Hello all,
Well, you all have finally convinced me to ditch my trash bag full of cards (mimicking a random shuffle - seriously) and cross over to the dark side (just kidding) and use computer simulations.
My strategy was ahead $50,000 (betting $100/hand) after about 298,000 computer-simulated hands. So, if I were at the Bellagio and betting $50,000 per hand, I would have been ahead about $50,000,000! I don't think I'm in error yet, correct?
OK, but after a total of about 623,000 hands and still betting $100/hand, I'm down about $136,000.
My questions:
1) Is my above sceanario (whereby one is ahead after about 1/3 of a million hands but behind after 3/5 of a million hands) fairly common?
2) I thought there was a handy standard deviation formula that gave you an estimate of how likely it is to, say, be ahead (but not by luck) by, say, 27 units after 400 hands?
3) Do I need at least one billion hands to be 99% confident walking into a casino?
4) Even if the House still has the advantage (say,.17%), can't a player walk away with a hefty sum if betting heavy enough (with relatively small risk) for a very short time (~12,000 hands, or whatever). Is there a formula I can use to calculate risk given house advantage?
5) Does one really need at least a .0000000000001% edge to be able to walk away a winner? In other words, what is a reasonable disadvantage to accept and still expect to win (say, $4,000,000) by betting big in the very short run?
Thank you for reading this!
