Nearing Completion of Evaluation of RS system (not)

I'll take a stab at this:

Edge = the casino's advantage.
Odds = the chance of something happening
Short Term = less than the number of trials needed to overcome the variance for the expected results
Long Term = the number of trials needed to obtain the expected results.

That's because you're talking to recreational players where fun, and cocktails, are our primary objective and gives us a different perspective than someone who sees math as a primary component of the game. Like Snidely pointed out, good drink service is more important to a recreational player than a good pay table.


Edge = The advantage that one may have in a game. This could be do to skill and training in an athletic contest, or the design of the game like craps where the odds are in the house's favor. The edge can gained through nefarious means like rigging a game, collusion with a dealer, capping bets, etc, or through skill like card counting.

Odds = The mathematical expectation designed into the game. For sporting events, the edge is taken into account to try and calculate the most accurate odds. Otherwise, having an edge could overcome the odds.

Short Term = A single session, day, or even trip. I can get lucky and hit a jackpot before dinner. It could cause me to have a winning day. I may have a winning trip or have my bankroll decimated. Once the trip is over, the results are irrelevant. Vacation funds are made up of disposable income. Coming home flat broke or with a $1000 royal will have no effect on my life tomorrow.

Long Term = Results beyond a single trip to Vegas, as in "In the long term I will have winning and losing trips". The long term is unimportant beyond the concept of "You'll get them next time" after a losing trip.

Frank: if there are 2.6 million combinations of 52 cards, how can the long term be 1 million hands?

Flipping a coin has 2 outcomes. Is the long term 2 flips? The number of outcomes/combinations is not part of the equation. Variance is the concern. The higher the variance, the higher we need the number of trials/hands to be to approach long term. A higher variance VP game needs a higher number of hands to approach longer term play than a low variance game of VP.

English please. If there are 2.6 million different combinations how many times do I have to shuffle and deal from a deck of 52 cards to see all 2.6 million different hands??

What new information has come to your attention that causes you to ask this same question yet again?

OK, although I suspect you know the answer already, and forgot you've asked before, or perhaps are suffering from the early onset of Alzeheimer's.....

The 2.6 million you refer to is the actual number of different possible hands and the sequence the cards arrive in, using a standard 52 card deck.

For the purpose of poker, whether, (On the original deal) you receive Ah, Kh, Qh, Jh, 2c, or 2c, Jh, Qh, Kh, or Ah, or As, Ks, Qs, Js, 2h, you have the same hand as it relates to the possible draws, odds, etc.

The 2.6 million refers to the possible specific hands and the sequence in which the cards are received.

You know that the odds of being dealt a RF are approximately 624K. Yet, the odds of being dealt a specific RF in a specific sequence are approximately 2.6 million.

The question on the table wold seem to why about 1 million hands is considered "the long term" in video poker. As Kaypea and Snidely have already answered this I'd just like to add something.

It is a complex mathematical equation, nothing more nothing less. If you don't know it, explaining it here won't solve anything because of demographic exclusion. The people that know it, don't need it explained, and the people that would need it explained, would never understand it. It would have been covered in high-school statistics class, and if you've forgotten it then several months of study would be required to bring a person up to speed on just the concepts required to comprehend the equations.

Basically, if you even have to ask the question of why at 1 million hands one has about a 99% chance of being within + or - 1% of expectancy, we can't answer it in a way you'll understand. If you play VP seriously you shouldn't have to ask. And if you play VP seriously and still have to ask, you shouldn't be playing VP seriously.

Just know that when you see math savvy APs referring to "the long term" that's what they mean.

I tried to paste some of the functions into this post to illustrate, but apparently LVA can't handle the symbols. Here's an image of the function for statistical significance and error rate:





For anyone that wants this answered try wizardofodds. Michael may have some template responses ready to go. It's far too much to post here anyway.

The issue as Kaypea and Snidely stated is one of variance, not getting dealt every possible hand to which one would then need to get dealt every possible draw. A coin only has two sides, but how many sides it has does not determine how many times you need to flip it to be within 1% of the expected 50/50 ratio 99% of the time. This is done with a mathematical equation and is not subject to personal interpretation.

Here this might help: https://people.ccmr.cornell.edu/~ginsparg/INFO295/mh.pdf (or not!)

Thanks Roadtrip. But I consider long term to be all possible distict deals. I concede my definition differs from yours.
I've played about 165000 hands of VP this year. I have played VP for only about 8 years. In my early years I only playes a few thousand hands. My point: I am still a short term player after 8 years.

Kaypea order a few more drinks.

Why is the question even relevant to what we're discussing?