1.2. Re: When positive games don't really help
Date: Fri Apr 25, 2008 3:06 pm ((PDT))True but the point is that when you have to be concerned about being 9% or
more below the expected return, how can you even begin to concern yourself
with .5%The examples are from a two week span but this has been happening for nearly
six months now and has dramatically taken a toll on the bankroll.I've only heard of a couple of contributors that have hit that situation
where quite a long negative streak has cut back their playing abilities due
to bankroll loss. I guess I'm sadly adding myself to that listHope others are having better luck.
Sounds like the stock market, actually!
VP, as most advantage-play activities, is a game of chance with an element of skill. The element of skill causes the edge to go toward the player from what the unskilled player would experience, but rarely does a single player get such a large sample that they have the level of certainty of getting somewhere near their expected return that the casino itself has of getting somewhere near THEIR expected return.
In fact, I once heard that even casinos show a loss one day out of seven on average (don't know where I heard it, but it certainly makes sense that even a casino would have occasional losing days).
The worst part, in your case, is that there is no "law of averages" to kick in and make everything OK. If you expect to win at a 0.5% rate, and have lost at a 9% rate for six months, you will need nine years of 0.5% return to get even - and there is no reason to EXPECT any higher rate of return, although it could certainly happen, just as there is no reason to EXPECT the loss rate you've experienced, although it certainly has happened to you.
If you're playing perfect Jacks or Better and not counting comps and promotions and cash back, you can expect to lose at about a 0.5% rate, and the best you can now REASONABLY hope for is that your loss rate goes down to its expected level.
But the element of luck is always there, and just as it has outweighed the element of skill in your past six months, it could do so in the opposite direction in the coming six months -- or it could be unexpectedly negative again - no way to predict what will actually happen, only what is "likely".
Finally, a consideration that's quite common in such games - is your real-life casino-based skill level as good as it is in a measurable practice environment? There's probably no way to answer that question. It's like a poker player "running bad" - even successful professional poker players can have a losing month, or even losing months - and the trick is to sort out the losing stretches due to bad luck from those where the skill level has deteriorated and is the responsible factor. No way to ever know for sure, I think.
--BG
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