Well said, and I'm confident that the majority of readers of vpFree, myself included are in the exact same situation.
Regards
A.P.
From: mailto:vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, July 03, 2015 7:28 AM
To: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [vpFREE] Re: Bob Dancer's LVA - 30 JUN 2015
Some posts found in the digest, and my responses...
"The bigger the edge the more the luck comes out of ones thinking. "
Of course - and in fact, luck should never be part of one's thinking; it is not something which can be modified by thinking; spend the effort on thinking about game selection and correct play
" rather be good, luck can take care of itself ... Bad luck ? not to me, plan on playing some more NSUD in the future lol"
The above quote was from a report of playing a game with a player edge, but losing for the session. That IS "bad luck" although the report was not VERY bad luck. Nevertheless, if the expectation is to make money due to a player edge, and the outcome is to lose, that is what the element of chance is all about. Doesn't mean that you didn't have fun (esp. if comps made it a pleasant event, and even moreso if the value of those comps to the player outweighed the small loss).
">skill and discipline are often small factors compared to random events/luck."
Sometimes they are small factors, but they are ALWAYS the only factors over which one has any control, as per the response...
"I don't see the point of saying this. No one has any control over
luck, so, no matter how much of a factor it plays in results, it can't
be relevant."
It IS relevant to outcome, but it should never be relevant to game selection and an effort to play correctly and without errors.
My whole earlier post was simply in response to someone who posted that in the long run, if playing with an edge, one "always" wins -- which is simply mathematically untrue. Perhaps there was simply an unintentional use of the word "always" when the intent was to say "almost always".
If there is indeed an element of randomness in the game, then there is a mathematical possibility of losing, no matter how many hands are played. That possibility may become so small that after the decimal point, you write zeroes until you run out of paper, but somewhere out there is a real number that makes the possibility greater than zero that you might lose, even if the far larger number is the probability that you will win.
And remember, I said I'd rather be lucky than good, but that I have no control over "lucky" so saying that is meaningless in terms of how I conduct myself; the only thing over which I have control is game selection and my play.
And in full honesty and disclosure, I will admit that, for a variety of reasons, perhaps the greatest of which is that I'm not a professional counting on VP for income, I often play with "the worst of it". I'm a recreational player, so I can choose to do that, but I'd be a fool if I thought I was playing with an edge when I'm not. I think there are many players on this list that are in that same category, and will readily admit it.
If it's fun, I'll still play, although I sure don't think it's a good idea to put in long hours with a negative expectation, and I most definitely want to do all I can to make sure the cost I'm choosing to incur when playing is not very great. I can calculate what my expected cost of playing is, and I SHOULD do so, and I should only play if I'm willing to incur that cost in exchange for whatever enjoyment I get from playing.
If I were relying on VP for a living, I would have to conduct my game selection in an altogether different way, and I would be foolish not to invest the time to improve my skills to add another tenth of a percent to my edge -- and I know that.
--BG===============
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