EV in the short-term: conceptual post (Boz don't read) :)

[DavidC]

Hey guys.

I've been thinking about something recently.

We all play a lot of poker. If we call a gutshot with incorrect odds, this is reflected in our long-term results. We argue that the short-term results don't matter because in the long term our results will match our EV, and for us, this is true.

However, let's say that I was new to poker, and I called 5 gutshots and hit all of them in an evening. The statistical EV was negative by $X amount, cumulative.

Would you say that I lost $X? I wouldn't, if one of the following (or something like it) were to occur:

1) I quit poker for the rest of my life after that session.

If I quit poker this evening, all that matters is experienced value (i.e. what happened). Of course, this only matters once I stop playing: while I'm playing I should make correct EV decisions, but that doesn't really matter as long as the cards land in my favour.

2) I picked up a book and learn how not to play like a fish.

If you change your play in such a manner as to not repeat a costly error, it doesn't matter how much that error cost you in EV in the past, just how much it DID cost you (in experienced value). You've essentially plugged that long-term leak, and frozen the results of that leak to the real world, as opposed to the mathematical world that we play poker in.

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My buddy pointed out something to me, too.

If you're a B&M player, your swings can last a LONG time (maybe half a year to a year, yes, that long). Therefore if going on a downswing causes you to stay in your apartment for longer than you should, when you're trying to buy a house, the difference in personal net worth accumulation that you would have achieved while in the house is a REAL cost of a downswing.

The same is true if you were to use a line of credit as your bankroll. Your downswings would have a real cost, in the amount of interest charged to you. This would basically cut into your BB/100, until you were rolling yourself.

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So how does this apply to us? Well, I guess it doesn't, but I'm kinda into useless math stuff in poker, so I posted it... Again, thanks for your tolerance. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[lautzutao]

I wouldn't say that you were losing $X, I WOULD say that you made a bet that was statistically -EV and got lucky. The same as any person hitting a number on a roulette wheel x times in a row, or someone hitting the Wheel of Fortune or some other ridiculously -EV bet.

If that same person started playing "sound" poker the rest of his life, if given proper odds to call the gutshot and he misses his next 45 (making him 5 for 50) would you call him a statistical loser, or making an unsound EV play?

I don't know if that makes any sense, but hope that helps somewhat...

[kirkt]

Your fish didn't lose $X, it made the amount it won by hitting those gutshots. Just like people win the lottery and Federline has Spears. Then again, 1 million Federlines don't have one million Spears and thats where statistics is looking.

Card rushes will happen even to donkeys and it creates the jackpot effect. For a fish, poker is in effect a slot machine. Over the long run, they lose lots and lots of money, but the small wins keep them excited to come back.

What's difficult for me is the other thing : bad runs in casinos. At $6 to $12, a dozen big bets is a lot of money for even a large internet bankroll. So four or five tough beats- not out of scope, as you no doubt know- can really make a huge dent in your ego.

Aside from that, what's the question?

[Xhad]

There is an interesting poker insight related to this topic: you will not make some decisions enough times for them to matter. If you don't play more than a couple sessions your entire life, most decisions probably fall in this category because of short term luck. The longer you play, more and more of these decisions' results start to converge toward their EV, but in the end you probably won't play enough for some of them.

As an example, consider this raging debate. I'm participating mostly because it's fun, not because it's that important. To be in this situation:

-You must not be playing against known maniacs
-You must have the action capped before it is your turn to act
-You must be dealt a hand which is at all debatable to cold-call a cap with, which amounts to three hands at most (AK, QQ, and maybe JJ you could argue a call or fold with, KK/AA is an obvious call and everything else is an obvious fold)

In fact, I'm on the side of folding in that thread, though the one time I was in that type of situation, I had JJ, the action was capped by the time the action got to me in the cutoff with no other callers callers, so I folded, but the flop came J77 and AA and KK ended up paying off an AKs that made his flush on the river. I still think my fold was correct but I don't know if I'll ever play long enough for that particular decision's EV to catch up with the results. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[Saint_D]

[ QUOTE ]


What's difficult for me is the other thing : bad runs in casinos. At $6 to $12, a dozen big bets is a lot of money for even a large internet bankroll. So four or five tough beats- not out of scope, as you no doubt know- can really make a huge dent in your ego.


[/ QUOTE ]

No joke. The same guy BDFD's me on trips 4 times in one session. I lost almost as much as my whole internet roll. However, since i KNEW his play was terrible, I didn't feel as bad about as I could.


So I lost real money, but felt like I made +EV descisions. So to answer the OP question: Learn math.

-D

[bozlax]

Now you're baiting me? "Oh, Brer Fox, pleeeease don't throw me in the briar patch!"

Good thing this is an easy one:

EV is concerned with long-term statistical results. Luck is concerned with short-term actual results. You're talking about luck, here, not EV.

Here's a story I like, tho, that illustrates BOTH points: I was checking into the MGM in Vegas about 8 years ago, right around the time all the casinos started putting those GIGANTIC slot machines right beside their registration desks. As I was waiting in line, I watched your typical-corn-farmer-from-Iowa-who-just-sold-his-spread-to-a-big-conglomerate-and-has-now-come-to-Vegas-with-the-wife-to-blow-his-profits-the-littluns-are-with-her-parents walk in all excited and get in line behind me. His wife (even more excited than he was) spotted the Big Spin machine and said, "Gimme a dollah, hunny, I'll be right back." She pops the dollar in the machine and pulls the lever.

Can you guess what happened? Yup, 7777, or whatever. Lights! Bells! Sirens! The whole works. She starts jumping around, screaming, he starts jumping around screaming, everybody in the near vacinity gathers around her to congratulate her...and nothing comes out. No coins, no slip of paper, nothing. By the time one of the floor attendants showed up, Mrs. Iowa was getting nervous, and you could see that Mr. Iowa was building up an "I haven't even checked in, yet, and y'all are already screwing me," tantrum.

Floor Attendant shows up, and Mrs. Iowa says, "I won this but it didn't give me anything!" Floor Attendant says, "Huh. How much money did you put in?" Mrs. Iowa says, "A dollar." Floor Attendant says, "Oh, I see. Look over here (at the rules posted RIGHT NEXT to the big arm of the machine)...it tells you here in 80-point bold letters that this machine only pays off in cash if you play $2 or more. Wow, and you hit the Big Spin Jackpot, too...that would've paid off 3 million to one." Mrs. Iowa stands there with her mouth open, and, iirc, Mr. Iowa actually started crying. Floor Attendant shrugged his shoulders, gave her $100 worth of chips and a bunch of meal comps and went off to attend to the remainder of his area of the floor.

The point is that Mrs. Iowa made two -EV decisions: one, she played a slot machine, and a promotional one at that with ridiculously long odds, and, two, she didn't bother to learn the rules before she played. In this case, making -EV decisions cancelled out short term luck. For fish playing poker, it often works the other way. That's the only relationship between the two things, however.

[bozlax]

bump

[lautzutao]

Haha, that's the most depressing story I've ever heard.

[KeysrSoze]

Heh, that analogy rules. I'm gonna have to start using that for when someone gets a really lucky suckout. "That guy just pulled a Federline", or the opposite of Sklansky bucks, "That fish just won 15 Brittney bucks".

[KeysrSoze]

[ QUOTE ]
Haha, that's the most depressing story I've ever heard.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, the random number generated would have been different due to the extra time it would have taken to put in the second dollar. Still, that scene would have been priceless to witness.