Dave, thanks for hanging out with us and reponding. I agree with some of what you are saying, but disagree in other areas. I hope that you've been reading my commentary as the analysis I meant it as, with some snarkiness thrown in for fun.
Your argument seems to be that since you are playing against all experts, that you need to be innovative, or play risky, so as to jump to an early lead in order to have a chance against other experts. This is the concept that I disagree with. I agree that your play against pros ought to be different in some areas than your play against novices. Wong even points out areas that you should play differently against pros vs. novices. They generally involve trying to predict your opponents' plays. But your thesis here seems to be that if everybody's playing "optimally", one should be applauded for doing something unconventionally. I think that's flawed for a couple of reasons.
First of all, what we have seen in this tournament is that all experts do not play optimally. Pros, despite their knowledge, miscalculate, overlook an option or alternative, get nervous under the lights and exposure, etc. I've heard many of the participants, including Ken and Anthony, admit that lots of pros made big mistakes in the late stages of the tournament. Therefore, it would seem that the best way to get an advantage in this style of tournament is not to create your own innovative strategy on the fly, but simply to avoid mistakes and capitalize on your opponents mistakes. If you can make the fewest mistakes, you should have improved results, even against the best.
Second, even if people could not be counted on to make mistakes, it is a fallacy to claim that one should reinvent the wheel just because everybody already knows how the car works. If there truly is an optimal way to play the game, than anything you do that takes you off that course, by definition, is sub-optimal and should decrease your EV and your chances of winning. If, on the other hand, you believe that there is an even MORE optimal way of playing, than by all means go for it. But if you do so, it is imperitive of us to analyze that innovation, whether it be with logic, simulation, etc. to determine whether the innovation was an improvement or simply sub-optimal. And I don't mean to see whether it worked this time. I mean whether it could be expected to work in the future. For example, Dave, your negative progressions worked out for you. But I would not want to incorporate it in my game (assuming I was playing against experts) unless I was convinced that it was a good idea. So, I agree that we should applaud people for trying new things. But I'm not willing to just accept that the innovation itself is a good idea, just cause an "pro" intentially made the play.
Compare this to the highest levels of other games. You will never see chess grandmasters playing at the highest levels begin with a sub-optimal opening. That's because after years of studying the game, some openings have been found to be more likely to win than others. Just because you are playing against a grandmaster, taking a gambit on a bad opening would be a bad idea, and the grandmaster would likely punish you for it. At championship Backgammon, an unorthodox play at the highest level is unlikely to be successful against another expert. In these games, people realize that the game comes down to capitalizing on your opponents mistakes and, depending on the game, some luck.
To say that you need to jump to a big lead like Cat said yesterday says to me that in crunch time, she doesn't trust that she can play the last hand as well as her opponents. If she did, than she would know that a small lead going into the last hand would be a greater use of her limited bankroll than taking unnecessary risks to develop a huge lead. In Anthony's case, he was being shadowed by Konik's bets. When he tried to lay back and let other people challenge Konik's lead, none of them would do it. Now whether Anthony had the right response is worth debating, but the situation is worth looking at.
Dave, in your case, a negative progression on every hand is indeed an innovation and I even said so. But as a new idea, it needs to be looked at to determine if the innovation was a good or bad idea. It looks like the consensus on this forum is that it is interesting idea, but that the math does not support it, even when playing against other experts.
hollywood said:
So please, it is really insulting to tune in here week after week & hear how stupid these pros are, how they don't know how to play, and how (the real kicker) you would've played so much better. Especially where the endgames are concerned -- sometimes, yes, the play just cannot be defended (Grosjean's 1000 bet) because there is no scenario that would result in positive expectation. But in other instances (my & Konik's choice to lock second with a shot @ first, rather than be a favorite for first with a shot @ third) -- things become subjective, and to apply mathematical probability to justify what the 'correct play' should have been is what is really asinine. Mathematical probability assumes an unlimited field of trials, which doesn't exist here. There is only one World Series.
Honestly, I don't think most of us believe that they could have played better anymore than they believe they could have made a better throw than our team's quarterback. But that doesn't mean that we are too stupid to identify a mistake. Sometimes they are actually innovations that go beyond what we could have come up with at the time. I think Bradley Peterson's bet is a great example of that; an unorthodox move that when looked at later is pretty brilliant, but one that even Max Rubin did not give him credit for at the time. Other times, like your last bet, perhaps you were willing to give up extra EV in trade for the likelihood of additional television exposure. (which bugs me to some extent that there is an additional incentive to finish in 2nd, such that it calls into question the motives of some of the players on the final hand). But sometimes the bet is just wrong. Not that it backfired, it was just mathmatically sub-optimal. And perhaps it wasn't obvious at the time, and perhaps we'd make mistakes just as bad or worse, but it was still a mistake. And just as you can find people ripping on hundred-million dollar movies made by directors much more brilliant than us, and just as people make fun of celebrities and reality show contestants, you players are now in the public eye with this show. And criticism goes with the territory when you are billed as the top BJ players in the world.
So yes, the World Series is new and great TV, and I love the opportunity to see some of the most notorious players in the world do battle. And it is interesting to see and talk about the result. But it's a little too soon to say that this is the best that tournament BJ can get. This show, to some respect is a petri dish of innovation, but that does not need to be unanimously propped up as the best of the best, but rather analyzed dispassionately (and to some extent without fear of insult) so that all of us can improve our play, which is pretty much the point.
