Small Issue with Andy Fox Article

[Peter666]

"X amount of money is worth just as much today as it was yesterday (common f'ing sense)"

Not if you had a deadline to make yesterday. It was worth more to you. Sometimes $1000 right now is worth more to you than $100,000 in the future.

Obviously, a person stuck in this situation is playing way above his bankroll, but the short term rewards may be worth a lot more to them than the loss. That is the human factor.

[andyfox]

"Put him over the top" doesn't necessarily have to mean that he didn't have the money to pay his rent/car payment/mortgage when he sat down in the game. Maybe it gave him what he needed to make the payment while maintaining his bankroll, and thus his ability to earn money for future expenses. Book the win, make the payment(s), start the next session with bankroll intact.

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"Put him over the top" doesn't necessarily have to mean that he didn't have the money to pay his rent/car payment/mortgage when he sat down in the game. Maybe it gave him what he needed to make the payment while maintaining his bankroll, and thus his ability to earn money for future expenses. Book the win, make the payment(s), start the next session with bankroll intact.

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If that's the case, then I don't see how it's advantageous to leave a +EV game. Let me just make up a scenario using real numbers. Let's say he needs $20,000 in his bankroll to maintain his current earning potential. He has $21,000 in his bankroll at the start of the night. Tommorrow he has a $2,000 mortgage payment due. He goes up $1,500 for the night, putting him at $22,500, enough to cover the $2,000 payment while leaving him with $20,500 in his bankroll. Now let's say he's destined to lose $1,000 over the next x hands. It doesn't matter whether he plays those hands tonight, tommorrow, or a week from now, he'll still lose $1,000 before he makes another dime.

If he stays at the table tonight, he'll drop to $21,500. After making the payment tomorrow he drops to $19,500 and has to move down in limits. If he leaves the table to lock-in his win, he'll go home with $22,500, make his payment to drop to $20,500, and then lose $1,000 the next time he sits down to play. At that point, he's again at $19,500 and has to drop down. What's the difference (other than psychologically)? I could maybe see it if he had reason to believe that his EV would be greater at some point in the future (i.e. he could avoid that $1,000 downswing enitrely by waiting for an even more +EV opportunity), but otherwise, if a downswing is coming he's just delaying the inevitable by putting it off until the next session.

[Xhad]

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"Put him over the top" doesn't necessarily have to mean that he didn't have the money to pay his rent/car payment/mortgage when he sat down in the game.

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Even if that's true the argument doesn't make sense.

Let's say that X is an acceptable size for hero's bankroll to be for a game, after taking into account short term fluctuations.

Now let's say that Y is the amount of money that hero has.

Now let's say that Z is the amount of hero's bills.

If Y - Z > X, then that means that hero is properly bankrolled and there is no reason for him not to keep playing.

If Y - Z < X, then hero is underbankrolled and will still be underbankrolled tomorrow after he's paid his bills.

Either he's bankrolled or he's not. Either the amount of money hero has set aside other than his bill is enough money to keep him afloat, or it isn't. Stop-winning himself will not extend his bankroll in any meaningful way.

Another example to prove this is true: Let's say that hero has the money in his account for his mortgage, but for some reason he's decided this stop-win scheme makes sense. So hero pays his mortgage over the phone and starts playing again. Why is THIS different from quitting for the night, paying his mortgage in the morning and then playing tomorrow?

[Xhad]

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"X amount of money is worth just as much today as it was yesterday (common f'ing sense)"

Not if you had a deadline to make yesterday. It was worth more to you. Sometimes $1000 right now is worth more to you than $100,000 in the future.

Obviously, a person stuck in this situation is playing way above his bankroll, but the short term rewards may be worth a lot more to them than the loss. That is the human factor.

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Well, I meant total amount of money left at the end of all scenarios. And of course I was assuming that hero isn't going to lose his mortgage payment, otherwise he's obviously underbankrolled. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Scared money can't win. You will begin playing sub-optimally if you are afraid of losing money. Fire away until you have played your planned number of hours in a +EV game. Or until the game condition have changed and you feel you don’t have the edge anymore.

If you overbet your bankroll there are only two possibilities:
Either you play according to your small bankroll with an expected hourly income of $10/hour. In this case your living expenses will slowly but surely eat up your capital. Or you overbet heavily in order to have a sufficient hourly expectation. In this case the risk of ruin would be close to 100%.

Playing poker or blackjack professionally is not a get rich quick scheme. It is a risky grind with a small edge that requires lots of exposure to unforgiving $$ flux. Without a MASSIVE bankroll and very good living habits, you are doomed. Your chances of turning 10K into a genuinely useful bankroll for 20-40 or 30-60 game are virtually zero. It is impossible to make a living from a 10K bankroll...you've got to either turn it into 50K within a few months or your living expenses will eat you alive.

Remember, all risk of ruin formulas assume you're reinvesting more than 50% of your winnings back into your bankroll. Taking part of your earnings out for living expenses pretty much guarantees you of going bust unless your bankroll to BB ratio is absolutely massive (600 to 1000 big bets or more).

Oct

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Xhad:

I think there's another problem with the article. It makes the assumption that the pro was in jeapordy, and that might very well be the case. But how good a pro is it that would put himself in such jeapordy? I suspect a better player might have been able to move down if his bankroll got low, then if he's in a good game, he won't feel the need to quit because he gets ahead and probably wins more in the long run.

best wishes,
Mason

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Hi Xhad:

I think there's another problem with the article. It makes the assumption that the pro was in jeapordy, and that might very well be the case. But how good a pro is it that would put himself in such jeapordy? I suspect a better player might have been able to move down if his bankroll got low, then if he's in a good game, he won't feel the need to quit because he gets ahead and probably wins more in the long run.

best wishes,
Mason

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I do not see this at all in the article - although Andy's suggestiviness may have led you to this.

No matter how good a game looks to me, the guy next to me will see it differently if there is something that affects his state of mind such that he does not have the desire to play in that situation.

Sure, it may be a flaw in that person's pyschological makeup. It may be something else. But to make a judgment about that person is clearly wrong.

Mathematics may say it is wrong to leave the game there, but it is far from obvious.

Take a contrived situation. Say he made a side wager with a benevolent stranger before the start of the session. If the pro shows a win of $X or greater within a 24 hr time period, the stranger will give him $1,000,000. If he fails to win that much, he gives the stranger $10. There is no set minimum for the amount of time played for the wager, just the 24 hr maximum.

It is obvious that in this situation it would probably be a huge mistake to risk going below $X for the session.

It doesn't get any better than that.

We don't know why the pro chose to quit, only that he thought it was the right thing to do. Based on that, and not the assumptions of why he quit, I have to assign some probability that his decision was indeed correct.

Changing the argument to reflect a 2+2 party line (which is generally correct) as opposed to circumstances of which we know not, is hardly fair or correct.

[Zetack]

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[ QUOTE ]
Hi Xhad:

I think there's another problem with the article. It makes the assumption that the pro was in jeapordy, and that might very well be the case. But how good a pro is it that would put himself in such jeapordy? I suspect a better player might have been able to move down if his bankroll got low, then if he's in a good game, he won't feel the need to quit because he gets ahead and probably wins more in the long run.

best wishes,
Mason

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I do not see this at all in the article - although Andy's suggestiviness may have led you to this.

No matter how good a game looks to me, the guy next to me will see it differently if there is something that affects his state of mind such that he does not have the desire to play in that situation.

Sure, it may be a flaw in that person's pyschological makeup. It may be something else. But to make a judgment about that person is clearly wrong.

Mathematics may say it is wrong to leave the game there, but it is far from obvious.

Take a contrived situation. Say he made a side wager with a benevolent stranger before the start of the session. If the pro shows a win of $X or greater within a 24 hr time period, the stranger will give him $1,000,000. If he fails to win that much, he gives the stranger $10. There is no set minimum for the amount of time played for the wager, just the 24 hr maximum.

It is obvious that in this situation it would probably be a huge mistake to risk going below $X for the session.

It doesn't get any better than that.

We don't know why the pro chose to quit, only that he thought it was the right thing to do. Based on that, and not the assumptions of why he quit, I have to assign some probability that his decision was indeed correct.

Changing the argument to reflect a 2+2 party line (which is generally correct) as opposed to circumstances of which we know not, is hardly fair or correct.

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Heck, maybe the man had a date, or had to go catch an airplane or his favorite damn television show was about to start.

--Zetack

[ QUOTE ]
Take a contrived situation. Say he made a side wager with a benevolent stranger before the start of the session. If the pro shows a win of $X or greater within a 24 hr time period, the stranger will give him $1,000,000. If he fails to win that much, he gives the stranger $10. There is no set minimum for the amount of time played for the wager, just the 24 hr maximum.

It is obvious that in this situation it would probably be a huge mistake to risk going below $X for the session.


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If that were the case, I think it could be mathematically proven that staying at the table would be -EV, thus not particularly relevant to the discussion of whether it's a good idea to leave a +EV situation.

I see only three good reasons for leaving any +EV game:
<ul type="square">[*]You are reducing your future EV by staying. This could be due to psychological effects of ending the day a winner. It could also be that you are only slightly +EV now, but will be hugely +EV in a game tomorrow, but losing now would prevent you from playing in the game tomorrow. This would have to be a very contrived scenario though since (a) you usually have no way of knowing that you'll be more +EV tomorrow than today, and (b) there's usually no reason why short-term results today would have any effect on your ability to play tomorrow.[*]You are not adequately bankrolled. While it may be +EV to stay, the variance relative to your bankroll (risk of ruin) is just too high. You probably didn't belong in the game in the first place anyway so of course it's a good idea to leave immediately. This is actually just an extension of the first point since the real issue with going broke is that you ruin your future EV.[*]EV is not your primary concern. If you have commitments to friends or family, want to watch your favorite TV show, get some sleep, or whatever, no one should fault you for leaving a +EV poker game. There's more to life than poker/money.[/list]