[DavidC]

Firstly, thanks to all the guys that responded.

HotPants, it appears that we're pretty much on the same page here. I've been exposed to these ideas as lot in the last 3 months. This is kind of a new paradigm in gambling for me. Believe it or not, the 1 tril cash or 1.5 tril in EV situation is one where a poker player is more likely to screw it up than an average person. I'm almost 100% sure that you realize this, but these sorts of analysis are used when evaluating two different gambles, and I think izverg posted something on this in a post in the probabilities forum called "advanced risk management".

... Anyways, I'm talking specifically about enjoying seeing daily progress, which to DO get to in your post...

I'd LOVE to know how people like potters (where they have a certain failure rate) or bonsai masters (where they don't really get to see daily progress) handle this sort of thing.

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I think it's definitely rational to give up some of your edge in exchange for reducing variance. Just as a little evidence of this, if you look at a post in the SSNLHE board recently "how do you make money at SS NLHE", you'll see that the crowd over there is unwilling to "push small edges for maximum profit". They figure that you'll go broke doing this. I have a feeling that their personal aversion to variance may be playing some roll in this analysis, though.

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After all, would you rather be constantly stressed your whole life but be a little richer, or be happy and relaxed all the time?

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Easy choice, IMHO! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

The problem that I'm running into personally, though, is that if I try to use my utility of money from a perspective of stuff that I'm willing to buy and would get happiness from, then I do actually get a very risk-neutral utility curve. When I look at how much I enjoy money, just the numbers of having money, not actually using money, and more importantly, when those numbers occur, not just if they occur... well, I'm not even sure how to evaluate this and apply it to my gambling activities.