Why I hate "Look at my 500-SNG penis" posts

[Double Down]

Yes, it's impossible to know your true ROI, but as you said, you will tend to drift towards a number the more SNGs you play, and by using standard deviation, you can find out the chances of your actual ROI being within certain ranges.

For example, after 10,000 SNGs, if your ROI is 15%, there is probably a 99% chance that your ROI is between 13% and 17%. And after 20,000, there's probably a 99% chance that it's truly between 14.5% and 15.5%. I'm pulling these figures out of my ass, but someone who knows how to utilize standard deviation could figure out the actual numbers.

[microbet]

Does Forumbot count as a registered user in this simulation?

[cleinen]

[ QUOTE ]
For example, after 10,000 SNGs, if your ROI is 15%, there is probably a 99% chance that your ROI is between 13% and 17%. And after 20,000, there's probably a 99% chance that it's truly between 14.5% and 15.5%. I'm pulling these figures out of my ass, but someone who knows how to utilize standard deviation could figure out the actual numbers.



[/ QUOTE ]

I guess a point/question is...can you even ever be sure of what the standard deviation is?

[Slim Pickens]

Basically, you've got it. This often gets ignored in the statistical analysis, but one's "true" ROI is a dynamic quantity. Changing game conditions, mostly your skill relative to the opponent pool, prevent your ROI from converging. In that way, the 500-SNG posts are as valuable as that sort of information gets. "My ROI is 14.0% over 500 and that gives me a statistical winning confidence of 97.04%" is as good as you'll ever be able to do. Skill is much more likely to be a constant over 500 than over 5000.

The checkup posts can be valuable when, rather than "look at my epenis," they're a roadmap to beginning players. How did someone start with $250 and worked it up to 4-tabling the 55's? What happened along the way and what should I expect? The easiest way to show someone why 100 is an inadequete sample size is to post a graph of 500. Ditto for 500 and 3000, and 100 and 3000. It's like explaining to a middle-school boy why he's always pitching random tents (sample size 100 SNG's/a few games of Spin the Bottle) but can't get the girls to notice him. His high-school senior older brother (sample size 500 SNG's/lots of dry-humping and the one drunk prom date) has one opinion that's certainly more knowledgeable, but still distorted, and he really wants to share it because then his younger brother thinks he's cool. Dad (sample size 5000 SNG's and ...) knows the whole deal, but won't tell his sons because they have to figure it out for themselves.

[SuitedSixes]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
For example, after 10,000 SNGs, if your ROI is 15%, there is probably a 99% chance that your ROI is between 13% and 17%. And after 20,000, there's probably a 99% chance that it's truly between 14.5% and 15.5%. I'm pulling these figures out of my ass, but someone who knows how to utilize standard deviation could figure out the actual numbers.



[/ QUOTE ]

I guess a point/question is...can you even ever be sure of what the standard deviation is?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is an age-old fight here, but yes. The standard deviation is going to fall within a pretty tight tange for everyone. Irie made a post about 9 months ago about this.

Think of ROI as batting average. Players will have greater swings in their BA in April and May than they will in September, just because the effect of one at bat will have less impact the more at bats they have.

As an aside, in the ring game world, 10k hands is considered to be somewhat statistically signifcant. I now have over 500k hands in my PT database (50 10k samples) and I have had 5 10K losing periods, yet according to the "winning confidence" formula I am at 99.83%.

I also hope everyone appreciates the irony that (the one who I consider to be) The King of the E-Penis posts made an appearance in this thread.

[cleinen]

[ QUOTE ]
I also hope everyone appreciates the irony that (the one who I consider to be) The King of the E-Penis posts made an appearance in this thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

Slacker? [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[pergesu]

[ QUOTE ]
The checkup posts can be valuable when, rather than "look at my epenis," they're a roadmap to beginning players. How did someone start with $250 and worked it up to 4-tabling the 55's? What happened along the way and what should I expect? The easiest way to show someone why 100 is an inadequete sample size is to post a graph of 500. Ditto for 500 and 3000, and 100 and 3000. It's like explaining to a middle-school boy why he's always pitching random tents (sample size 100 SNG's/a few games of Spin the Bottle) but can't get the girls to notice him. His high-school senior older brother (sample size 500 SNG's/lots of dry-humping and the one drunk prom date) has one opinion that's certainly more knowledgeable, but still distorted, and he really wants to share it because then his younger brother thinks he's cool. Dad (sample size 5000 SNG's and ...) knows the whole deal, but won't tell his sons because they have to figure it out for themselves.

[/ QUOTE ]
Nobody may ever question your genius.

[bearly]

just 76 posts? there's got to be at least 150 sng hard ons out there that a cat couldn't even scratch----now that's crushing those morons.............b

[eagle]

Try the "Six Easy Pieces" by Richard Feynman and then try the "Six Not So Easy."

It's a shame he chose Physics and not Women. Maybe Skipperbob will write the babe versions.

[kyro]

They are no worse than the myriad of NC posts that the cool people put on this forum. This is an excellent forum when there is actually strategy advice, but it's hard to feel too grateful when 7 of the first 10 threads on the first page have the abbreviation NC before it.

I made one of these posts when I hit 500 and I don't regret it at all. I was thrilled that I had accomplished so much. I really don't see what the big deal is.