Luck vs Skill vs Players?

[stevel96a1]

i know this is a small sample size but in the past 5 trips my wife has been the winner and i the loser. i actually practice on software on the computer to tutor me and yet i have not hit anything big and our trips consist of roughly 8-12 gambling x 5 maybe 55ish hours of gamblingshe does ask a few questions to which is best cards to hold if its a new game i always bring my tablet to the gaming house incase i get stuck (and my phone)my last trip  i was disgusted on how long my 80$ lasted playing quarters i shake my head and let my wife play on and she was holding her own never going up never going down  and  i was thinking what was i doing? is she the better player? or was i a victim of bad variance?if anyone has anything similar to my trips where their friends/family results seem skewed id like to hear it

[FloridaPhil]

Welcome to the world of having a lucky wife.    My wife and I play VP together.  We sometimes pool our money.  Often one of us has a big run and the other has a terrible losing spell.  Last year my wife couldn't lose and I couldn't win.  This year it's reversed.   Individual short term results are sometimes frustrating, but meaningless.You brought up a great subject in "variance".    I never play Double Double Bonus for money.  I do play it on this website for free.  I play the full pay 10/6 game.  You would think this is an impossible to lose game at 100.067%.  Not true.   Try it some time...

[markinca]

People really don't understand the concept of small sample sizes. A tiny house edge will not manifest itself over a single VP trip, period.

Like, the house edge in a typical blackjack game is about 1% (assuming you play optimally), and has lower variance than video poker. But do you win every time you play blackjack? Of course not. Do you win even most of the times you play? No. So why would you expect this out of VP, whose variance is even higher?

[FloridaPhil]

One of the hardest lessons to learn about VP is you have to lose some of the time so you can win at other times.   Losing is part of the game of VP.   That doesn't make it any easier.

[ravenbynight111]

skill is always advantage if all things are equal,but in gambling it always does not work that way. Its like a vp machine with a good payout odds,or weak payouts,but the weak machine is hot that day.

[markinca]

Losing is part of the game of VP.  


I don't think most rec players _truly_ understand this. They see that they hit a 2000 credit quad, and think wow, what a great win! Well, the reason you win 2000 credit quads is because you're expected to be down 2000 credits at some point. Those jackpots are built into the return, which is (usually) negative even after those jackpots are taken into account.

[FloridaPhil]

Learning to lose is tough.   I had a very hard time with it myself.   Eventually you learn that losing is part of the game and you deal with it or you quit.   The cure, if there is one, is to have a bankroll big enough to weather your losses and play at a level where you can tolerate the swings.

[stevel96a1]

People really don't understand the concept of small sample sizes

Im not sure if you read the entire post but i will say again i knew it was a small sample size.

I do now believe different players yield different results in a honest fair vp game

I should hold judgement after 100 trips but i won't. My wife is 4 winners and 1 loser i am the opposite of that.

If i adopted Florida Phil system sooner i would not have been down the hole as much as i am now.

You can call me voodoo but i strongly believe a machine played alot needs to spit out certaon hands sooner more than later what goes up must come down right?
A balancement as it were. Not really sure what maintain that balance if its the player or the machine

[Eduardo]

If you flip a coin a million times (actually, much much less), it will come extremely close to an average of 50% heads and 50% tails. You can count on the fact that nobody will ever flip 80% heads with a fair coin and toss over a million flips.  The variance becomes very small relatively quickly. Once you've flipped a thousand times, even 10 heads in a row won't affect the percentage very greatly from then on.You might flip heads 10 times in a row or be 80% / 20% early on , but eventually the tails will balance out.Is it because the coin changes?Is it because the player starts flipping the coin differently?Or is it because of statistical tendencies and the wonder of mathematics, which is not the cause of the next flip, but a scientific analysis of past results as well as a reliable guide to future expectations?

[markinca]

People really don't understand the concept of small sample sizes

Im not sure if you read the entire post but i will say again i knew it was a small sample size.

You say you know what sample sizes mean, and then later in the exact same post you wonder if you are doing something wrong because you lost $80 quickly and your wife didn't.

$80. Seriously.

You don't know what small sample sizes mean.