It doesn't even make sense to express EV that way in a cash game.

You recently expressed surprise at my 7% even against fish at 25bb so not sure why you expect to do better against a decent player at 20bb. Soah it's fine top treat it this way cause I'm pretty sure neither of them were reloading so it's pretty much afreezeout

20bi is probably reasonable for that gamble if you're feeling frisky. Following Kelly is a bad idea cause it assumes you're willing to go broke often in exchange for big wins.

I just won a spin and go having been down to just 10 chips

That's total nonsense regarding Kelly. Kelly explicitly avoids going broke ever. The Kelly model doesn't really apply to poker because it assumes you can pick any stake size any time you want, but not because of going broke.

If you're paying living expenses out of your bankroll, then you don't have to actually lose all of your bankroll gambling in order to go broke. Beyond a certain point you cannot afford to decrease stakes anymore while still paying the bills, and your risk of ruin becomes enormous.

Of course.

Like I say, you can't really use Kelly to directly calculate poker decisions, I only use it as a bit of a sense check. But arguably it's useless even for that. It's a mathematical rigorous optimal bet sizing for maximising profit growth *in a completely different scenario under completely different conditions*.

It's a decent model for something like horse racing where you can chose your bet sizing every time.

As it happens, aiui in trading even the smart quantitative traders don't actually use Kelly sizing. I think this is because your estimate of your edge is very subjective, and the Kelly sizing is very sensitive to changes, so they tend to use quarter Kelly or something iirc.

if you're using quarter kelly, how many people are gonna sit down and do the math vs just wing it and go, "eh, even if i'm a bit off, i'm pretty sure my wagers are still below full kelly"?

Quants.

I have no idea what or who kelly is but I'm pretty sure I don't want yet another thing to think about while I'm playing.

Ok I'll change my statement to catastrophic losses. Correct you will never go broke but you're much more likely to lose half your roll than most people are willing to risk. Plus your point about cognitive biases in win rates

No professional gambler would use full Kelly betting, because that assumes that the utility of every dollar won or loss is exactly the same. In the real world there are always diminishing returns on the utility of bankroll size and losing more than a certain amount of the bankroll is catastrophic. IIRC most would recommend betting somewhere between 10-25% of Kelly depending upon your tolerance for loss.

Of course, that assumes that your gambling bankroll is intertwined with your life bankroll. Obviously the utility issue is completely different if, for example, you're a college student on scholarship who learns to count cards for bonus income and your bankroll is provided courtesy of deep-pocketed investors who are primarily interested in maximizing EV and there is the potential for ongoing investment.

Plo is a sick game! Lost two ******ed hands tonight

Deets please. I haven't played in forever and this thread makes me feel okay about it.

I was sb button straddle to 25 I have aaxxds call 25 guy to my left makes it 100 two calls short stack makes it 200 I make it 925 two calls short stack goes all in for like 300 total. Flop a25 two diamonds one spade. Everyone gets the rest of the chips in. I had 1800 more one guy had 900 more one covered me. Turn spade river 4. Guy who covered me has qhjh3d5h and scoops.

This second hand isn't as bad. For some reason we start ante 15 with no blinds three handed. The one big fish has busted at this point. Lost like 14k.

I'm button first guy bets 45 call 45 I pot with some aces raiser calls other pots I shove like 1200 other guy like min raises (I'm kinda hazy at this point, maybe should have stopped playing!). Guy calls. Flop is 884. Goes check guy shoves like 4k guy calls. Guy who shoved has k883 or something.

I was down 4k! Thought I played a couple hands well and well in general. Pretty annoying being down 4k in a game where a guy lost 14k and won't be back anytime soon I assume.

where do you play pwns? a lot of spewy players it smells like

Home game. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not

I lost two grand more than those two hands but don't remember how!

Alright I think I'm gonna head to the wsop in June.. Any tips on the best way to save on accomodation? Do people just book with the big hotels with the wsop event receipt discount?

Tell the Cosmo that you're Anarchist.

Gonna be a tough day. Been here almist an hour. No playable hands. Took a bunch of benadryl and claritin. Can barely keep my eyes open.

Will be touching down in Vegas in a little over 10 hours. Will be spewing mostly at Bellagio but plan to play some PLO at Aria and hope to hit up The Wynn and a couple other places.