Quote from keyser1:
this is true, if your plan is to either make your goal (100k) or go bust (0) and not stop in the middle, you're better off taking a risk that'll pay off the first time (ie a 20-1 payoff/~odds with your entire 5k at risk) instead of either 1. taking smaller risks that have less payoff or (ie your 5k at risk but only a 2-1 payoff/~odds) or 2. not betting your whole bank role each time(ie 20-1 payoff/~odds but only a portion of bankroll at risk); since the more times you play (with the odds against you), the more likely you are to end up at bust (since the house edge will grind you down). And opposite is true if you have the edge (ie you're essentially now the house)...Too lazy to write the probability/expectancy calcs right now...
You've got to be careful not to mix payoff and risk (or probability of payoff) and interchange the two.
For example, if I say to you that I have a strategy that works 10% of the time you might not think that that is a very good strategy. But if I then told you that the amount risked on each trade was 1 point and that when it won, it won 20 points then that changes the picture.
So every tenth trade (on average) makes 20 points and the preceding nine trades lose 9 points so I'm up 11 points for every 10 trades I take.
That's why, when you see these adverts on the net that say 90% win ratio you know that they mean nothing.
A 90% win ratio is a losing strategy if you have to risk 20 points on each trade to make 1 point (for example).
So what I'm rambling on about is that the payoff should be calculated against the probability of that payoff and the amount that is risked to see if we achive that payoff.
I know that you're joking nononsense but you got me thinking extreme stuff:
ke