Originally posted on 03/14/2011:

Quote Originally Posted by LT Profits View Post
It is impossible to calculate EXACT edge if you are chasing steam at a slow moving book with stale lines, because no one knows exactly how much a half point is worth, no one knows exactly where a sharp book's true line is (within the width of its juice), and no one knows that the sharp book's line is even "true".
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.