Bankroll vs Wins

[cddenver]

BTW, the RNGs do have imbedded hot/cold steaks but they pass over in a couple of seconds and have no real impact on our results. I can get into this in more detail if anyone is interested.

 
Sure, I'd like to hear more.  I'm not sure what you mean by "imbedded" streaks.  I keep records of hot/cold streaks during live play as well as my PC play, and haven't seen any meaningful differences between the two.  Maybe I'm just not looking close enough.
 

[shadowman]

The RNGs output random numbers even if you look at consecutive values. As such, they will have the same kind of hot and cold streaks that we all experience on the machines. There may be a sequence of 200K hands with no RF, or 40K hands with no quad aces, etc. You may see returns of 90% or less for strings of 10-30K hands. However, since it only takes a fraction of a second for the RNG to cycle through these hands it doesn't influence our results directly.
 
However, since we generate random sequences ourselves as we play, the fact that we are sampling only one hand out of millions that are possible every 4-5 seconds doesn't change the streakiness. We have the same potential to have these cold streaks. Once someone understands that a million possible hands flowed through the RNG between each hand they play it becomes easier to understand that not ALL of those hands could be bad and the machine is not the problem.
 
Naturally, both the machines and the players can have hot streaks as well. And, just like the cold streaks, it's really the player's and not the machine's streaks that determine our results.
 

[cddenver]

Oh, I see - I just didn't understand the initial comment.  I think what you're saying is that if going forward I decide to hit the button for each deal and draw 1 second later for every hand than I've done in the past there won't be any long term difference in my results.  I'll be dipping into a continuous RNG stream at different points than in the past.  Sometimes I'll get a more favorable result, sometimes a less favorable result - a long term "wash".  Right?

[shadowman]

Right.

[cddenver]

After thinking over my post, I came back here to "tweak" it, but you'd already replied.  So I'll "tweak" here:
 
As far as streaks (good or bad) go:
 
Let's say there were two me's, playing the same game with the same strategy.  Suppose, too, that our two machines had one common RNG, constantly kicking out RN's.  One "me" plays at a steady, constant rate of "x" hands per hour.  The other "me" also plays "x" hands per hour, but by playing some hands slower, and some faster.  Our hour-by-hour results will differ, but the differences will average out over time.  It's really the mathematics of a deck of cards at work - number of hands played leads to a certain number of good and bad runs.

[Webman]

If there are two you's playing at the same time, you could make more money doing something other than video poker. Like volunteering for science experiments.

[oej719]

Those science experiments don't pay all that well and are usually short term.

[shadowman]

I just lost my train of thought after reading webman's reply. However, assuming one of you is really a mini-you (mini-me to you) I think you could also make more money in the movies ...
 
Ok, getting serious, you are absolutely correct. As long as you're working with any sequence of randomly generated numbers (same or different RNG)  it doesn't matter how you sample them (that is, play a hand).  Over time it averages out to the mean (what we call expected return).
 
It's not obvious to everyone but it is true. You can (randomly) skip over lots of the random numbers and the sequence you see is still random.

[cddenver]

If there are two you's playing at the same time, you could make more money doing something other than video poker. Like volunteering for science experiments.
 
(Laughing) I was originally going to say something like, "if I was split into two me's...".  Decided not to, because I thought the mental image was too icky.  Plus, each "me" would only have one arm, and that would slow our play down.  Could do a front/back split, but then only one of us would have the eyeballs - the other one wouldn't be able to see the screen. 

[cddenver]

I just lost my train of thought after reading webman's reply. However, assuming one of you is really a mini-you (mini-me to you) I think you could also make more money in the movies ...
 
I think Webman's mad at me because in the "lucky charm" thread I implied that his pet elephant isn't potty-trained, and that's why the casinos won't let him bring it in...so his comment was payback.
 
Now, back to business.  I think that what you and I are both saying is that good and bad streaks average out over time to the ER, and that they're due to the mathematics of a deck of cards on any combination of machines operating in a random manner over time.  I'm one of those people who tracks all my nice hits (including time intervals), and each year I end up with the same graph showing their distribution over time.  The "how I get there" varies each year, but I always end up with the same good/bad percentages.