Tournament Strategies
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
Practice Matters
Now applying $5 flat betting
Now applying $5 flat betting to the above Win/Lose Streaks one gets Table 3-3: Flat Win/Lose Betting Strategy (50/50 game). Some observations about Table 3-3: 1) The Average Amount Won/Lost during the Win Streaks of Table 3-3 is zero. 2) The Average Amount Won/Lost during the Lose Streaks of Table 3-3 is zero. 3) Consequently, the average total amounts won (or lost) for the 128 cycles of win/lose is also zero!
4) The average amount lost
4) The average amount lost (-$320 on the Win Streak of 1 is identically offset by the average amount won (+$320) on the Loss Streak of 1. 5) Nothing is gained or lost on the Win/Lose Streaks of 2. There is a total of 32 of these streaks or 25% of the total theoretical number of streaks occurring (128.) Thus, these two streaks appear to be a waste of gambling time during flat betting. (Observations such as this can lead to choosing better betting strategies/systems! More about this later). 6) The other Win Streaks (3-7) winnings are offset by the Lose Streaks (3-7) losses. See further the difference column in Table 3-3 all of which entries are zero (0). Consequently, in theory, there is no net advantage of flat betting in a 50/50 game! Wiley also points this out but remember this only occurs in theory (the random process in gambling is wilder than theory!)