Quantifying Good & Bad Decisions

Quantifying Good & Bad Decisions
(as they pertain to video poker)

We've all heard the arguments that good outcomes do not validate or invalidate bad decisions and visa versa. What is less talked about is exactly how bad a bad decision is in video poker, or how good your chances are of success if you do everything right. It's about time we rectify that.

WARNING! MATH KNOWLEDGE REQUIRED

Hypothetical situation:

You take two groups of one hundred people and bankroll them to play 1,000,000 hands of dollar video poker each. Group A will play a game with 99% return and a standard deviation of + or - 1% at 1 million hands. Group B will play a game with 101% return and a standard deviation of + or - 1% at 1 million hands. We can say that:

1.Group A is making a BAD decision
2.Group B is making a GOOD decision

The question is how good and how bad???

Question 1: Of the 100 people playing the inferior game, how many would still be expected to win because of chance alone?

Question 2: And of the people playing the positive expectancy game, how many out of the 100 would still be expected to lose due to chance alone?

One should be able to answer this question with only basic high-school math. In fact if you received an education in America all the knowledge required to solve it was required for graduation.

It's fine to say one game is bad and the other is better, now let's quantify how much better and how much worse...???

I'll post the answers in a few days. Then we can discuss what the answers mean to you. I'll bet you it has far more effect than you think.

That is a good question. I hope MoneyLA is monitoring this thread.

Don't worry, MoneyLa and Singer monitor everything that goes on here. They are also loving their one on one conversations on Money's site (because nobody else gives a crap). It's pure comedy to see how these jokers are having complete VP discussions with only a few people reading the stuff for pure entertainment. MoneyLa is just being his true self, only now he's annoying Singer because he keeps asking the same questions over and over and over again and he still doesn't understand the simple answers he gets. So, nothing new at the horizon

There is a funny contributor called Vegas Vic that throws in a good and sharp remark once in a while.

But hey, let's not hyjack Frank's topic from the get go with more MoneyLa & Singer bs. Frank's stuff is way more interesting....

@ Frank, good to see you're back. I'm very interested in how this topic continues........

"Mommy, where do babies come from?"

What will I win if I answer "correctly"?

I want to weigh the risk - reward. Looking like an idiot, or getting the answer correct and what?

Lmao at this. Yeah it's basically a two way lovefest with Singer and Money. He really has his head up Singer's ass big time.

I really think that Singer has a case of VP envy as he sure loves to bash Fed Omalley.

Guess he is really jealous of his big wins.

The direction I intended to take this thread is almost certainly not the direction you're are expecting. Once the basic questions were answered I had high hopes for this thread.

It has nothing to do with OTHER PEOPLE, their systems or their beliefs. It was in fact inspired by a very recent comment on videopoker.com, which clued into an unusual situation in the demographic distribution of forum posters themselves.

I want nothing to do with mudslinging contests and will take no part in making negative comments about other people, so if that's what this thread turns into I will have to recuse myself.

~FK

The answers are a bit over 30%, . . . maybe 32%, or so.

I think the answer is half that, or so. About 16 out of 100 in group A still win and about 16 out of 100 in group B still lose.

I think this is the more interesting aspect to the question. Who's to say what is good or bad? Is money the only criteria? Is getting money always good and spending money always bad? Although one in six of each group will cross the line between "good" and "bad", is this necessarily success or failure?