@gronbog
yes, voodoo. also hypothetical. a conclusion, not so much, more so the above report (requested by xengrigter) of casino conditions described the reporters decision to avoid risk (associated with his uncertainty about asm shufflers and the like) based on his hypothesis with respect to card clumping. An exaggerated statistic from a short visit true, however his original post didn’t inform us of his many years of blackjack experience. the reporter may or may not be compiling data, i dunno. whether or not the reporter is an AP is a question in my mind. if he’s a card counter he may have walked away from an advantageous situation (opportunity cost) (but he stated he has other options), if he’s not an AP then his hypothesis at least temporarily saved him some money, lol.
now we come to my position (and i suspect one you hold as well, however perhaps in a currently more ambiguous state, hopefully my assessment shall sway you just a little bit), a position of which holds at least a fifty fifty respect for ‘voodoo’ or primordial hypothetical reasoning (ancient sort of methodologies, pre-math sort of thing) and that of our current state of the scientific method with all of it’s methods, math, theories, what have you. point being, it’s none of it perfect or complete, its evolving, and it arose from at least in part voodoo. my contention is that we should hold dear to us that which is voodoo (hypothetical initiated reasoning, no matter how flawed), if we have any desire to ever learn anything new. the trick being, that one avoids harm, which thankfully is a primordial instinct, leaving us free to dream and perhaps come up with new information.
case in point. it’s been my experience that one can profit from possibly flawed (filled with uncertainty) incomplete relatively small quantities of data. there are areas of advantage play for which that’s all one has hope of achieving information wise, but for which the advantage is definitely there. does one get it wrong sometimes? darned right one does, example: i lost a grand once over a faulty hypothesis. again, the trick being, that one avoids harm.
finally, please don’t take this diatribe the wrong way (after all you know i depend on you to keep my head straight regarding math stuffs). the primary reason i yack like this, is that i’m like a toddler taking his first steps, screaming in fear, all the way, knowing that there are people around, cheering that i may finally stand on my own two feet, and willing to lend me a hand should i topple over and yet encourage me to again give standing up a try, lol.
and, yes, i know, your position is, it’s still voodoo, in our card counting forum vernacular. i respect that.
