Originally posted on 03/14/2011:
FYP.
It's a little hilarious that there are people so bad at stats that they don't know the difference between using past results to guess at a half-point's value, and knowing a half-point's value. Something like how they think "assuming the sharp book's line is true" is something other than a good guess at the "true" line; something like thinking that if you call your guess an "estimate" it's okay to "assume" it's not a guess.
These are the same people who have never understood a basic fact of math philosophy: a guessed-at variable in an equation produces a guessed-at result, and that truth isn't changed no matter how many places past the decimal point you carry out your answer.
So we have guys who guess at their EV and then guess at their Kelly fraction and then plug their numbers into the Kelly formula and think they aren't guessing anymore.
Then they come into the forums, read poorly, write worse, and ridicule the most. Great.