[vpFREE] Re: Bob Dancer's CasinoGaming Column - 3 NOV 2009

The risk formula which you and NOTI are refering to as the "Sorokin formula" would be better named the "jazbo/Sorokin formula". Since I am at least partially responsible for the mis-naming of the formula, I want to jump in here to try to set it straight.

The formula itself has been around for a long time. But jazbo was the first to recognize that it could be applied to video poker: jazbo sent a note to his listserv group about it in December of 1998.

A couple of months later, a Russian mathematics student, Evgeny Sorokin, posted a cryptic RoR question about a 3-payoff game on the old bjmath.com site. He answered the question himself a short time later. His posts languished for several weeks until I realized what he meant, and more importantly, realized that his solution could be applied to video poker.

I posted my "Eureka" moment on bjmath, and MathBoy quickly realized that cashback could be included. We wrote an article titled "Risk Of Ruin for Video Poker and Other Skewed-Up Games" that was published in the Fall 1999 (Vol XIX, #3) issue of "Blackjack Forum".

Neither MathBoy nor I had an inkling of jazbo's earlier contribution until after the article was written.* Nor did any of the 3-4 people to whom we sent a draft. That's understandable--we were all blackjack players who had only recently begun to even think about video poker.

MathBoy and I did not refer to the formula as the "Sorokin formula" in our article. We ackowledged Sorokin's contribution, but referred to the formula as the "generalized risk equation". However, I think it's appropriate to call its application to video poker the "jazbo/Sorokin" formula.

--Dunbar

*In a subsequent issue of Blackjack Forum we tried to set the record straight. 10 years later I guess I'm still trying to set the record straight!

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, Dan Paymar <Dan@...> wrote:
>
>
> At 9:41 PM +0000 11/4/09, nightoftheiguana2000 wrote:
> >It's all about the size of your bankroll. Which is why the Kelly
> >system is so important. The Kelly system produces the maximum
> >average bankroll growth. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer,
> >and the middle steadily disappears.
>
> The Kelly system can work fine for games where you can make
> relatively small changes in your bets, allowing you to bet a
> calculated percentage of your bankroll, but that is rarely possible
> in video poker. The only situation I can think of would be a 100-play
> machine that lets you play any number of hands.
>
> Also, Kelly is not very good for games with widely skewed
> probabilities and payoffs, including video poker.
>
> The only reliable calculation for risk is the Sorokin formula, first
> applied to video poker by (I think) jazbo, and included as a feature
> in Optimum Video Poker.
>
> Dan
>
> --
> Dan Paymar
> Author of best selling book, "Video Poker - Optimum Play"
> Developer of VP analysis/trainer software "Optimum Video Poker"
> Visit my web site at www.OptimumPlay.com
>
> "Chance favors the prepared mind." -- Louis Pasteur
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

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