[PhilKing]

kenrexford, on 2013-January-31, 15:24, said:

An odds issue occurred to me as I was driving around town.

[FM75]

kenrexford, on 2013-January-31, 15:24, said:

An odds issue occurred to me as I was driving around town.

The best way to explain the problem is to give a strained and vague example. Suppose a particular move gives a 48% chance on double or nothing stakes. You do not take that bet, right. But, what if you knew that a specific occurrence happened 10% of the time and always meant a loss. To get to 48% net, you would then have 10% complete losses but 90% winning something like 53% of the time.


Am I making any sense here? If so, any comments?

The best way to solve a problem is to start with a well formulated statement of the problem. That usually involves a process of careful definitions, which is lacking here. Here we have mixed in "stakes", probabilities. It might seem that it could just be cleaned up a bit, and introduce the concept of expected value - which is also being vaguely bandied about. But we still we would be lacking a complete problem definition.

One possible problem is how does one compare the expected value of a complete set of events, each of known probability and each with a known measure of value? That could be formulated pretty rigorously and the mathematics is generally well understood.

On the other hand, perhaps the problem is that of predicting behavior. If we mix dollar investments (costs) in and dollar rewards (returns), then things get much more complicated than just measuring expected value. If you don't believe it, then perhaps you have not heard that states run lotteries to generate income, and casinos make money. Would you take an odds off line to win the Bermuda Bowl, if it was the last hand, you knew your deficit, and the odds on line would be insufficient to win?

But it does not have to be just about money to introduce perturbations that seem irrational, but are measurable. Dan Ariely "Predictably Irrational" studies these types of problems professionally.

[mike777]

FM75, on 2013-February-01, 15:46, said:

The best way to solve a problem is to start with a well formulated statement of the problem. That usually involves a process of careful definitions, which is lacking here. Here we have mixed in "stakes", probabilities. It might seem that it could just be cleaned up a bit, and introduce the concept of expected value - which is also being vaguely bandied about. But we still we would be lacking a complete problem definition.

One possible problem is how does one compare the expected value of a complete set of events, each of known probability and each with a known measure of value? That could be formulated pretty rigorously and the mathematics is generally well understood.

On the other hand, perhaps the problem is that of predicting behavior. If we mix dollar investments (costs) in and dollar rewards (returns), then things get much more complicated than just measuring expected value. If you don't believe it, then perhaps you have not heard that states run lotteries to generate income, and casinos make money. Would you take an odds off line to win the Bermuda Bowl, if it was the last hand, you knew your deficit, and the odds on line would be insufficient to win?

But it does not have to be just about money to introduce perturbations that seem irrational, but are measurable. Dan Ariely "Predictably Irrational" studies these types of problems professionally.

You raise really interesting points but I ask what is the question?


For me, often I dont really understand the question ..let alone the answer.

[gwnn]

mike777, on 2013-February-01, 23:29, said:

You raise really interesting points but I ask what is the question?


For me, often I dont really understand the question ..let alone the answer.

Maybe kindly read the ****** opening post?

[mike777]

gwnn, on 2013-February-02, 01:49, said:

Maybe kindly read the ****** opening post?

and?

[gwnn]

mike777, on 2013-February-02, 02:02, said:

and?

And then you'll know what the question is.

[mgoetze]

mike777, on 2013-February-01, 23:29, said:

For me, often I dont really understand the question ..

...but that has never deterred you from posting anyway, has it?

[FM75]

gwnn, on 2013-February-02, 01:49, said:

Maybe kindly read the ****** opening post?

There were only 2 questions in the OP.

• Am I making any sense here? - (The answer to that is clearly "no". See my discussion.)
• If so, any comments?

Perhaps, in light of 2, I should not have made any comments. Clarifying the nature of the problem is necessary. I hoped that the comments might help OP to phrase the problem in such a way that there was a clear problem statement, or question that could actually be answered, since I took it that he had the intent of solving a problem.

[kenrexford]

those who have analyzed this as math problem have missed the point, which meant be l. bviously, all actors go into proper math stion. The questionis of micro mbles.

[fromageGB]

kenrexford, on 2013-February-05, 07:05, said:

those who have analyzed this as math problem have missed the point, which meant be l. bviously, all actors go into proper math stion. The questionis of micro mbles.

Did you mean to add "Am I making any sense here?" ?

[fromageGB]

No, this is an example of the motto "gibberish in" (the thread) and "gibberish out" (Ken's contribution).

[manudude03]

This is Maths for those who know the Monty Hall problem is 50%.

I know it's not.

[Vampyr]

kenrexford, on 2013-January-31, 15:24, said:

If one grouping of bad luck chances can be identified, we might be able to disregard that on the theory that this is a "bad day scenario." You only see, say, 2 of these 10% death sentence scenarios per session. So, if I ignore them, I pay a penalty in the Monday-Tuesday game but have a real good shot at a good game for the Wednesday-Thursday event.

I don't understand what you are saying here. If you lose on a 1 in 4 chance on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, this is no way suggests that the positive event is anything other than 1 in 4 on Thursday.

Zelandakh, on 2013-February-01, 06:51, said:

It is actually trivial to produce a betting system that gives odds for the player of over 50%.

Similarly, betting systems can easily be produced that give a player positive equity. The problem is that the shift into positive territory may occur after you have spent all of the money in the world.

[barmar]

I mentioned earlier that intuitive probability is often wrong. On the other hand, there are psychological reasons why ignoring the mathematical odds can be reasonable.

If you bid normally to an odds-on slam, and make it, you just think "It was cold, I didn't have to do anything special". But if you bid a close game or slam, and you find the squeeze to make it, you feel a real sense of accomplishment and get an ego boost.

We also play bridge for the intellectual challenge. Overbidding and trying to make it is more challenging, hence more enjoyable.

[kenrexford]

kenrexford, on 2013-February-05, 07:05, said:

those who have analyzed this as math problem have missed the point, which meant be l. bviously, all actors go into proper math stion. The questionis of micro mbles.

This (above) seemed rather well articulated, but I will try to explain this again anyway.

The math is easy. A win-loss analysis takes all variables and computes a result. That is not my question.

Suppose that you decide to view a certain situation as always there, like possession of the mystery queen. You could design a system to ask for it, or you could figure in the likelihood of its presence into the odds. But, instead you decide to just place it where you want it. If you do that move, the odds might change to your favor by simply deciding that the card is where you want it. If it turns out incorrect and not there, then the world is wrong, or you are in an alternate universe, where the Queen is inexplicably not where it should be.

Using this approach, your thesis will be right, say, most of the time. Your placement of a 90% likelihood as always there will be right 90% of the time. In that set of events, your chances of something else happening may be more favorable than not, skewed because your universe is now different, by your definition.

Religion does this, to a degree. You decide that there is a god, and then address science next. Anything that does not fit the thesis is tossed out as wrong, and the remainder then proves the theory as correct.

At bridge, however, this might make some sense. For, if you just decide, for example, that the Queen is always with partner, and partner knows this, then partner will tend to shy away from whatever caused that assumption, which will tend to make the assumption correct. If you assume that partner overbids, and hence underbid, this causes partner to overbid to compensate over time, and thus the theorem over time proves itself.

You could counter this movement by going with the assumption and letting chips fall where they may, rather than resisting, by attributing losses to unlucky bad days, or an alternative universe, thereby keeping your own bridge religion pure, notwithstanding the CHO.

Or, you could be the offender and decide to simply go with your unsound assumption anyway, as more fun. You end up doing things the other way from the rest, which means that you win some days and lose some days, but you are average fewer days.

[Zelandakh]

Ken, it sounds to me like you are suggesting going back to bidding systems of the 1920s, where it was not possible to find out where such cards as the trump queen were before bidding a slam. It is surely obvious that this is a bad idea. All you are doing is bidding more inaccurately. Sometimes you will come out ahead and sometimes not but the overall effect will be a higher variance and a lower mean. You could achieve the same effect by playing EHAA.

[Vampyr]

What are you on, Ken, and where can I get some of that?

[hrothgar]

kenrexford, on 2013-February-05, 12:26, said:

This (above) seemed rather well articulated, but I will try to explain this again anyway.

The math is easy. A win-loss analysis takes all variables and computes a result. That is not my question.

Suppose that you decide to view a certain situation as always there, like possession of the mystery queen. You could design a system to ask for it, or you could figure in the likelihood of its presence into the odds. But, instead you decide to just place it where you want it. If you do that move, the odds might change to your favor by simply deciding that the card is where you want it. If it turns out incorrect and not there, then the world is wrong, or you are in an alternate universe, where the Queen is inexplicably not where it should be.

As is oft the case, Robot Chicken is the only plausible response to Ken

http://video.adultsw...with-power.html

[gwnn]

I could also argue that the times when I toss heads are in a different universe, so in this universe coins only ever come out tails. That would be wrong 50% of the time. If you pretend that you will never ever win (the main prize) at the lottery, you will almost be 100% right. But these are not really desirable approximations like cosx~=1-0.5*x^2, it would be more like cosx~1-0.45*x^2, i.e. some of the parameters are inherently wrong and you could imptove them without any additional computational effort.

[kenrexford]

gwnn, on 2013-February-06, 09:53, said:

I could also argue that the times when I toss heads are in a different universe, so in this universe coins only ever come out tails. That would be wrong 50% of the time. If you pretend that you will never ever win (the main prize) at the lottery, you will almost be 100% right. But these are not really desirable approximations like cosx~=1-0.5*x^2, it would be more like cosx~1-0.45*x^2, i.e. some of the parameters are inherently wrong and you could imptove them without any additional computational effort.

If there are an infinite number of universes, then clearly there is a universe in which I always flip heads. So, if each I assumes that I will only flip heads, one of us will be right, and many of us will be uncannily close to right. Some of us will be p'd off with the incredible bad luck.

If I can somehow control which universe I am by just deciding it is so, or at least thereby move myself in that direction, I might cause heads to pop up more than makes sense.

Consider a problem. Play for the drop or hook when the odds are close? Some go the supposedly anti-percentage way and swear by it. Maybe they are right, and for them it actually is the percentage line. When you hear their explanations, they discount certain situations as not likely, and somehow this works out for them, they claim. Who are we to question this?