This weeks article is going to be an expansion on the E-Newsletter I sent out last Wednesday. Thats because so many folks are always asking me about how and why I chose to develop a new strategy concept that only focused on individual session play and how to maximize my profits from it. They want to know why I abandoned optimal play when most of the other gurus push it. (well, actually they SELL it).
The e-newsletter breaks it all down pretty well, but the gist of it has to do with whether or not each hand and each session are truly independent of those that have already occurred or of any that have yet to come. This is where the math people start tripping over themselves. They simply want all hands and sessions to somehow become one somewhere down the road, yet they will always claim every hand and every session are always individual events unaffected by any others while all short-term sessions are always determined mostly by luck -- regardless at which point you measure it -- and that even though luck is the main determinant in the short term, these short term individual sessions somehow magically disappear somewhere in the future. That smacks of the same hilarious confusion the so-called "experts" have whenever they try to explain what the "long-term" means to them!
To those with a truly open mind that aren't lazy enough to do a little research beyond what the casinos and their regulators want us to see, the picture becomes much more clear - although not perfectly. But that's really all it takes to understand the truth about the machines not being programmed in 100% random mode - which is technically impossible to begin with. Sure the math people want to claim "it's good enough" but it isn't. And isn't it surprising that the collection of nerds who are usually aggravating in their uncompromising approach to nearly everything in life, simply choose to give investigating machine randomness anywhere beyond public allowance, a pass. Addiction and fear of not being able to play the game within their own little worlds of being neurotic about the math, certainly has proven to be a powerful obstacle.
As you can tell, all these people are doing is selling strategy - or in the case of those who follow the leaders blindly through the woods - they're protecting their own hideous addictions to playing the machines far more often than they know they should. Just take a look at any of their websites (or forum postings in the case of the nobodys) and you can spend a fortune on their plethora of products. Disingenuous you say? Funny, but thats exactly what it is, and thats exactly why Im here and have been here for many years...and will continue to be here.
Over the years you've seen where I've brought up the existence of machine patterns, hot and cold cycles, and now 5th card flip-over issues. While these events do exist, they have nothing at all to do with and do not affect the fact that each dealt hand has nothing to do with any other -- just as they do not change the fact that individual sessions remain individual sessions unaffected by any other. The exciter is always in the DRAW, which is readily evident in pattern detection, it's obvious when machines go cold or become red hot, and by definition a flip-over is a draw card. Of course there may be a lot more to it all than just what I'm mentioning, and i'll continue to look into the issue of non-randomness as I have the time.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I've recently discussed this topic with a math-only player, and over the years I've discussed it with many others who don't agree with my views on how the game should be approached. Yet whenever I bring this subject up they seem to get stumped, because the math answer ends up being contradictory. Let's take a look.
Over time I've read countless articles, books and posts by the game's gurus and math enthusiasts saying essentially this: "In the short term it's luck that determines the outcome, but in the long-term it's overwhelmingly the math." And by the way, that's how I lived my playing life as an AP from 1990-1996. They then go on to say how the Law of Large numbers begins to take hold, but none of them can agree on just when that is. In fact, when it comes to applying a definition to what exactly it is that constitutes the "long-term" all these folks have ever done is disagree. Not quite a comedy of errors, but a comedy nonetheless.
I came along and eliminated the belly laughs from all that. Here's how: We all agree and understand that no dealt hand is influenced by any that have come before or by any that have yet to come. They are all individual events. Therefore, if you go on a first-ever casino visit and play for 5 hours, everyone everywhere can agree that your results will be determined by luck. Playing every hand perfectly (which is truly impossible anyway) is admirable, but if you leave with a profit or a jackpot then you've been lucky. If you do not then you have been unlucky. Period. There was a certain amount of skill involved, but that was limited to knowing how to play the game you chose to play, understanding your pay table, knowing what cards to hold on the deals, and knowing how to push the buttons properly. At the end of the day I estimate that your session's result is based on ~95% luck and 5% skill. Others may disagree because they spend entirely too much time practicing at home to just be given credit for 5%, but that's really it in a nutshell.
Spin the clock ahead by 8 years. Over time you've played 1600 sessions, 8000 hours, and 6,000,000 hands. Sound impressive? Well, to some it might, but to me it's a ginormous waste of one's life. Now, with all that behind you, you again go into a casino to play another session for 5 hours. So tell me, is there anything at all different about this visit compared to your original visit 8 years ago that does not allow you to label it as an individual event, whose outcome will be determined mostly by luck? And were each and every one of those 1600 previous short-term sessions ever determined by anything other than mostly luck? And what about your 4,568,230th hand along the way that resulted in 2pr. from holding a King? Was that outcome Divine Intervention? Was it "touched by Einstein?" Did you "think" it to that result?
You see, even though some people like to believe that something changes along the path to the future, it really never does. Individual hands unaffected by any prior or future hands is a reality. So too is the reality that says your individual session TODAY has nothing to do with what happened yesterday or tomorrow - however long a time gap that may include. The Law of Large Numbers has a play in all this, but it is mitigated out by the fact that a very perfect entity is pitted up against a very imperfect one and, by the fact that the LLN is in and of itself, unreliable in gambling to any entity other than to the casinos. Too many times players lose sight of the fact that the promos and special deals are only there to rope in as many of these "advantage players" as humanly possible, because those are the ones who are constantly calculating their "theoretical edge". All the casinos are really doing is preying on a certain segment of gamblers when they have these promotions, and everyone knows it. That's why both machine and slot card addiction plays such an important part in the successes of these businesses.
All of my play strategies take all of the above into account, and profits off them. Every session and indeed, every HAND, is approached as it really is: An individual event happening only ONCE and only NOW, and the risk analyses I did dictate the best opportunity of winning NOW vs. hoping to grind it out into some theoretical long-term that the most egotistical of minds have little idea as to what that really is.
