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Strategies & Market Trends : The Art of Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stuart C Hall who wrote (869)	2/18/2000 7:48:00 AM
From: Michael G. Potter	Respond to of 10713

Stuart, I have an iron will when it comes to my Blackjack bank roll. I wish that carried over to some of my investing decisions <grin>. Michael

To: Stuart C Hall who wrote (869)	2/18/2000 11:58:00 PM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10713

Mathemiticians be damned. I take exception to that statement! You also construct an example, i.e., the coin flip, that is a random event that is not conditional on prior flips. But that isn't blackjack. With a fresh deck(s) the odds are in the favor of the house but with each card flipped the probabilities change and the random distribution can result in a favorable situation for the player. In a single deck, the probability of a King being flipped up on the first card is 1/13, or .076. If 30 cards have been played and no King has been shown, then the probability of a King being flipped on the next card is 4/22, or .18. Clearly the house shuffles the deck frequently enough to reduce the number of times that the deck will be favorable to the player. You may very well be correct about the general psychology of betting. But you can also be sure that card counters do not bet the way you suggest and are very disciplined about it. When the deck favors the house they bet low and when it favors the player they bet high, which results in expected gains that exceed their expected losses. While I'm not a card counter, but I'm disciplined about my betting....as I win, my bets increase and when I lose my bet drops to a base bet...no exceptions. Implicit in the betting strategy is that if you're winning the cards are statistically favorable to the player. A different "psychology" question....a stock is rated "strong buy" by all analysts covering the stock....the stock goes down 50%. During the trend all analysts reiterate their "strong buy"...the CEO/CFO call a closed conference call with the analysts....a number of analysts lower their recommendation to "buy" and "hold" but raise the earnings estimates! Psychologically, what's going on? jttmab

To: Stuart C Hall who wrote (869)	2/20/2000 2:58:00 AM
From: timbur	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10713

Mathematicians be damned Huh? Stuart, no mathematician has ever claimed that coin flips have any sense of dependecy! Some people here or elsewhere might have, but they are not mathematicians. I know this stuff, having taken probability 4 times in college. :) And yes, despite that ugly truth, I do have a Math degree. I think your betting psychology is flawed. The most important factor in the size of my bets is alcohol consumption. The more I drink, the larger my bets until I either run our of bankroll or pass out. Seriously though, I tend to be more cavalier in my betting when I am up. Now, there was a recent paper published in "Nature" that dealt with how a player could win at 2 losing games by switching randomly between them. That was interesting. I found some of the research on the net. Ask if you're interested. Cheers, Tim