Vindication for taking even money on blackjacks
Quote: odiousgambitI have been wondering if I would ever take "even money" , it almost seems like you'd want to pick some other time to take insurance if you had any desire to do so. With 16 vs dealer Ace it is better to surrender it seems, but with 15 or 14 vs that Ace it has to be marginal to hit as instructed as opposed to surrender, so how about buying insurance then, instead of when you hold Blackjack?
I may be missing something obvious here.
Heh. That's why mkl was arguing so adamantly that insurance is a separate bet. It does not matter what you have - you are simply betting half your original bet that the dealer has a ten in the hole. If he does, you win 2x1, if he does not, you lose, and then your original hand is played as usual, so if your hand was lousy to begin with, it'll remove lousy if you insure it.
I was playing the other day, and the dealer asked me twice if I wanted insurance, and then repeated once again "are you sure? You have 20!".
Quote: weaselmanso if your hand was lousy to begin with, it'll [remain] lousy if you insure it.
But you're not insuring your *hand*, you're insuring your *bet*. Your bet is the value that you're trying to insure against a peril.
But yeah, you're right, the more tens you hold in your hand, the more overpriced the insurance is.
Quote: MichaelBluejay
But you're not insuring your *hand*, you're insuring your *bet*. Your bet is the value that you're trying to insure against a peril.
Exactly. And that's why it does not matter what you have in your hand. Be it a bj, a 16 or a 20 (ignoring effects of card removal), it simply does not matter.
The issue with "insuring your bet" is that you should not bet anything you'd want to insure in the first place (like your house).
Also, the cost of insurance is way too high in this case. Imagine the insurance premium for your car being half the value of the car itself. You'd only need to drive one year without incident, to render your insurance useless, and after two years, you'd be just throwing money away.
Quote: MichaelBluejayWell, if anything, I think this thread has demonstrated that some folks have such a deeply religious-like attachment to expected value, to the point that they can't put it into perspective, and start foaming at the mouth when anyone suggests that EV isn't the be-all and end-all. I know, because I used to be in that camp. I'm glad I finally realized that, from a *practical* perspective, there are times where it just really does not matter.
Equating an insistence on obtaining maximum EV with the delusions of religion is a bit unfair. One is rational, the other is not. Certainly, there is such a thing as a dogmatic attachment to either, if that's what your true point is, however backhandedly you've stated it. For what it's worth, I don't always maximize EV, either. There are myriad situations where EV is not the only consideration. But in the context of taking an insurance bet at blackjack? What other considerations could there be in making that decision, other than a desire to "hedge" a bet that (by definition, since you want to hedge it) is too large, thus compounding the error of betting too much on a single outcome? Anyway, the vast majority of the time, a single blackjack bet is not a life-changing amount.
In a simple case like do I or don't I make an insurance bet, EV IS "the be-all and end-all", and it isn't "foaming at the mouth" to recognize that. Your word-choices are inappropriate--unless you truly consider refusing to make a -8% bet to be "religious/foaming at the mouth".
Quote: MichaelBluejayI agree that the insurance is overpriced, but getting back to the point of my original post, always buying this insurance in the form of even money doesn't result in much *practical* difference between not buying it. (It's less than a dollar an hour for a $100 bettor.) That statement shouldn't really be controversial, but somehow it is.
It's not so much controversial as irrelevant. Is whether a bet is "good" or "bad" dependent on how often you make it? Is the same mistake a blunder if you make it often, but only a tiny boo-boo if you only get the chance to make it once a year?
Quote: mkl654321Your word-choices are inappropriate--unless you truly consider refusing to make a -8% bet to be "religious/foaming at the mouth".
No. You're completely misrepresenting what I'm saying, either intentionally or because you don't understand it. I never said that it was anyone's "refusal" to take even money that was "religious/foaming at the mouth". It's that when *anyone else* says they might care to take even money, it sets off your (and others') religious-like fervor. EV means so much to you (and others) that you can't be content to let others make their own choices, you have to attack those choices even if they have little *practical* consequence. The lengths you (and others) have gone to to get bent out of shape about others' choices over an issue that has little *practical* implications rather proves my point, I think.
Quote: MichaelBluejayNo. You're completely misrepresenting what I'm saying, either intentionally or because you don't understand it. I never said that it was anyone's "refusal" to take even money that was "religious/foaming at the mouth". It's that when *anyone else* says they might care to take even money, it sets off your (and others') religious-like fervor. EV means so much to you (and others) that you can't be content to let others make their own choices, you have to attack those choices even if they have little *practical* consequence. The lengths you (and others) have gone to to get bent out of shape about others' choices over an issue that has little *practical* implications rather proves my point, I think.
Your word choices continue to be inappropriate and inaccurate no matter how much you dissemble. Neither I nor anyone else has gone to any great lengths to get bent out of shape, as you put it. That would mean that "we" had exerted a great deal of effort to manufacture an attitude that we previously didn't hold. In point of fact, I feel the exact same way about stupid bets now as I did last week: I think they're stupid. Furthermore, I don't think a stupid bet can be made any less stupid by CONTEXT. Nonetheless, I have made many stupid bets in my own lifetime. Others can, will, and may do, and have done, the same. Nothing I said about the particular stupid bet in question on this thread could be remotely construed as an "attacK' on anyone; I am perfectly content, in fact, to let others knock themselves out making all the stupid bets they want to, with whatever attendant justification they wish. But those bets will still be stupid regardless of the chosen justification.
Quote: mkl654321Your word choices continue to be inappropriate and inaccurate no matter how much you dissemble.
Speak for yourself. You completely misrepresented my position and haven't even owned up to it. You also clearly don't understand the actual traditional meaning of "bent out of shape", and instead invented a new meaning for it, and insisted that when I used the phrase I used your new, fabricated meaning. My words weren't inappropriate and inaccurate, you simply didn't understand them.
As for your supposedly not "attacking" anyone over their bet choices, in your brief paragraph you used the word "stupid" no less than eight times. You really continue to prove my point. Thank you.
Quote: mkl654321Equating an insistence on obtaining maximum EV with the delusions of religion is a bit unfair. One is rational, the other is not.
Christianity is extremely rational. I could point you in the direction of some scholarly research. Or a good Apologist or two. But for reasons only you know, you probably wouldn't be interested. But anyway get off the insulting, those of us who believe, what cannot be seen, is more important, than what can be seen. Long spoken of in the Bible, just discovered by science (your god)
Quote: MichaelBluejaySpeak for yourself. You completely misrepresented my position and haven't even owned up to it. You also clearly don't understand the actual traditional meaning of "bent out of shape", and instead invented a new meaning for it, and insisted that when I used the phrase I used your new, fabricated meaning. My words weren't inappropriate and inaccurate, you simply didn't understand them.
As for your supposedly not "attacking" anyone over their bet choices, in your brief paragraph you used the word "stupid" no less than seven times. You really continuing to prove my point. Thank you.
And in each case I was referring not to a PERSON, but a BET. I suppose the Insurance bet should feel offended for my calling it "stupid".
And I logically assume that a person is using the current, vernacular meaning of a phrase, not its meaning in, say, the year 1750, unless he says otherwise.
You point is both trivial and obvious, and I've already addressed it multiple times--that EV is not the only consideration when deciding whether or not to make a bet. My counter to that--which I'm not going to accuse you of missing, merely willfully ignoring--was that the blackjack insurance bet had no compensating benefits, except the illusory benefit of "hedging".
And I *did* use the current (and so far as I know, the *only*) meaning of "bent out of shape", not some 1750 version you falsely claimed. Like I said, you invented some brand-new meaning for the phrase that I've never even heard before, and now claim that your fabrication is the one that everyone uses currently. This speaks volumes about you.
Quote: MichaelBluejayLike I said, you invented some brand-new meaning for the phrase that I've never even heard before, and now claim that your fabrication is the one that everyone uses currently. This speaks volumes about you.
Yes, MKL also invents new words and when you call him on it, he claims new words are invented every day and he has just as much right as anybody else to invent them. Its not his fault, as its not the fictitious Will Huntings fault (he has a 190 IQ also) that he was born smarter than 99.9% of the human race.
Quote: MichaelBluejaymkl, if you think a BET is stupid, then it's painfully obvious what you think of a PERSON making that bet.
And I *did* use the current (and so far as I know, the *only*) meaning of "bent out of shape", not some 1750 version you falsely claimed. Like I said, you invented some brand-new meaning for the phrase that I've never even heard before, and now claim that your fabrication is the one that everyone uses currently. This speaks volumes about you.
Actually, the phrase THAT YOU USED and that I responded to was:
The lengths you (and others) have gone to to get bent out of shape about others' choices over an issue that has little *practical* implications rather proves my point, I think.
I said that "the lengths you and others have gone to to GET bent out of shape" was equivalent to saying:
That would mean that "we" had exerted a great deal of effort to manufacture an attitude that we previously didn't hold.
So I made no actual comment about the phrase "bent out of shape", but rather, its use by you in the context of a larger comment. If I were your English teacher, I'd have to give you a "D" for responding to something that was never said.
And I do NOT equate DOING something stupid with BEING stupid, and if you'd like to be honest, neither do you. Smart people do stupid things all the time, and taking insurance at the blackjack table is, in fact, one of those things. So, NO, you're flat-out, talking-out-of-your butt wrong when you say that my description of the insurance bet as "stupid" equates IN ANY WAY to a personal attack on anyone.
Your abandonment of logic and your arguments against something I never said speak volumes about YOU, and up until now, I had a great deal of respect for you. You really got exercised when I disagreed with you, and you misconstrued that disagreement:
I said that the insurance bet had no value.
You countered that EV is not the only consideration when making a bet.
I acknowledged that, but I went on to say that the insurance bet (unlike some other -EV bets) had no countervailing utility.
You ignored this, and misconstrued my remarks as saying that I rejected altogether the idea of non-EV utility of a bet, and then started tossing out stupid remarks like "religious fervor" and "foaming at the mouth".
So since you seem to have developed a blind spot, I'll state my argument one more time, for your benefit, clearly and simply: Some bets are useful (and therefore sensible) even though they are negative EV, but the blackjack insurance bet is not one of them, because it confers no practical benefit.
Merry foaming-at-the-mouth Christmas.
By the way, if you want people to take you seriously, and to engage you, I suggest you stop tossing around words like "stupid" (and then trying to pretend that your using such words doesn't matter).
Quote: MichaelBluejayThe gymnastics you're going through to try to deconstruct my language is amazing -- and again, it speaks volumes. But I'm confident about my language ability. I got the highest possible score on the SAT Test of Standard Written English and I placed out of English in college with 60 points over what I needed for an A. So *you* might give me a D, but I think that would be a reflection on you, not me.
By the way, if you want people to take you seriously, and to engage you, I suggest you stop tossing around words like "stupid" (and then trying to pretend that your using such words doesn't matter).
"Stupid" is a valuable word, a useful word, and anyone who got the test scores you mentioned should realize that. The fact that you might not like the word counts for nothing: "stupid" is an excellent word to decribe something or someone who is, indeed, stupid. (For what it's worth, i.e., very little more than nothing, I also got the maximum score on my English SAT, and graduated from university with a 3.98 GPA. So we each have the requisite technical skills, and any arguments we have about semantics are exactly that--semantic arguments.)
You've gone through the same gymnastics that you mention, yourself. I am forced to reiterate, however, that you misread, misconstrued, and misunderstood my comments. You deserve that "D", even more so because you're capable of so much better work. Sorry, I can't change your grade, and the fact that I won't change the grade you deserve is indeed a reflection on me rather than you; the work you submitted that earned that grade is what is reflective of you, though, again, it isn't representative of your usual efforts. You got worked up and consequently abandoned logic, and resorted to name-calling, because I dared to disagree with what is patently a cherished belief of yours. You got so lathered that you didn't even realize that I don't completely disagree with you.
I'll make you an insurance bet tomorrow in Vegas in your honor. Who knows, I might even win it.
Quote: mkl654321So, NO, you're flat-out, talking-out-of-your butt wrong
Here we go again. Why is this type of statement needed to get your point across? It insults and degrades the other person, makes you look uneducated and desperate, and takes the discussion into the gutter. My debate teacher in college would kick you off the team for such a low brow comment, and thats a fact.
Quote: mkl654321You got worked up and consequently abandoned logic, and resorted to name-calling, because I dared to disagree with what is patently a cherished belief of yours. You got so lathered that you didn't even realize that I don't completely disagree with you.
Speak for yourself.
And EvenBob, don't waste your breath, he clearly just doesn't get it. Look how staunchly he just defended (again) his use of the word "stupid".
Quote: MichaelBluejaySpeak for yourself.
And EvenBob, don't waste your breath, he clearly just doesn't get it. Look how staunchly he just defended (again) his use of the word "stupid".
Saying that it's wrong to use the word "stupid" to describe a stupid action is pretty stupid. Or do you think that "stupid" is a swear word or something?
Quote: EvenBobHere we go again. Why is this type of statement needed to get your point across? It insults and degrades the other person, makes you look uneducated and desperate, and takes the discussion into the gutter. My debate teacher in college would kick you off the team for such a low brow comment, and thats a fact.
It wasn't "needed". Nor did it need to be needed. I chose it for emphasis, because MBJ kept accusing me of "attacking" a PERSON when I called a BET "stupid". He's no dummy, so I had to draw the conclusion that he was being deliberately obtuse. Thus, the emphasis.
And PLEASE, Bob, you aren't cloaked in righteous indignation in any case--you're just posting because you and I often disagree, which you don't like. You're just seizing a (misguided) opportunity to climb down my throat, merely for the sake of doing so.
