NFL Forum

The human element

Posted By: John May
Date: 26 Aug 01, 2:34 pm

In Response To: I'm sorry but... (StevieY)

this isn't BJ.

You don't seem to understand how we assess blackjack advantage completely. Many deck compositions associated with certain true counts do not have the advantage suggested by the true count. The classic example is where you remove every ten from the pack which gives you a very negative count-yet the player following optimal strategy actually has an advantage. So our assessment of advantage at blackjack is not perfect either. We use a conservative approximation of Kelly according to the variance of our estimates.

Tell me how you can look at each game you take and say I have X% advantage?

If you can't tell me that, then you don't know whether your advantage is positive or negative. If you don't know whether your advantage is positive or negative you would be better not betting at all.

They are human games, played by guys who think(or sometimes not think), by guys who roll out of bed in the morning feeling like shit(or feeling great).

None of which makes any difference provided you don't have any specific information about it. These are random elements which cancel each other out. I might also point out that many blackjack shuffles bias cards in new-deck order to some extent changing the raw odds of the game-does this invalidate optimal betting theory? No.

You can determine you have an edge, but you can't determine what the edge is.

In math terms that just does not make sense. If you can discriminate enough to tell that your advantage is >0% then you can tell where your advantage lies-its impossible to have one without the other. You won't be able to say that your advantage is 4.13%, but you can say it lies between, for example, 2-10%, and then calculating your optimal bet is easy.

I know a guy(one of my old baseball coaches) who hit a solid 56.3% of his NFL bets for 11 years(one losing year, he hit exactly 50%). Anyone would be happy with that. Well sports change over time, and he couldn't adjust his old way of thinking. His next(and last) 6 years, not one winning season, and he hit 46.7% of his bets.

A good point-one which makes me extremely nervous about expensive touting services-but it does not follow that bet capping is the answer to the problem. Your coach should have just stopped betting period. Granted he probably didn't know that he no longer had the edge-but the sensible handicapper would factor this probability into his bets. He would not "cap" his bets-how would that have helped him? He'd downgrade all his bets.

There are too many variables to deal with when humans get involved, that's why it will never be an exact science(they always say Secretariat would have never lost a race if he wasn't handled by humans).

Probability proceeds on the basis of known informnation. If you don't know something then forget it. Concentrate on the things you can predict.

Messages In This Thread

The Book: Sharp Sports Betting -- Joseph P -- 23 Aug 01, 11:01 am

Short answer -- Don Schlesinger -- 23 Aug 01, 12:43 pm

over-evaluation -- rainmandon -- 23 Aug 01, 1:12 pm

Can't agree with that -- John May -- 23 Aug 01, 4:27 pm

John is dead on. -- Fezzik -- 24 Aug 01, 11:59 pm

Wrong -- StevieY -- 25 Aug 01, 11:42 am

For newcomers to this page, . . . -- Don Schlesinger -- 25 Aug 01, 11:50 am

I'm sorry but -- John May -- 26 Aug 01, 1:45 am

I'm sorry but... -- StevieY -- 26 Aug 01, 10:32 am

The human element -- John May -- 26 Aug 01, 2:34 pm

the crux, IMO -- Colin Caster -- 26 Aug 01, 4:57 pm

More nonsense -- Don Schlesinger -- 27 Aug 01, 8:14 am

A proof -- John May -- 28 Aug 01, 11:10 am

Grown-ups???? -- Don Schlesinger -- 28 Aug 01, 11:49 am

ok ok -- fezzik -- 28 Aug 01, 12:00 am

My approach should work for you -- Stanford Wong -- 23 Aug 01, 5:38 pm

This is terribly wrong -- Kim Lee -- 23 Aug 01, 7:30 pm

Kim Lee, I recognize you from bj21 -- Compador -- 24 Aug 01, 12:40 am

Why sports betting is brutal -- Kim Lee -- 24 Aug 01, 8:10 am

re: poker -- docriver -- 24 Aug 01, 8:30 am

Blackjack, poker, sports -- Kim Lee -- 24 Aug 01, 8:51 am

bj -- docriver -- 24 Aug 01, 9:58 am

Playing level -- Kim Lee -- 24 Aug 01, 12:50 pm

Question to Kim Lee from a novice?? -- big nguyen -- 24 Aug 01, 12:01 pm

Reducing Vigorish and Scalping -- Kim Lee -- 24 Aug 01, 1:17 pm

Your well on your way to winning -- Fezzik -- 24 Aug 01, 11:53 pm

Further explanation requested. -- samo666 -- 25 Aug 01, 2:08 am

1st half betting -- fezzik -- 26 Aug 01, 10:28 pm

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