Frand I just played the interview back and there is so much I could comment on.
I lived in Vegas from 2002-2005 when I was self employed. I had been playing since about 1995 mostly in Reno/Tahoe, near the end of the coin feeding days, so I did experience a little of that. The personality type aspect I think is very key as to whether someone could play VP for a living. I could only play about a sustained 20 hours a week, and I think partially I was too focused as to results while I was playing, looking at results from each hand, expending too much emotional energy into it. I did try to not focus on results, but boredom set in almost immediately and all desire to play quickly would leave me. So hearing that you, Frank were willing to play without ongoing reinforcement confirms to me what I believe separates a true professional from an addicted player in disguise. I was comfortably bankrolled for quarters, and as a solo who made a reasonable effort to chase coupons and promos made about $20/hour and all the good food I could eat, and a few other things. I would be very surprised to hear things are as easy now as they were in 2002-2005, at least for a quarter player.
Also the concept of luck, patterns in the chaos, the needs to make sense out of something that makes no sense, all conquered in my own mind almost intuitively many years ago. I kept track of my own results, how well I performed 'against the odds', measurements of results as deviations from the norm, etc. - the concept that a person individually may barely be able to get into the 'long term' - someone has a 99% probability of obtaining a result that is within 1% of calculated EV after a million hands played . . .
I also wonder about inside gaffing of paytables (where the paytable as shown on the machine does not match the actual payout, in favor of the player) and certain machines or banks of machines could award an inordinate amount of points. What is the prevalence of 'error' machines. Are there ongoing plays of this nature. I would not expect to hear anyone comment on that.
And I am wondering just when the interview took place. Great interview, Frank. Thanks for providing it.
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Frank" <frank@...> wrote:
>
> Keeping the thread alive.
>
> I was surprised that no one commented on this interview.
>
> Did anyone get a chance to hear it?
>
> ~FK
>
