Poll -- Should the Wizard write about lucrative promotions?

Quote: Aahz

What you continue to fail to see is that I DON'T CARE about advantage players. The world, and the casinos, and this board don't exist for the benefit of APs. If people never publicly shared information there wouldn't even BE advantage players.

Well said.

Howver, I feel obligated to point out that when a line-by-line thrust and riposte is reached in quote, reply and counter-quote, we officially have a flame war.

Carry on.

Quote: Aahz

By definition it helps everyone who learns of the situation by reading the announcement (or anyone they tell who hadn't already heard) and has an opportunity to play it regardless of whether they consider themselves an AP player. It also helps the casino (should they read the announcement and shut down the machine) remain profitable so that they will remain in business providing enough of an edge for the masses to continue to be entertained and feel they're getting a good value.

As someone's sig line says: "If the player's won every hand, the House simply wouldn't deal."

And, BTW, that's not remotely what happened in the Revel situation that sparked this discussion and is not something I've ever seen the Wizard do.

"It also helps the casino (should they read the announcement and shut down the machine) remain profitable so that they will remain in business providing enough of an edge for the masses to continue to be entertained and feel they're getting a good value."

I was under the impression that we're here to help the players, not the casinos.

But anyway, I know that's somewhat apples to oranges if comparing to the Revel situation. But it was an example to challenge the blanket statement that FULL disclosure of ALL information is the best option, which is what the poll is saying. What randomperson is saying is that everything doesn't fall neatly into black and white buckets, there is some gray in-between, which makes the poll difficult to answer.


edit: Ok, so the title of the poll is "Should the Wizard write about lucrative promotions?". Promotions. So the poll is actually not exactly about what we're discussing, however the thread seems to have evolved to this.

Why we - as in you, me, and everyone else on this thread is here isn't really germane to the question, IMO. What is relevant is why the site is here and why the Wizard does what he does. The answer to that seems to coincide with the philosophy I've been espousing.

From "About the Wizard of Odds, Michael Shackleford"-

Quote: https://wizardofodds.com/site/about/

About gambling itself, our philosophy is that if you're going to gamble you should have the best information possible so you can have the best chances of winning, and can minimize your losses if you do lose.

Sharing all information fits with the philosophy he outlined for his website.

Quote: Aahz

Wow, it's completely impossible for you to see things from anyone's perspective but your own isn't it?

I certainly haven't forced myself into any corner. What you continue to fail to see is that I DON'T CARE about advantage players. The world, and the casinos, and this board don't exist for the benefit of APs. If people never publicly shared information there wouldn't even BE advantage players.



He says in response to yet another post acknowledging and then dismissing his point. But let's try one more time...



The VERY SPECIFIC point of this post is whether he should continue to post in public or not. Just because that's not the discussion YOU wish to have doesn't make it not the point of THIS post.



Once again - IT'S NOT. The objective is to help people.



We're very aware of that.



It's not.



He does, by spreading that information to as many people as possible. And more than 90% of those who bothered to respond to this poll seem to agree.

This is funny because after all this emotional rhetoric, you finally admit to not keeping up with the arguments and that is the source of our disagreement. The wizard has said his goal is to maximize the value of the promotion to the player community. You have just said you don't care about that. From which stems all our disagreement. I would recommend reading the background information next time before you go all out.

Quote: randomperson

This is funny because after all this emotional rhetoric, you finally admit to not keeping up with the arguments and that is the source of our disagreement. The wizard has said his goal is to maximize the value of the promotion to the player community. You have just said you don't care about that. From which stems all our disagreement. I would recommend reading the background information next time before you go all out.

Wow, I didn't keep up with the background, yet I'm the guy who quoted the Wizard saying those very words?

You do realize that there is a HUGE difference between the "player community" and the "AP community" do you not? Each of your posts that I've disputed has consistently referred to Advantage Players - a community Mike has never claimed to be his primary focus.

Quote: Aahz

Wow, I didn't keep up with the background, yet I'm the guy who quoted the Wizard saying those very words?

You do realize that there is a HUGE difference between the "player community" and the "AP community" do you not? Each of your posts that I've disputed has consistently referred to Advantage Players - a community Mike has never claimed to be his primary focus.

Everyone is an ap in the world of 100% loss rebates. It's stretching my imagination to think about what he would be writing about if not for how to take advantage of and make money from the promotion.

"Wow, it's completely impossible for you to see things from anyone's perspective but your own isn't it?"

Prof. Michael Sandel who teaches Political Philosophy at Harvard calls them Pig Happy people. They can only see their side of the equation.

"Pig Happy" is that like fat, dumb and happy?

Quote: Bhappy

"Wow, it's completely impossible for you to see things from anyone's perspective but your own isn't it?"

Prof. Michael Sandel who teaches Political Philosophy at Harvard calls them Pig Happy people. They can only see their side of the equation.

Well it's a sophisticated form of argument to drill down and get to the root causes of a disagreement, which I just did. Its a disagreement about who we care about. I didn't say I couldn't put myself in his shoes, I said that by definition the wizard is analyzing this promo for people trying to win money from the casino. The advantage player distinction can be applied to everyone if the promo is juicy enough. Its not just people that do it for a living, its anyone that tries to gain an advantage over casinos.

Quote: Nareed

While we're on this, does anyone else dislike it when someone comes asking for help for a particular promo, but then refuses to say where and when the promo is at?

Yes! This happens to me all the time. Somebody I don't know sends an Email or PM expecting me to analyze some promotion for free and they won't even tell me where it is taking place.

Time is money people.

Quote: fivespot

Personally, I don't mind this at all, and I will often answer and help them.

You know who to ask from now on.

Quote: randomperson

If the Wizard just said: go for a royal sized win or lose everything, the players would have got almost all of the value and the casino might not have known the exact EV of the promotion.

It isn't my style to give sound-bite advice without backing it up numbers.

Quote: randomperson

If the objective is helping advantage players, that can be done without giving the casino a clue of what is coming.

My objective is to help everybody, especially recreational gamblers who could use advice with a promotion like this.

Judging by the results on the poll (75 to 4), the advice was appreciated by the vast majority, and I plan to keep it coming.

Quote: Wizard

Judging by the results on the poll (75 to 4), the advice was appreciated by the vast majority, and I plan to keep it coming.

With all due respect Wizard, don't you think this poll is just a bit biased? This is YOUR site and many of the membership worships you blindly. Lol.

Out of the nearly 100 voters, most didn't participate in this promo, so they weren't effected positively or negatively. (I didn't participate). I suspect a poll of actual participants would be much less lopsided.

I respect you a great deal and you are free to do what you like, but don't pretend sometimes there aren't consequenses, especially with poorly managed stores who hadn't really thought through the possibilities until you showed them the light. Obviously such was the case with this one.

Quote: fivespot

Personally, I don't mind this at all, and I will often answer and help them.

El Mago, teliot, ibeatyouraces, Teddys, MustangSally, MangoJ, PokerAddict and Tringlomane are all thanking you. Now you're the one I can bother with my math and bankroll questions. Get your inbox ready ;)

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Quote: DRich

Where would we be if Thorpe didn't publish about card counting?

Quote: DJTeddyBear

I have a feeling the answer might be, "In a world where the only BlackJack dealt was single deck, 3:2 games."

Only distantly possible. The far greater likelihood is that someone else would have published the information. After all, M.I.T., no doubt among a horde of others, was on the case.

Quote: randomperson

Its clear to everyone that there is some information that should not be shared if you care about advantage players. For example, a particular dealer at a casino flashes cards and you post that in a public forum. On the other hand, we all agree that some information will help out many players and not hurt anyone's action. For example, how to play 9/6 jacks or better.

That flies in the face of the facts. The main fact being the paucity of 9/6 JOB machines.

Quote: camapl

"Pig Happy" is that like fat, dumb and happy?

Enough with the stereotypes, especially those using appearances:
"In an article published in The New York Times, "Pigs prove to be smart, if not vain", in November 2009, pigs are shown to be very intelligent animals:

"Mirror usage has been taken to indicate some degree of awareness in animals. When put in a pen with a mirror in it, young pigs made movements while apparently looking at their image. After 5 hours spent with a mirror, the pigs were shown a familiar food bowl, visible in the mirror but hidden behind a solid barrier. Seven out of eight pigs found the food bowl in an average of 23 seconds by going away from the mirror and around the barrier. To use information from a mirror and find a food bowl, each pig must have observed features of its surroundings, remembered these and its own actions, deduced relationships among observed and remembered features and acted accordingly. This ability indicates assessment awareness in pigs.

The finding is just one in a series of recent discoveries from the nascent study of pig cognition. Other researchers have found that pigs are brilliant at remembering where food stores are cached and how big each stash is relative to the rest. They’ve shown that Pig A can almost instantly learn to follow Pig B when the second pig shows signs of knowing where good food is stored, and that Pig B will try to deceive the pursuing pig and throw it off the trail so that Pig B can hog its food in peace.

They’ve found that pigs are among the quickest of animals to learn a new routine, and pigs can do a circus’s worth of tricks: jump hoops, bow and stand, spin and make word-like sounds on command, roll out rugs, herd sheep, close and open cages, and more. For better or worse, pigs are also slow to forget. “They can learn something on the first try, but then it’s difficult for them to unlearn it,” said Suzanne Held of the University of Bristol. “They may get scared once and then have trouble getting over it.”

Pigs have very long memories. Dr. Stanley Curtis, an animal scientist of Penn State University, put a ball, a Frisbee, and a dumbbell in front of several pigs and was able to teach them to jump over, sit next to, or fetch any of the objects when asked to, and they could distinguish between the objects three years later.

In fact, research revealed that pigs could be trained to play computer games; The computer games, originally designed for chimpanzees, involve the pig using a joystick controller with his snout and moving the cursor to a blue area on the screen. Each time a pig does, they get a treat. Scientists made it increasingly harder by moving the blue area to different parts of the screen or shortening it, yet the pigs were able to successfully move the cursor each time. When given the same test, dogs still hadn’t master the game and needed help, even after a year of trying. Pigs, however, were able to do the game without help and were even able to distinguish between different shapes. Curtis said, “These pigs have made the connection between joy stick operation and these simple side tasks even faster than most chimpanzees and much faster than some chimpanzees.” More fascinating info here

Quote: SanchoPanza

That flies in the face of the facts. The main fact being the paucity of 9/6 JOB machines.

In the world?

Quote: kewlj

With all due respect Wizard, don't you think this poll is just a bit biased? This is YOUR site and many of the membership worships you blindly. Lol.

Out of the nearly 100 voters, most didn't participate in this promo, so they weren't effected positively or negatively. (I didn't participate). I suspect a poll of actual participants would be much less lopsided.

I respect you a great deal and you are free to do what you like, but don't pretend sometimes there aren't consequenses, especially with poorly managed stores who hadn't really thought through the possibilities until you showed them the light. Obviously such was the case with this one.

More than this, my point was that I would have voted YES in the poll if I voted, although I have been one of the most outspoken critics. Its just the wrong question to ask. The proper question would be to ask how much should he talk about with various options.

People just don't see the nuance here. Yes, he should say some stuff but he needs to be selective. Honestly, the Wizard has done a reasonable job with what to say about this promotion besides the 9/6 DDB incident.

This is a biased poll your asking people with no horse in the race. I compare this scenario to a father and his 6 year old daughter (daughter = most of your visitors) in her eyes you can do no wrong, your the best dad ever no matter what you do. your post is leading voters towards vote YES. This is also like asking your daughter if she thinks it's good for her to have candy every night for dinner. She really dose not know what's best for her.

I hope this poll dose not help you make a BIG decision like this. something a bit more scientific would be a better gauge. first you could have at least asked how many people played or had planned on playing the Revel and then polled only them people. I would like to know how many people would have benefited from the Revel information given on this site VS how many people didn't benefit from the information provided here. I would tend to believe that almost no one went to play this promotion because the math information given on this site. I said it before anyone serious with the ability and Who would it have hurt if no information was given about the best games to play? I kind of think you already made up your mind about this considering the fact that you say it will be "considered". If the poll was opposite I still think you would not be convinced the other way. I bet if you asked in the poll this: Do you think ts ok if the wizard holds back a bit of the good information so the casinos don't have a chance to react before all the Pros take their money?

You say you want the players to take as much money from the casinos as possible right? Why not find a way to make everyone happy? something like a AP head start, (Think of it like sending in the Navy Seals first) Waite to give out the real good stuff preferably after the AP's have done there damage. Then call in the rest off the troops to Finnish them off. I don't think that APs look to this site for most of there information.

a simple Post about a promotion would be good just say its lucrative and guide people to PM's for more information. if someone is serious and want to play they will get the information needed.

I do know A very large percent of serious AP's Dislike Bob Dancer because this kind of stuff and more. I have not yet got that kind of negative feedback towards you. I realize serious AP's don't make up a large percent of your visitors however don't alienate them because its the serious AP's that tell the stories and get theand prove casinos can be beat and that's what gets people interested in coming here.



Wizard If you knew almost for certain that writing about a lucrative promotion would cause it to significantly change or people would make significantly less money from the casino would you still write about it?

Going back to the thread about making a pay forum:

You should make the information like LVA, a yearly subscription with a bunch of detailed information about promos, and more vague in the free forum. Strategy on 9/6 JoB is one thing, but a loss rebate of epic proportions or a marketing screwup should be on the pay forum.

Seeing your site WoO made me seek out video poker strategy, and led me to Bob Dancer and I purchased his software. It could work like that.