Are there any circumstances, assuming you are in good health, where risking your life is +ev?

If so, what?

police,fireman,and so many other professions risk their lives.

I'd think that any situation with a high probability of death or death was certain, it would be very +EV to do something that would typically be defined as "risking your life". Such as skydiving and your chute won't open and you are faced with where to land (impact): Water, Dirt, Rocks or you can try to fall/glide your way toward another diver.

But, I think you're refering to a situation where risking your own life when it is already NOT at risk. If this is the case, something like a loved one is held hostage in front of you and you know you can free them most of the time (say 90%) but there is a 25% chance you will die regardless of the outcome. In a situation like this, it's only +EV if it is worth it to you to risk that 1 in 4 change to save your loved one.

+EV for whom or what?

There's no value in risking death. Life has value, death does not.

I am sure you've meant "giving" not just "risking". Because there could hardly be found real big +EV without risking your life in a certain - even if microscopic - amount.

This forum was great when it first opened, and now it's devolved into some eclectic mix of "General Poker Questions", bad OOT topics, and S/M/P threads that in most cases aren't all that interesting.

Well since I am a couch potato, online poker playing, anti-global warming slug doing no good for the world, then perhaps if I took a bullet for Al Gore, it would be +EV for humanity.

i dont understand how people can say theres no value in risking your life. so many people sign up for the military to risk death for a cause they believe in. there is almost certainly an amount of money that could do more good than their services could do. if you believe there is no cause worth dying for, then that is because you cannot find a cause worthy. it is an innate human characteristic to have the capacity to die for something you believe in. your disposition that risking your life cannot be worth any amount of money is specific to your situation.

Yeah driving places and doing anything.

I agree w/UMTerp that this is disappointing.

Death is inevitable. A decent quality of life is not. It's a matter of personal choice where someone draws the line of risk/reward.

There is a better way to phrase this question. It's a well known test of statistics students' idiocy, apparently. Read it recently on this blog, I think: http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/mlm/

Something like: how much cash would make you accept a 1/20000 chance of immediate death?

My correct answer ('my answer' because we have to be intolerably conceited in this forum, I understand) is "the smallest amount of cash that means something to me... about 60 quid, which I can buy sex with."

Apparently many students would decline any amount of cash!

I think life insurance policys have a term beyond which a suicide's benificiaries will collect, so you can get into situations where the proceeds would exceed the projected income and thus be plus EV to the estate.

go ahead and put a dollar value on your life, then, sure, there's potential EV in High Stakes Russian Roulette

Clearly not true. Since logically this is equivalent to:

There's no value in risking money. Money has value, the absence of money (since death is just the absence of life) does not.

It depends on your win rate and bankroll. LOL. Guy.

I suggest you run it six times to reduce variance.

looolll.

its tough to put into words
but i had this burrito once
that was to die for!

Uhh.. so do you think there is value in risking money or what?

If you never risk your life, then your life is probably not worth enough not to risk it.