What About the Losers?

[thrillhouse7]

This will be easiest to understand if you own a copy of GTOT

In Mason Malmuth's "Gambling Theory and Other Topics" Mason presents an equation that says a 30 dollar/hour loser with a std dev of 650 can be up as much as $16,500 over 100 hours.

I don't know if it is legal to post the equation so for those of you that own the book:

It seems logical to me that if I plug in my stats, but use zero for the win rate, I should be able to know if i am "for sure" better than break-even.

So I plug in zero for win rate, 135 for hours played, and 28 for std dev. (in $/hr) and i get $975... I've won $785.

Clearly it's possible for me to still be a breakeven player. Whereas, If i had won $1000 with these stats it would be very unlikely for me to be break-even or worse.

Throughout this post i've acted as though i know what i'm talking about. I don't and am curious if my use of the equation makes sense.

One flaw that i come up with is that my std dev may not be my "real" std dev. Just as my win rate may not be my "real" win rate. (Incidentially, not able to know for sure what my win rate is, i'd like to be able to know for sure if i am better than break even)

So what do you think: Is this a worthwhile practice?

Aside from all this anyone who wants to comment on the readability of the post may do so with my blessing.

[thrillhouse7]

From reading the "up 300 BB - winning player" thread (and from just common sense) it appears that there is interest in using some kind of formula/benchmark to tell if you're a winner.

I guess what i'm wondering is why that thread has replies and this one doesn't.


p.s. my ego is shattered!!!