Had to leave chess for poker...

The actual snag is the table limits.

Care to argumentate ?

Please point to the part of my posts saying random stuff and refutate it.

Sorry, that might be taken as rude, so here you go : :)

Hehe nice system - but it assumes you will win at least once so not exactly 100% right?

EDIT: I guess this classifies as "almost sure" in probability theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almost_surely#.22Almost_sure.22_versus_.22sure.22 

Haha lol, this kind of systems, theories and hunts for luck is the main reason serious poker players have no problem making money.

The difficulty with this system is easy to explain.

Suppose you start by betting €1 and you double every time you lose. When you win, you start over betting €1.

Bet 1, lose, bet 2, lose, bet 4, lose, bet 8: Win. Profit: €1. And not 8, because you lost €7 first.

Second try: Bet 1, lose bet 2, win: Profit €1

Now what's your limit? Let's say your limit is €100 to simplify. That means (cutting a bit short on the math) that over a period of time you will 100 times win €1, and once go over your limit and lose €100. Expected value in the long run : €0. So it's a pure gamble. But on top of that, the house is taking a percantage. There are 36 numbers + the 0. So every bet, you statistically lose 1/37th of your bet being €0,027 in this case.

If you have a limit of €10.000 and you bet €100 at once, same story. Bet 50 times and you'll have an expected value of -€2,7.

Conclusion: In theory (with an unlimited budget) this works, but there are enough examples of people who tried this system and lost everything. So the casino's are very happy to keep rumors about this system alive. 

It relies on the law of large numbers. Basicly, for something that has such a small sample space (such as a roulette table), the odds of you never winning over a very large number of independant fair repeats are incredibly small (probably in the order of the chance of an airplane wheel landing on your head or something).

Its the same idea as when the poster said about poker being mathematically winnable. The real problem with both is you need to carry out that large number of repeats at your own cost. Forget all the table limit rubbish, I personally believe the real issue with these ideas is that you need more money than most countries produce a year to bank roll it.

wow. why does everyone write so much?

+1

My point exactly. Just like the guy I quoted said that poker could be shown be mathematically winnable over repeats, I was pointing out that poker is not the only one which shows this. My real point is that even in a world with no limit and where the house will take any bet, you still need trillions to have any reasonable chance of success.

These systems can work, as this is exactly what high frequency traders and algorithmic traders tend to do. They however have the funds to conduct the large numbers of repeats you need, plus the tech to do it in nanoseconds.

The thrust of my point is that anybody who says poker can be shown to have positive expectation given xyz, knows nothing about stats & prob, and knows nothing about finance either.

There is no compairing, as roulette is a pure luck game and poker is a skill game. Return-on-investment in roulette is a fix -2,7%. ROI in poker depends on your skill and the table limits. On $50 Heads-up tournaments I keep a stable ROI of 13% over more than a 1000 games. But hey, I'm glad a lot of people don't understand this, otherwise my table wouldn't be filled with such bad players. 

theres a reason why they write so much:

they have nothing else to do

I think we are at cross purposes here. I was responding to the statement that poker has a mathematical return given specific plays when certain cards fall.

I never discounted that you can win by being good, but merely that it is not as definite as the poster made out.

MENGKESHI wrote:

chris2471 wrote:

Poker can only be shown to be mathematically winnable in a probability like environment. Ever heard of a martingale? Its a mathematically proven, sure fire way to be richer than you can imagine. Go to a roulette table, pick any number, and bet £2. If you lose, square your last bet, and place it on the same number and repeat. Absolutely, 100% guarenteed you will make a profit with this system. The only snag is you need the funds to bankroll the repeats (try doing 2^50 to see what scale we are talking about here).

Hehe nice system - but it assumes you will win at least once so not exactly 100% right?EDIT: I guess this classifies as "almost sure" in probability theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almost_surely#.22Almost_sure.22_versus_.22sure.22 

Well yeah i did 1 time in the casino for my 18 birthday, my limit was 200 and i started to bet with 5 (lowest bet allowed).. i did it with red and black on the roulette, always to black; and so i did it like this: 1 : -5 ....2: -15 .

..3: +5 ( bet 20) . My limit wouldnt allow me bet more than 5 times ... so basically what u do is bet against the probability of red 5 times in a row (80%). But my plan was do it only once so im happy ,with my +5... never again xD

I dont see the point of discussing " if poker is a profitable game" . Since u play against humans (for now) u will be always able to win in long term. Unfortunately every year there are more players using programs like holdem manager while playing, and hud...so in long term they win by playing like bots. maybe it's the future death of poker ...if the main sites like pokerstars dont forbid it...

Actually, you're making the opposition's point ;).  Your ROI goes down as the tournament fees go up and the players are better.  You're only making 13% on $50, minus your other expenses?

Lol @ 114. I know nothing yet have a stats A level and Finance Degree. Plenty of people show the game is winnable.

"Poker winning is about long term results."

The long-term winner is the house. For all the advertisements about giveaways, casinos are not charitable institutions.

The house wins by rake but some players do too. We're not talking about casino 3 card brag.

That is, if you are better than those humans.

chris2471 wrote:

Ultraman81 wrote:

chris2471 wrote:

Poker can only be shown to be mathematically winnable in a probability like environment. Ever heard of a martingale? Its a mathematically proven, sure fire way to be richer than you can imagine. Go to a roulette table, pick any number, and bet £2. If you lose, square your last bet, and place it on the same number and repeat. Absolutely, 100% guarenteed you will make a profit with this system. The only snag is you need the funds to bankroll the repeats (try doing 2^50 to see what scale we are talking about here).

Haha lol, this kind of systems, theories and hunts for luck is the main reason serious poker players have no problem making money.

The difficulty with this system is easy to explain.

Suppose you start by betting €1 and you double every time you lose. When you win, you start over betting €1.

Bet 1, lose, bet 2, lose, bet 4, lose, bet 8: Win. Profit: €1. And not 8, because you lost €7 first.

Second try: Bet 1, lose bet 2, win: Profit €1

Now what's your limit? Let's say your limit is €100 to simplify. That means (cutting a bit short on the math) that over a period of time you will 100 times win €1, and once go over your limit and lose €100. Expected value in the long run : €0. So it's a pure gamble. But on top of that, the house is taking a percantage. There are 36 numbers + the 0. So every bet, you statistically lose 1/37th of your bet being €0,027 in this case.

If you have a limit of €10.000 and you bet €100 at once, same story. Bet 50 times and you'll have an expected value of -€2,7.

Conclusion: In theory (with an unlimited budget) this works, but there are enough examples of people who tried this system and lost everything. So the casino's are very happy to keep rumors about this system alive. 

My point exactly. Just like the guy I quoted said that poker could be shown be mathematically winnable over repeats, I was pointing out that poker is not the only one which shows this. My real point is that even in a world with no limit and where the house will take any bet, you still need trillions to have any reasonable chance of success.

These systems can work, as this is exactly what high frequency traders and algorithmic traders tend to do. They however have the funds to conduct the large numbers of repeats you need, plus the tech to do it in nanoseconds.

The thrust of my point is that anybody who says poker can be shown to have positive expectation given xyz, knows nothing about stats & prob, and knows nothing about finance either.

To chris2471@: Your point is = playing poker against players who are as good as you and have the same experience, make the same bets and follow the theory according to the odds at 100% , just playing their cards.... then you are not talking about poker. Since you play against other players, there are much more factors to consider : bluff, image at the table, range of hands, ...etc etc etc. ..and the roulette thing and that theory has nothing to do with poker since it doesn't require to "double your bets to win" and i guess u have not played poker regulary, so you probably won't understand what im talking about...

...Like in every sport and game.