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A silly, simple question that shows my ignorance

#1

An approximation is more than good enough for me, when it comes to ROR
bankrolls. If it is within 10% of the "actual" number, that is sufficient for my
uses. I have never bothered to calculate EXACT ROR bankrolls, don't really see
the point! The point is to estimate approximate risk for the play in
question.

Is it not true that as the number of hands played becomes large, that the
distribution approaches a normal distribution?

Using variance in my simple approximation seems both useful, and a good way
to compare plays.

Brian

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In a message dated 8/22/2005 3:06:28 PM Pacific Standard Time,
PartTimeVP@hotmail.com writes:

If the possible outcomes for a game adhered perfectly to a normal
distribution, then you could use variance in the ROR calculation, but you'd
really be making a substitution.

Since video poker hand outcomes do not follow a normal distribution, at best
what you get when you use variance in a ROR calculation is an approximation.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

#2

From: bjaygold@aol.com

An approximation is more than good enough for me, when it comes to ROR
bankrolls. If it is within 10% of the "actual" number, that is sufficient for my
uses. I have never bothered to calculate EXACT ROR bankrolls, don't really see
the point! The point is to estimate approximate risk for the play in
question.

And how would you know if they are within 10% of the actual number? What if they are off by a factor of 2 or 3, is that still acceptable to you? For some of the numbers that players toss around, it's likely that bankroll requirement calculations for a particular ROR threshold based solely on expectation and variance are off by that much or more.

Is it not true that as the number of hands played becomes large, that the
distribution approaches a normal distribution?

That is true, but large may be much larger than you are thinking.

Using variance in my simple approximation seems both useful, and a good way
to compare plays.

As long as you understand the limitations of the approximation, and realize that you may encounter games for which it's a very bad approximation.

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