[PrayingMantis]

[ QUOTE ]
Jman, you are correct that the fundamental reality is that for a particular action you will win X chips x% of the time, and lose Y chips y% of the time.

In most poker situations we can predict the long term outcome of the random process with the summary statistics like average win/loss or EV.

That is because in most poker situations the outcome of interest (total money or chips won) is a linear metric. If you win 20 bucks you are twice as well off than if you won 10 bucks.

But when the outcome of a process is NOT linear, then EV is like averaging dollars and pesos without converting the currencies first.

You are arguing that the outcome of interest (probability of winning tournament) is not a linear function of your stack size in a HU match. If you are correct then you are also correct in your argument that cEV is not an accurate metric to evaluate the long term outcome of this random process.

Posters who are patronizing you by saying you "clearly don't understand EV" seem to themselves not understand this limitation of EV. It is annoying to me when they do that, so I'm just posting this to let you know that this professor of statistics says you are correct and they are wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, although I said I'm leaving, I'm back to this thread, because obviously this post was directed mostly to me (outside of Jman), and so it deserves a reply.

First I'm not a professor of statistics, very far from it.

Now to your points:

I understand what you are saying, but with all due respect it isn't relevant to the points Jman was making. Jman's points were wrong from a clear logical perspective. He was basically saying that by making a move that is -CEV (in his own words) you are increasing your stack size. Later on he agreed that you are increasing it only some percentage of the time, but now the whole "tactic" got into a mess, because clearly the rest of the time you are giving chips to your opponent and (even according to Jman's ideas) you are helping him quite a lot.

I fully understand that there could be models for which "the outcome of interest (probability of winning tournament) is not a linear function of your stack size in a HU match". These ideas were discussed on this forum and elsewhere several times. But again, that wasn't the issue of this discussion at all. Jman was (like most of us here) basing his idea on the simple model in which CEV=$EV for HU (and as an evidence, he even used the ICM [he didn't need to, of course] to illustrate his points), and thus he wasn't at all arguing with it but only making different claims with regard to CEV alone (without any relation to the outcome of the interest), IN this model.

I'm sorry if I sounded patronizing, and I am certainly aware of limitations of EV in many cases. However, I still stand behind the points I've made on this thread.