I agree that if we get into the death spiral of discussing infinity then any venture of any risk at all will eventually be doomed.

Please lets not talk about Martingale either, I just ate.

Let me ask this question to put this back on track. How much would you need to be laid for you to consider it a beneficial position to stake me against durrr in his challenge? This, with the stipulation that I am not all that good at Omaha and I do not multi-table really at all.

My position is that there is no chance whatsoever. Ergo, there is no amount that you could be laid for this to be a favorable position. Even in the very limited (comparative to the infinite) number of hands he will quickly figure me out and exploit me as though I would appear a small man fighting a giant.

I might also argue that over a long enough time scale, it all really does not matter that much anyway. I want to be a good man, and leave the world a bit better for me having been here. Though I don't think the effect will be much in a hundred years and it will be nothing in 15 billion years for sure.

Thanks for the sentiments sir.

If I'm being ******ed, I'm not being Martingale-******ed. At least not intentionally.

+EV poker results can be simplified to a biased random walk where the odds of +1 are > than the odds of -1. This walk isn't guaranteed to return to the origin (unless P(+1)=P(-1)=.5). I believe I've seen the result for a biased walk in 1-d that the probability of returning to the origin is 1 - (p-q) where p is the probability of a positive step and is >=.5. If it equals .5, then you come back to the origin with probability 1, which is well-known. If p>.5, which corresponds to being +EV, then the odds of return are less than 1, and go to 0 as p -> 1. Maybe I'm on crack, but the general properties of that result make sense to me.

I don't know about the semantics, but I'd say that if I have the choice to 1) go to law school or 2) become a pro poker player, taking option 2 is something of a gamble.

He's not saying that your bankroll starts limited. He's saying that your bankroll has an absolute limit (ie it can never go above n). Given this condition, as you will eventually have a downswing of at least n, you will eventually bust.

If you get to continually increase the size of your bankroll, your ROR can approach a number much lower than 1 (though I don't believe it can ever approach 0).

I suspect you are far from being addled sir! LOL This makes sense to me. A random walk is random, that is true. My thinking would be that distribution would have had time to normalize over time. I see that does not make that much sense now. There is still a bell curve, but it can be anywhere. But, this describes a fair game really. Poker is a negative sum game that some players have an advantage in. Over a longer dataset the expectation will be more and more likely. Of course the individual expectation varies from situation to situation and you can never know exactly what your EV is at that moment. It is a thinker, but I think it is clear that what is likely gets more likely.

Madnak, you are another of the SMP folks whose opinion I value. I would propose that both are certainly a risk. You may go through all that work, get your J.D. and then not pass the Bar. You may not get a job, or have a lucrative practice. You may be a slave positioning yourself for partner and you get screwed because of office politics that is no fault of your own, and never make it. You may wake up even though you are making lots of money and realize you are an ambulance chasing scumbag and curl up in the fetal position and cry yourself to sleep every night.

I think it would a far better prop for most people to have a career in law as well. I'm just sayin' LOL ; )

Fair point; in some sense life itself is a gamble. I do think poker can be a consistently profitable career.

The only difference between playing poker professionally and starting a business is that in poker you can know you have an edge.

In poker you can only know that you had an edge in the past, but what if many of the weak players in the games quit or improve, and are not replaced by new ones?

Not really. First, you'd have a fairly hard time knowing that in advance, before you embarked on your career. Luckily its a lot lower cost to run a start-up poker business than most other businesses, so its not as risky. But most of the people that "know" they have an edge are unsuccessful pros.

I think you'd have a pretty tough time making the argument that poker is a "good" job, in any sense. But if you enjoy it, and you are good at it, then go nuts.

Discipline, TimM, and Vhawk01,

I have been giving this issue a great deal of thought over the last couple of days and have developed some thoughts on this aspect.

My sense is that:

We have different expectations against every player.
We have different expectations against each player based on the situation. Perhaps we play one game better than another with them. This is subdivided to our ability to play different streets better or worse in relation to the different player. Less skilled players play preflop in Hold 'em for example far better than they play latter streets. So the EV is in flux for that.
We have different expectations against each individual player based on many different factors....independently and in whole which defines the EV at a given moment. For example we can all accept, that tilt, sleep, blood sugar (which I have discovered to be extremely important since I first noticed this a couple of years ago), loneliness, distraction, sexual satiation, mood/general emotional comfort (which in itself varies drastically with our level the emotional intelligence capacity to self soothe), physical comfort, and perhaps other factors, change EV. I suggest it affects us to different degrees against specific players, and all of these factors and more are in constant flux. By independently and in whole means the factor means something by itself, as well as in relationship to the others and the whole.
Further I argue that these different factors have a different value, and have a different value in relationship to the other values that is different for YOU than it is for any other player. My blood sugar may trump many more factors than TimM, maybe vhawk01 can't do anything without sleep but can soothe himself off tilt far better than madnak, maybe madnak can't play at all unless he has the has gotten to hang around with his friends, and I can but can't play without the comfort of my teddy bear (Mr. Neocon). Just kidding on that last bit, but you get the idea, I'm sure.

Cliffs: I think EV is a constant state of flux that can never be known in the moment. It is only a mere approximation that can only be generalized over time as an average of many different predicating EV factors, and while it can be useful it can never truly be known. And that is from the past!!

PS I think you can have some idea what your expectation might be in future based on previous results, but the window must be small since the way that the game is played is in a state of constant flux.

Every decision is a gamble
life is a gamble (5 to 4 against I hear)

I value your opinion quite a bit too chezlaw! I am not sure if I miss the cricketer with the bizarre expression or not really.

I think we are a slightly bigger favorite to not get out of this life alive. imo

Thanks, ripped it from Tony Holdens Book 'Big Deal' so I dont deserve credit. If you havent read that one do. Its a great read....

How is someone that is -EV gambling when someone who is +EV not?

+EV is not gambling because in the long run variance smooths out and they come out with their expected value
-EV is not gambling because in the long run variance smooths out and they come out with their expected value

The difference between the two is one loses money, and one wins. So why is one a gambler and the other not? Is it because they both expect to win?

But you are! No harm meant.

I tend agree with vhawk as well. Most people simply do not appreciate the role chance plays in their daily and overall lives. Just because there are no visible numbers or cards attached to the risks they take on a daily basis means that they see their choices and activities as having no element of chance in it.

The key issues lie in the cultural, societal and psychological domains. It's not a nutty view as you may think. Gambling i.e., monetary risk-taking in the format of entertainment for the purpose of gain is a cultural negative, so any activity, like poker, which so happens to share quite the exact characteristics of gambling will be seen in the same light. Would poker still be poker if there was no money involved? I think, yes.

I'll bet you a dollar to a dime that if the stock market was viewed by society like some corporate game (which it is) the same way poker is a game (which it is also), then brokers and traders will be lumped in the same class as gamblers and degenerates. Surely, you can't be oblivious as to why the realm of gambling is pejoratively treated?

I understand what you mean, and I disagree. I imagine I am extremely sophisticated compared to the general population about probability no? I think we have a very very similar view and disagree on what terms to apply to the concepts. I think people that engage in risky behavior should be lovingly admonished for doing what will hurt them and make them less happy. What I have done is not irresponsible, nor worthy of castigation in my view. I think the term is negative. I want kids to learn to play poker, BECAUSE I want them to learn these mathematical concepts, and many more. Calling it gambling I think takes away from what can be a great learning experience. I may be a bit too sensitive about it really though. I do find it repugnant though.

I think the Bankers and Stock Market guys are getting their whipping now that they have long deserved. ; ) They may be less popular than us soon! LOL

I think its because they both expect to win. If we are going to play along and use "gambling" as a pejorative, then it should only be gambling when you are doing something you cant win in the long run, but that you mistakenly fritter away your cash on hoping to hit a big score or something.

I really dont know, just guessing.

Gullianan and vhawk01,

I think the crux of the matter is one is playing a parlay and one is strategically investing. If the strategic investor uses sound financial planning, he should not have any statistically feasible way of losing money over time if they have realistically evaluated their position in advance. Someone that is playing a parlay is simply hoping to be fortunate on a random walk that will eventually doom them if they do not quit when up.

No strategy, Martingale or otherwise is going to nullify the fact that -EV is by definition a losing position over time. I am happy to call that gambling and castigate it as foolish. I think it is the difference between expecting to win, and hoping to win. I suppose it is well possible that some sad -EV souls may even expect to win, but that is just too sad for me to ponder at the moment.

Gambling, IMO, implies that you have a long term negative expectation but can come out ahead in the short term.

Billy Baxter famously won this argument against the IRS, which argued that poker should be taxed at a higher level because it is unearned income. To quote the judge "I find the government's argument to be ludicrous. I just wish you had some money and could sit down with Mr. Baxter and play some poker."

http://www.cardplayer.com/cardplayer...he-irs-and-won

In other words, when Billy plays it isn't gambling, when I play it is.

It is certain this person will go bust in infinite time.

No, if his bankroll continues to increase by 1 billion for each win, it is highly unlikely that he will ever go bust.

I'm almost sure that the answer is no. If he wins the first flip, his odds of ever busting afterwards should be astronomical. If he loses the first flip, obviously he's done immediately.

Is golf gambling?

http://opimweb.wharton.upenn.edu/doc...nal_CHANCE.pdf