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Originally Posted by FieryJustice
Mason,
Why do you think that someone who asks the question "I hate losing. What can I do about that?" should be assumed to have a high win rate?
Do you think this is a reading comprehension issue? You can't even be bothered to spell my name right and your most recent book was littered with typos.
Do you think it is the inability to relate to the common poker player? I promise your social group is drastically different than the common $1/$2 player.
Perhaps you are just trying to cause a ruckus in order to stay relevant. I understand your disappointment that your recent book only has 2.5 stars on Amazon and is not even in their top 100 poker books.
There you go with the insults. For someone who's now taking part in writing books about psychology, it seems like you're the one who needs some assistance in controling your emotions.
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So the hand full readers of this forum are aware, just because a large win rate is possible at the smallest live games does not mean the average novice has that win rate. I would venture to say that the vast majority of small stakes players over-estimate their win rate.
If so few people read this forum, why do you even bother to come on here to defend yourself. And novice players probably don't have positive win rates. However, if someone becomes serious about their poker game and does the proper work to get better, their win rates in small stakes games can quickly go up -- it doesn't take 10,000 hours, one of the silly things that you associated yourself with. So there's the answer to your question.
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Given you claim to be excellent at math, how do you not definitively know the risk of ruin associated with your bankroll formula? That strikes me as odd.
My bankroll formula is based on certain statistical assumptions. The answer to your question is explained in my
Gambling Theory book which was first published 30 years ago. And by the way, I do have two degrees in math, both from Virginia Tech.
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The term "embrace variance" in my opinion means that you should play the style that leads to the highest possible win rate, within reason (which is not what many amateurs do).
You need to read the section in my
Gambling Theory book on "Non-Self-Weighting Strategies." You would see this is exactly the idea which is addressed there. By the way, are you aware that "embracing variance" as you call it, from a statistical point of view reduces the sample size (and that's why the variance goes up). Also, in this book there's discussion, among many other things, as to why an expert player, starting with the same size bankroll, is more likely to go broke than a good player, and why, in general, those strategies which increase your expectation usually come with a price of a higher standard deviation (or short term luck factor). And again, all of this was released to the gambling population 30 years ago.
Also, the idea that expert players do things to lower their standard deviation, as well as some examples, is addressed in my psychology book. Why do you think people multi-table? and over time, what happens to the standard deviation relative to your expectation?
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I could have certainly been much more clear in my one paragraph reply in the CardPlayer article. I was unaware at the time that it would be dissected and taken out of context. Obviously all pros try to minimize variance as it minimizes their risk of ruin. This is not a ground-breaking concept.
As someone who had a career as a professional statiistician for almost 12 years, I didn't think any of the stuff I did was that ground breaking. What surprised me, in the early and mid 1980s, was that no statistician had yet to come through poker/gambling and that there were very few players who understood any of this stuff.
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Hopefully this has all been cleared up for the readers of the forum so they can move on to more productive activities.
MM