lose Y and feels compelled to now switch to the Y unit. his problem being that he needs to play some unknown number of hands before he's up a unit. it could be as many as fifty hands or more and yet he could still lose the whole bankroll just trying to get up one unit. and that's not good even though his chances are pretty good he will get up one unit it's also true that there will be times he won't and he'll lose the whole bank. definately bad news. what to do? the player at this point should bite the bullet and set some amount he's willing to lose before stopping play. what amount? it should be some amount Z that the player can reasonably make up in some amount of time reasonable to the player where he plays card counting using X as a unit until he makes up the amount Z or better as expectation and luck would have it.
such might be the life of a recreational player content with breaking even or experiencing a bit of luck but who would still be willing to knuckle down and count cards if need be with the hope of staying in the black. sigh.
other than that maybe be willing to lose that amount Z for that trip (where Z<= 1sd. dev. then hope for luck of making a sd. dev. win by luck for the next trip. :joker::whip:
edit:
summary shooting for luck else AP play.... (note: voodoo credits per Kasi lmao)
flat bet -ev game using basic strategy where:
unit = X
let Z <= 1 std. dev.
if win Z over intial bank stop (that is likely as much as a ideal card counter wins)
if lose Y (where Y = -ev for hands played)
then make unit = Y
now play until making one unit (this would be where bankroll is back to even)
if lose Z
then play AP with unit= X until Z amount is made up.
