Six Percent House Edge!!!!!?????

 Went scouting yesterday for blackjack games with good rules and low minimums. Didn't find any. Turned my eye to video poker, which is a losing game off the bat but can become positive if the payouts are "correct" and the mailers are decent.  I was going to play a little bit to make the trip "worth it" but  the payouts needed to be "correct". It would still be losing but that day I was willing to do that.

Looked at Jacks or Better: 6:5.

For all denoms.

5% house edge.

The best you got was 8:6 in the high limit room at $25 per coin.

At $25/coin I expect 9:6 and nothing less. 

Then there was Bonus Poker. I don't recall the actual pay table but I DO remember that they whacked the two pair pay to 5 coins. Full pay bonus poker pays 10 for two pair. 

No thank you.

For kicks I checked the Deuces wild. I'm not as familiar with this game "on sight" like I am Jacks and Bonus but when I saw that 3 of a kind and straights paid the same I figured something was wrong. I saw that 5 of a kinds paid 50. I KNEW that was wrong and I also knew that completely wrecked the expected return.

When I put it into the Wizard of Odds calculator:

6% house edge.

So say you put in $200 and play 500 hands per hour. at 25cent per coin, you're playing $625/hour.  You've lost $37.50 in that hour. In 3 hours you've lost half your buy-in. And that's just on the EV. Actual Value can mean your $200 is gone in an hour or less. Particularly if you fail to:

1) Play perfect strategy

2) Are unfortunate enough to not hit a 5 of a kind OR 4 deuces in that session.

Yet there were people playing. Me? I went home.

Why? Take that JoB game. at it's proper payout (9-6) the house edge is about .5% So that same $200 with 500 hands/hour and $625/hour (and that's a SLOW rate). The expected loss is $3.12. I can play for quite a long time. Again, Actual Value will be far more or less than that but why would I volunteer to lose $37 for a game I should only lose $3?

Maybe that's OK with you. It's not OK with me. Apparently, it's OK with the people playing...assuming they even did the math and....I doubt that. But that's another problem for another day.

Milestone Achieved

 Haven't posted here for a while but for those who check you know I've taken up MAF training. Well it's been about 20 months of it and I hit a milestone: Total nose breathing!

I had noticed on one of my runs last week as well as some bike riding that I wasn't mouth breathing as often as I used to. In fact, my breathing wasn't as labored (relatively speaking) as I had been accustomed to. So today I decided I would only run as fast as I could while only breathing through my nose.

6.5 miles later a finished run without even a gasp. And it wasn't a slow one. Not race pace but not slow.

Low EV and Cheap Hotels

 So now that I've done my racing I'm back in the Casino. Unfortunately, I had a severe downswing that resulted in me having to lower my EV significantly in order to protect my bankroll. with lower EV means having to watch what's spent on things OTHER than playing. This means that you look at hotel stays a bit differently.  So instead of the normal  Hampton Inn, I went with Quality Inn. Let's just say "Quality" would be a vast overstatement. Imagine walking into a room and seeing this:

Yeah. thems stains of some sort. I don't know from what but I knew one thing, I wasn't sitting on it. I'm not even going to get into the clientele. It's usually a bad sign when you have signs about extra charges for smoking in the lobby AND room. It's also a bad sign when people who look like they may be doing some illegal substances are sitting in doorways.

It's really not a good sign when first thing in the morning you see 4 police SUVs pull up. 

Yeah. That low EV life is not at all nice. 

Should I discuss the black spots in the bathtub caulk? No? OK.

Let's just say I won't be returning to this establishment. Period.  When I pay for a "cheap" hotel, I don't expect much in the way of amenities. I do expect a chair and chairs lacking in what appears to be bodily fluid stains and what appears to be mold. 

I left a note on the chair telling whoever it is that 'cleans" it to throw it away. 

Road To The Sham: Gale Force Winds!

Having arrived on location we have been met by gale force winds. Extremely fortunate that the race wasn't today. Historically this race has been windy so I am prepared for that. Sunday AM still seems to be the best day (the course is open for multiple days) to do the run.

I do not think I will PR for one reason: This is not a proper race. That is we are not on closed roads and have to cross a couple of streets. This means stops that can last minutes if there is no "crossing guard". On the way to the hotel I noticed some people running the route (with this wind I have no idea why) and there was no signage or any of that. Therefore I have been doing a survey via Google Maps. There is a weird turn-about point that I'm glad I looked at ahead of time. I still think I'll visit it. 

In any case:

The intended race kit.

Jan 2021 Mix

 Been two years since I last tried to do the DJ thing. Here's the latest. I need to practice but perhaps you'll enjoy.

sondjata olatunji · Jan 2018 House Mix

The Fit Test

 So I determined that if I want to PR in my next race I would need to run 12 miles in 1.5 hours. That would be a 45 min 6 miler. I was going to run a 10k just to see if I could hit the 45 but then I thought about it. In the race I would be running 13.1 miles. Testing myself at 6 miles with fresh legs will tell me nothing about what I can do after 8-10 miles. So I decided on a 12 mile test run. And I had to run it in such a way that I felt that I could run the next 1.1 miles at at least the average pace of the 12 miles. After all, if I burnt myself out and had to walk the last mile, the effort of the previous 12 miles would be undone.

Mother nature blessed me with a day in the mid 50s, light breeze (my planned race will likely be breezy so this was a good thing) and plenty of sunshine.

Time?

1:28:40

Pace 7:21/mile

9 seconds per mile faster than planned. Included stopping to kick a ball back to some volleyball players and a relatively slow start due to fumbling with my phone.

And unlike last March, my heart rate never approached max. Which means there was plenty in the tank for the last mile and to drop some seconds in the second half. 

With the upcoming winter training, these numbers should improve by March.

The one disappointment is my cadence. It's way too low for what I want to do. There is definitely some efficiency work that I need to do.

$60 Carbon Plate? Yes Please

 So after watching a YouTube video by a runner who went to various discount stores to score running sneakers, I decided to make the same trip. What did I locate? Well the first score as a Boston 8, in blue. There were a lot of pink ones. Sorry, I don't do pink shoes. Period. Stop with that. Those were $35. When I purchased my first pair last spring I paid way more than that. 

So I decided to see what else was out there and I ran across the following:

Yeah, it's "old" tech when compared to the current Nike offerings but:

1)  I'm not being paid to run
2) I'm not being paid to review sneakers on YouTube.

Also, while carbon plate shoes will give you some extra speed, the fact of the matter is that running efficiency and training is what's responsible for most of your performance. You gotta do the work. Period.

But back to the sneaker. $60. For a carbon plate shoe. This originally retailed for $130. Why would I pay that?  However; one of the problems with this shoe showed up rather quickly. After a 5 miler to see how they feel, the sole was already showing signs of wear.  Clearly then I cannot do any kind of regular running with it. The plan now is to buy another pair and reserve them for racing days ONLY.

Word is that you should NOT wear these things regularly because it will change your gait. I don't know how true that is but I don't plan on wearing these for anything less than a fit tests and speedwork.

Also, these people were not lying about how stiff these things are. You cannot bend this shoe at all. Also, turning doesn't inspire confidence. I'll be honest, it didn't feel much different from my current rotation. It's light like my Pegs and Bostons. They are high but I wasn't feeling the "it felt like it was pushing me" thing that I've watched and read. Maybe it's because they are "old" tech. 

Anyway, assuming the Sham is not cancelled again (announcement on Dec 15), I'll probably run it in these. I was originally going to run in the Pegs but if these add a little bit I'll take it. Especially for $60.

Yes please.