Im currently in a abosolute funk. I know long losing streaks are both
vicious and enivitable. Being the record keeping geek that I am, I at
least can see why this is my worst year (to this point). Im short
about 2 1/2 Royal's in about 770,000 hands played but thats w/in
possibilty. What's frustrating is the lack of quads and the 'rest of
the paytable' deficiency! I wont name the exact location,denom., or
game im playing (the most savy of you will figure it out)but im not
positive for the year thru 770K hands despite having a 0.8% advantage
(game+cb+mailers+ect.)In fact, overall im 1.37% below expectation! I
know its possible (though highly improbable)and at some point it will
start coming back, but 13K$ in 770Khands is mentally draining. Im
currently short 15 sets of Aces @400$ each, overall short 41 quads, and
missing just over 5200$ in Full House's thru Jacks or better. Id please
like the immense knowledge this group has to bear on my situation. Why
so bad? Im I perhaps playing poorly and just dont see it? How have you
coped with playing a positive game but get destroyed for months on end?
How long can Quad,Royal, ect deficiencies go? Any feedback would be
greatly appreciated as Im ready to give up Vp for ahwile, or put my
fist through a monitor!
Why?!
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "davidmontelago" <davidmontelago@...>
wrote:
Im currently in a abosolute funk. I know long losing streaks are
both
vicious and enivitable.
How long can Quad,Royal, ect deficiencies go?
Others may disagree, but it may be "intangibles" that are affecting
your luck.
Allow me to explain.
Mathematics and expected return are certain, yet long-term. You are
already aware of that but feel you've played enough hands to be far
ahead of where you actually are.
Fine. So what else could be affecting your play?
Sometimes I just feel that certain people are luckier in certain
places and not in others.
It is not a science at all. For example, I have never had much luck
at the Wynn, though everyone here knows their VP inventory is far
superior to other Strip resorts.
But that in itself doesn't make me lucky there. I recall one time on
the 50 play machine near Red 8 with 9/6 Jacks I was playing 25 hands
and was dealt four to the royal. I drew no royals. Another time I
played deuces, was dealt 3 2's and could not draw the 4th deuce in 25
hands. That just about sums up how it usually goes for me at the Wynn.
It's not that those hands should have paid big jackpots to me. And
eventually my luck would (or should) have turned better. Instead, I
simply adjust and play elsewhere not based only on the math but how
I feel about where I'm playing.
Before the Venetian downgraded everything I had great luck there. But
a friend playing the same full-pay games just could not win. I loved
the place, she hated it. Good place for me, bad for her.
You sound like a good player going through a bad spell. I would
change that not by giving up but by trying elsewhere.
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "davidmontelago" <davidmontelago@...>
wrote:
Im currently in a abosolute funk. I know long losing streaks are both
vicious and enivitable.....
Yes, they are - especially in a streaky game like video poker. I
assume you routinely check your skill using a computer training
program. If you are playing accurately and playing stong games
there's nothing to do but keep plowing ahead.
I was also having a horrible year, up until about two months ago. At
the beginning of July I was down about $20,000 for the year, despite
playing some very strong plays. Over the last two months I've had an
unbelievable run, including a dealt multi-line Royal, and a bunch of
dollar Royals on multi-line games. This resulted in almost a 30K
upswing during July and August. Just remember that variance works
both ways!
EE
Just some comments and a question...
You said this is a bad year for you. You also said that you are a careful record keeper.
Since VP is a long term affair and we often talk about our being in a life-time session, is it
not possible that you can look back at previous years, that might have been good, and are
a counterbalance to this bad year?
Bad streaks are the rule in VP, not the exception. But are they not, in some way,
counterbalanced by good streaks? I am not saying that your present feelings are not real,
but it would be good to step back and look at the big picture. How short are you overall,
throughout your entire VP "career"?
..... bl
···
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "davidmontelago" <davidmontelago@...> wrote:
Im currently in a abosolute funk. I know long losing streaks are both
vicious and enivitable. Being the record keeping geek that I am, I at
least can see why this is my worst year (to this point). Im short
about 2 1/2 Royal's in about 770,000 hands played but thats w/in
possibilty.
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "davidmontelago" <davidmontelago@...>
wrote:
Im currently in a abosolute funk. I know long losing streaks are both
vicious and enivitable. Being the record keeping geek that I am, I at
least can see why this is my worst year (to this point).
How long can Quad,Royal, ect deficiencies go? Any feedback would be
greatly appreciated as Im ready to give up Vp for ahwile, or put my
fist through a monitor!
a while back I considered playing full pay All American and spending
the time to really learn to play correctly. I ran a 10 million hand
simulation on Frugal software and looked at the graph and even though
it is a high EV 100.76 and low variance there was a stretch where the
player lost 50,000 credits and it was almost a perfect line downhill.
If that game can have such a bad run it seems anything else can only
be worse. My wife and I had a run recently where neither of us could
hit a royal for 3 1/2 months (and we play a lot), we thought we would
never hit one again, but finally the spell broke and things are back
to normal. (whatever that is)
I'll give you the hard mathematical critique, if you're interested, if
not, ignore the following bad news.
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "davidmontelago" <davidmontelago@...>
wrote:
Im currently in a abosolute funk. I know long losing streaks are both
vicious and enivitable. Being the record keeping geek that I am, I at
least can see why this is my worst year (to this point). Im short
about 2 1/2 Royal's in about 770,000 hands played but thats w/in
possibilty.
770,000/45,000 is about an expectation of 17 royals. To be short 2 1/2
at that point is well within expectation. Highly possible.
What's frustrating is the lack of quads and the 'rest of
the paytable' deficiency! I wont name the exact location,denom., or
game im playing (the most savy of you will figure it out)but im not
positive for the year thru 770K hands despite having a 0.8% advantage
(game+cb+mailers+ect.)
Generally, less than 1% is unplayable. Check the bankroll and N0
numbers, you will generally see that they are unmanageable below 1%.
Also, the error rate is a huge factor at this point, your real
advantage may only be 0.5% or even less.
Estimated Bankroll = Variance/Advantage bets (2600 bets for FPDW +.25%cb)
N0 = Variance/(Advantage^2) hands (260,000 hands for FPDW +.25%cb)
Read the entire FAQ:
http://members.cox.net/vpfree/FAQ.htm
In fact, overall im 1.37% below expectation!
Again, not unusual, but highly likely. At N0 hands you expect to be
ahead 84% of the time but behind 16% of the time, that's ahead of zero
or behind of zero, to expect to be at or near expectation is a folly.
At four times N0 the situation improves to 98% ahead, 2% behind.
I
know its possible (though highly improbable)and at some point it will
start coming back,
It's possible to come back, but can't be expected, a random gamble
does not exhibit return to the mean. In fact, the more you play, the
less likely it is to achieve mean (average) results.
but 13K$ in 770Khands is mentally draining.
That statement strongly implies that you are gambling over your mental
bankroll and may have a gambling addiction.
Im
currently short 15 sets of Aces @400$ each, overall short 41 quads, and
missing just over 5200$ in Full House's thru Jacks or better. Id please
like the immense knowledge this group has to bear on my situation. Why
so bad?
If you were to run through the numbers, I suspect your results are not
that unusual, rather to be expected.
Im I perhaps playing poorly and just dont see it?
You must have some error rate in live play, given all the distractions
casinos employ. You should get a friend to try to observe your play to
figure out your error rate, if you don't know your error rate, it
could be quite bad, especially errors you don't even know you are
committing. Also, you should be more careful about analyzing bankroll
requirements and N0. Of course, you don't have to, but if you go into
something without being prepared, you should not be surprised by what
you see. That's called learning a lesson the hard way. Not that
there's anything wrong with that, but you should not be surprised if
you end up learning a lesson the hard way. The key is learning the
lesson, otherwise you'll likely get another shot at relearning the
lesson the hard way. Emphasis on hard, as in painful. Why not use your
mind to reduce the pain? Or is that too obvious? Mind over matter, be
the ball, watch Caddy Shack again.
···
How have you
coped with playing a positive game but get destroyed for months on end?
How long can Quad,Royal, ect deficiencies go? Any feedback would be
greatly appreciated as Im ready to give up Vp for ahwile, or put my
fist through a monitor!
Another datapoint to consider:
At 17 cycles, the standard deviation is sqrt(17) about 4, so the
expectation is to be somewhere between 11 and 23 about 68% of the time
and outside of that range about 32% of the time.