**Official ADANTHAR $1k MiniStep Challenge** - Page 6

Jason Strasser · #1 11-14-2005, 12:29 PM

Guys, bet is off. I lost a million playing blackjack this weekend on party and the account is gone, because I lost your money. So solly.

EverettKings · #2 11-14-2005, 01:25 PM

Just to make some semiofficial sidebet list....

I have $100 with ExitOnly (money will be sent at the end)
$100 with NoahSD (he sent me $100 and I'll wire back double if I lose)
$52 with dogsballs (he sent the money to me, dont ask why its 52)
Two or three other people have shown interest in bets but have not yet sent me money, so they aren't real bets yet. Hurry up before adanthar busts and I can't collect [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

And Mr. Strasser, if you lost the money that's OK, one of my mafia connections in NYC says he still has 3 grand of yours from a pot he bluffed you out of a while back...

Everett

Jason Strasser · #3 11-14-2005, 01:41 PM

Good luck with that

Scuba Chuck · #4 11-14-2005, 02:09 PM

[ QUOTE ]

And Mr. Strasser, if you lost the money that's OK, one of my mafia connections in NYC says he still has 3 grand of yours from a pot he bluffed you out of a while back...

Everett

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL, I thought Strassa's read was dead on. That was no bluff.

EverettKings · #5 11-14-2005, 02:15 PM

$75 with AceOfSpaces has now been placed as well. He has sent me the 75. I'm sure none of you care but I want to document all this so my suckers-- I mean fellow gamblers feel safe.

#6 11-14-2005, 03:42 PM

I pulled an all-nighter last night because I had a ton of work , and I took a procrastination break at some point to figure out how much EV I'd earned myself by making this bet.

Anyway, I actually sat down and calculated my EV on the bet based on different % chances of placing for adanthar. I was surprised by how close it was; it depended very much on tiny tweaks of what I thought was am achievable finish distribution. I'm still confident adanthar has an edge, but IMHO, you guys have concocted a very solid side bet.

In other words, we're all betting on a coin flip, and hopefully the results'll be fun :P.

AceofSpades · #7 11-14-2005, 04:11 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I pulled an all-nighter last night because I had a ton of work , and I took a procrastination break at some point to figure out how much EV I'd earned myself by making this bet.

Anyway, I actually sat down and calculated my EV on the bet based on different % chances of placing for adanthar. I was surprised by how close it was; it depended very much on tiny tweaks of what I thought was am achievable finish distribution. I'm still confident adanthar has an edge, but IMHO, you guys have concocted a very solid side bet.

In other words, we're all betting on a coin flip, and hopefully the results'll be fun :P.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm curious how exactly did you calculate this? With all the loopbacks, I wouldn't know how to begin to calculate this ev. My version went "I've made one ministep 5 and the other times I've tilted after busting down to ministep 1, I don't think adanthar will tilt like I do, and probably is better than I am. Oh yeah, I also played a ministep 1 w/ $6 and made it to step two." It should be interesting, adanthar keep us updated.

EverettKings · #8 11-14-2005, 04:19 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I pulled an all-nighter last night because I had a ton of work , and I took a procrastination break at some point to figure out how much EV I'd earned myself by making this bet.

Anyway, I actually sat down and calculated my EV on the bet based on different % chances of placing for adanthar. I was surprised by how close it was; it depended very much on tiny tweaks of what I thought was am achievable finish distribution. I'm still confident adanthar has an edge, but IMHO, you guys have concocted a very solid side bet.

In other words, we're all betting on a coin flip, and hopefully the results'll be fun :P.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm curious how exactly did you calculate this? With all the loopbacks, I wouldn't know how to begin to calculate this ev. My version went "I've made one ministep 5 and the other times I've tilted after busting down to ministep 1, I don't think adanthar will tilt like I do, and probably is better than I am. Oh yeah, I also played a ministep 1 w/ $6 and made it to step two." It should be interesting, adanthar keep us updated.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can do it with straight algebra but its not fun. It's more to just pick the finish distribution percentages and let the computer brute-force-simulate a whole bunch of em. I have a program that does some stuff that I'm currently converting to an applet to put on the web. Will post the link once I find time to go through with it.

Noah, I'm curious exactly what you did though. Shoot me a PM.

Everett

AceofSpades · #9 11-14-2005, 04:02 PM

[ QUOTE ]
$75 with AceOfSpaces has now been placed as well. He has sent me the 75. I'm sure none of you care but I want to document all this so my suckers-- I mean fellow gamblers feel safe.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's AceOfSpades not spaces.... I want full credit for being the sucker :P

EverettKings · #10 12-28-2005, 12:19 AM

Alright, this thing definitely dragged on for much longer than it should, but apparantly these ministeps were a real pain/bore to play so it took a few prods to get adanthar to finish these suckers but....

Adanthar busted. Sweeeeeeeeeeeet-- I mean, how unfortunate.

If you go to my
Ministep Calculator

you can tinker with a little applet I made to simulate the ministep challenge. It just takes your given bankroll and (based on the given percentages) simulates stepping through the levels until you either hit step 5 or don't have enough $$ to buy in any more. It does this a few thousand times (or however many times you tell it to) and spits out some data. Anyway.

I thought that the numbers that I gave Adanthar in that applet were quite generous, and he came out to be about 25% to succeed. I don't doubt that he's an outstanding tournament (and satellite) player, but a >1000% ROI is a little trickier to achieve than it seems.

I dealt with this stuff a whiiiiiiiile ago (when these ministeps were brand new) to figure out if they were worth playing. After playing a bunch to get a feel for my chances and running some numbers, I basically came to three conclusions:
1) The ROI is HUGE for a good player.
2) The variance on cashes is ENORMOUS and you need to really invest in this and be sure that you're a winner.
3) The number of games that you have to play is GINORMONSTROUS. For a strong player, on average, youll play about 80 games (mostly in the form of step 1 freerolls) for every step 5 entry that you earn. So that means 160 games per cash. Though you'll have only paid about 8 buy ins. Do the math and it's like $30-$40 bucks an hour, but considering the absurd variance, you'd have to be a very patient soul to play these properly.

I wish I could give some more satisfying numbers on Adanthar's performance (like finish distributions at each step, etc), but party is being stubborn loading the account activity so I'll give a quick synopsis (Adanthar will probably chime in later).
A) Adanthar ran badly. No doubt about that. But that's part of the intolerable variance of this little challenge.
B) He didn't get past ministep 3. He spent almost all (maybe 85%) of his steps on ministep 1.
C) I would gladly take this bet up again with anyone.

It's amazing how split the forum was on the outcome of this bet when it turned out to be so heavily one-sided (or so I still think). It just goes to show you how bad we people are, intuitively, at grasping fuzzy probabilities and understanding the depths of variance. Doing computations away from the table can help fine-tune your intuition, not to mention keep you from getting an ear full of cider.

Cheers,

Everett