Expected Loss for DDB

[backsider]

Another intrusion by New2vp just to see how much he can say. Too bad he cant measure how little anyone reads his rambles. Frank, it looks like well never be on the same page and thats ok with me. You may have tons of experience because of team play outcomes or whatever you call it, but when you try to explain things to me youre only quoting from the theory books and no more. OTOH, all Ive done is say what Ive experienced, then wondered how I could have done any better with a better pay table. When you claim I would have made a few thousand more had I played 9/6 instead of 9/5, thats theory. No one knows what would have happened, up to and including being dealt a rf. I know exactly what Im doing when I play a poor pay table, just as the hot shots do when they waste all day looking for and finally playing a better one. Either way, Im not dumb enough to sit at any machine for long long hours for it to make any difference, and like I said, the advantage-play gamblers will almost always pour those extra credits right back into the machines before they leave, netting the same results as I would.

[Frank Kneeland]

@New2vp While I understand everything you said and agree with it, I was trying to keep it simple for people that don't even understand what a normal distribution really is. I hope you haven't confused people by trying to be hyper accurate, but I appreciate your desire for absolute accuracy.My intent was to talk using generalizations and to keep actual equations out of it.You also didn't seem to understand what I was saying when I said, "While being the most probably outcome, the stated expectancy is also the
least likely, because it has to be taken in context of ALL the possible
outcomes, of which it is but one."What I meant is that when you look at all the possible things that can happen, (doing worse/doing better) the most surprising result would be doing EXACTLY as expected. In 24 years that's never happened to me yet. I apologise if I worded it badly.Keep up the good work, but remember your audience. There is little point preaching to the choir, and if you get too technical only the choir will be able to understand you.~FK

[Frank Kneeland]

I'll keep this short and simple.When you claim I would have made a few thousand more had I played 9/6 instead of 9/5, thats theory.It's a theory that becomes fact the first Full House you hit.If you can't understand that, then there's nothing more I can say.As always you have my best wishes and lunch is on me if you ever visit. I can even introduce you to some of my team mates. You'd like them. Cheers...

[New2vp]

Another intrusion by New2vp just to see how much he can say. Too bad he cant measure how little anyone reads his rambles.It is clear that your understanding of the word "intrusion" is little better than your understanding that having 30 coins is better than having 25 coins of the same denomination.My post was the original answer to the person who started the thread, confiming his calculations.  Your posts, not so much.

[Frank Kneeland]

@New2VP and everyone ERRATAGood catch on the "Full Houses" That should of course have read "Flushes". I even did the math for Full Houses so everything is slightly off.The concepts being discussed were unaffected by the error, so I'm not going to go back and bother fixing them.~FK

[Frank Kneeland]

JUST @New2VP. If you think the distribution of VP results is odd and divergent from a normal distribution, you should try looking at progressives. It's even weirder. I can see no point to discussing this in public forum as we'd be the only people interested in the thread. Cheers...

[Frank Kneeland]

Just for laughs:Copper Wire Discovered
After having
dug to a depth
of 10 feet
last year
outside of 
Vancouver,
B.C.
scientists
found traces
of copper
cable dating
back 100
years. They
came to the
conclusion
that their
ancestors
already had a
telephone
network more
than 100 years
ago.

Not to be
outdone by
Vancouver, in
the weeks that
followed, a
Toronto,
Ontario
archaeologist
dug to a depth
of 20 feet
somewhere just
outside
Trenton.
Shortly after,
a story in the
Toronto Sun
read: “
Toronto
archaeologists
report a
finding of 200
year old
copper cable,
have concluded
that their
ancestors
already had an
advanced
high-tech
communications
network a
hundred years
earlier than
Vancouver."

One week
later, a local
newspaper
in Saskatchewan
reported the
following:
"After digging
down about 30
feet deep in
his pasture
near the
community
of Dodsland,
SK. Eddie, a
self-taught
archaeologist,
reported that
he found
absolutely
nothing. Eddie
has therefore
concluded that
300 years
ago, Saskatchewan
had already
gone
wireless".

Just makes a
person proud
to be
from Saskatchewan.

[New2vp]

You also didn't seem to understand what I was saying when I said, "While being the most probably outcome, the stated expectancy is also the
least likely, because it has to be taken in context of ALL the possible
outcomes, of which it is but one."What I meant is that when
you look at all the possible things that can happen, (doing worse/doing
better) the most surprising result would be doing EXACTLY as expected.
In 24 years that's never happened to me yet. I apologise if I worded it
badly.You are correct; as written I did not understand it.Unfortunately if you had said something like,
"Of all the thousands of possible outcomes, doing exactly as expected is
most likely, but out of the 3 outcomes, (a) doing better, (b) doing
worse, or (c) doing exactly as expected, (c) is the least likely," I
would have better realized what you meant...but I would have still
criticized it...because out of all the thousands of possible outcomes,
it was NOT the most probable, as shown on the graph.  That was one of my points.@New2vp While I understand everything you said and agree with it, I was trying to keep it simple for people that don't even understand what a normal distribution really is. I hope you haven't confused people by trying to be hyper accurate, but I appreciate your desire for absolute accuracy.My intent was to talk using generalizations and to keep actual equations out of it.Keep up the good work, but remember your audience. There is little point preaching to the choir, and if you get too technical only the choir will be able to understand you.Frank, the audience is comprised of all sizes and shapes.  See the DW Bankroll thread.  There I kept it simple and someone needed more detail for which I obliged.  And I obliged with something that is not readily available in any detail in many video poker books.Here, in this thread, part of my audience was you.  Sometimes simple is simply wrong and leads to incorrect understanding.  This is not the first time I have seen misuse of the normal distribution, whether one "muddies" up the waters by calling it that or not.  Clearly, when you say things like 50% of the time you do better than expectation and 50% you do worse, someone who is really new to video poker might think he is doing something wrong when he only wins 30% of the time on breakeven plays after reading that an expert author says he should do better than expected 50% of the time.And I'm not certain that someone would better understand expected value after reading your first three points than what I wrote, but I understand that I could be wrong.  I agree that more will read your abbreviated points than will read my longer missive; if so, I believe they will end with an incorrect understanding, but I could be wrong there as well.  I would rather leave both out there and give people a choice.Outside of your use of the normal distribution, I know you know what you mean, but it is also important that you actually say what you mean if you expect others to understand it.  And I presume you know that I will be okay with my understanding regardless of what you write.  But it was for the precise audience that you were concerned about that I made the points that I did.  I was more critical of your writing than I am of others precisely because others will give more weight to what an expert says.  Will my writing confuse more than it helps?  I guess I don't know.  Wordy yes, but considerably more accurate.I do admit that in the course of world events, it really matters little, but I had some extra time to kill, so I figured what the heck.

[New2vp]

JUST @New2VP. If you think the distribution of VP results is odd and divergent from a normal distribution, you should try looking at progressives. It's even weirder. I can see no point to discussing this in public forum as we'd be the only people interested in the thread. Cheers...
Especially if the progressive were for a sequential royal flush...in hearts....on the redraw.I am a fan of that story.

[Frank Kneeland]

@ everyone except New2VPFor the audience out there, what New2VP said about VP not holding to a normal distribution is absolutely correct. And he is further correct that my use of the coin flip for winning or losing was in fact poetic license. It's not exactly 50/50, your results are more likely to be to the negative.We are both saying approximately the same thing and New2VP is saying it with greater accuracy.~FK