A quick note about "rareness" of bets

[bdk3clash]

[ QUOTE ]
isn't 5% a huge edge? is there any casino game where the house has that high an advantage?
--turnipmonster

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There are a bunch, most notably American roulette (with "0" and "00"), sports betting, money-wheel games, some slots and video poker, assorted craps bets, custom table games like Sic Bo, and most egregiously keno, whose house edge is generally in the 20-30% range.

Wizard of Odds is an awesome resource for stuff like this. Here's a page detailing the house advantage of a bunch of games--and this is all assuming perfect play if skill is involved.

[Freudian]

That is a good point. If the swings get so wild that a) you have to move down in limit more often or b) have to have a much larger BR (which is the same as being forced to play at a lower limit) how does that impact the situation?

With infinite money and infinite time it is easier to argue that you should take razor thin +EV situations.

[sfer]

[ QUOTE ]
That is a good point. If the swings get so wild that a) you have to move down in limit more often or b) have to have a much larger BR (which is the same as being forced to play at a lower limit) how does that impact the situation?

With infinite money and infinite time it is easier to argue that you should take razor thin +EV situations.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're getting this wrong. The variance in limit poker is already high enough where pushing small EV situations isn't changing it much. The situations in Ed's book that get everyone's panties twisted--like raising a possible second best hand in a huge pot--is costing an extra bet or two. If your bankroll can't handle 2-3 BBs to slightly improve your chances of winning 15-20 BBs, you're playing too big already.

[Freudian]

What did that have to do with what I wrote?

We have several players that are acknowledged as good players that tell us they have had downswings of 400-500BB.

This means that they either a) play at a lower limit that someone with less variance can play or b) have to move down in limits more often.

This affects earn rate.

And there are tonnes of small edges you can decide to push or not that will lead to quite a substantial increase in variance.

If the answer to this question is "well they play a tougher game so it doesn't matter but for everyone else it will work" it seems like quite the evasion.

[sfer]

You're missing my point. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but I claimed that poker is naturally variance rich and pushing a handful of small +EV situations isn't going to increase your variance noticably. Please show me how a handful of hands every thousand or so will make your variance measurably greater.

[Ulysses]

[ QUOTE ]
I've always advocated a style and game based on maximizing the edge and my +EV, not pushing thin ones.


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You are confused. If you're not pushing thin edges, you're not maximizing your EV.

[mistrpug]

Ed, thank you so much for this post. It makes me cringe when I hear people use rareness as an excuse to pass up small EV+ situations.

[sabre170]

Doesn't the "thinness" of the edge depend on the range of hands you put your opponents' on?

For example, I hold KJo. If I put my opponent on exactly KT, I have a huge edge. If I put him on "anything but a pair higher than TT," I have a smaller edge. If I put him on "any two face cards that aren't a pair", I have a very thin or non-existent edge. And if I put him on a pair, JJ or higher, he dominates me.

Aren't the accuracy of my read and the ability to narrow the range of hands I consider possible to my opponent more important than the "edge" that I calculate?

Garbage in, garbage out.

Sabre170

[Ed Miller]

I've always advocated a style and game based on maximizing the edge and my +EV, not pushing thin ones.

My point is that in LIMIT poker, these Kelly-overbetting situations just don't come up often enough to worry about. That's because there is a cap on how much you are allowed to bet.

If the amount you can bet is unlimited, then you have to be careful about comparing the size of your edge to the size of your bankroll and sizing correct. (Again, read up on the Kelly Criterion.) But in LIMIT poker, it's really not a pressing concern.

[jedi]

[ QUOTE ]
I did want to discuss this idea, though:

VERY RARE, VERY SLIM +EV SITUATIONS ARE NOT PROFITABLE, BECAUSE OF THE LIKELYHOOD THAT WE WILL NOT SEE THEM ENOUGH TIMES DURING OUR POKER LIFETIMES FOR THE NUMBERS TO NORMALIZE.

This notion is 100% erroneous. How often you are offered a bet does not determine in any way whether it is profitable or not.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is a bit of a tangent but I wanted to ask this anyways.

Ed, does this concept apply when the bets are very large relative to bankroll? I learned about risk-aversion in Econ class and to me, this would be the perfect example of it. I know we weren't talking about huge games and stuff (just the usual 1/2 games we play), but IF we were talking about huge life-savings type bets, even if it were +EV, wouldn't it still be correct to pass it up?