[FM75]

The game - Video Bridge - you are guaranteed a hand with HCP equal or better than the other 3 hands.
http://www.bridgebas.../client/vb1.php

The payoff matrix:
http://doc.bridgebas...ire_Bridge.html

You start with $100. Before any deal, you can pay $1, $2, $5, or $10, and get paid off at the rates above. What is the optimal bet size over a series of games?


Note: If you had to put your entire pot in play on each deal, and were betting on a coin toss, where the payout was 10% to the winner, you would lose 1% per round, on average.

In BBO, you can only bet your entire pot if you have $10 or less (or maybe it is 10, 5, 2, 1, or less than 1). Further, you have a choice, of the 4 different antes.

[BillHiggin]

Based on personal experience, not on any math (and my personal experience is flawed by age/health related issues that impact short term memory):
I think a good player has a positive expectation long term. So the optimum bet (if it were not just pretend money) would be $10.

Actual analysis would seem to be quite difficult. How do you account for the odds of your robot partner doing crazy robot things (offset by the robot opps also doing crazy robot things).

[mycroft]

Well, part of it is that, like Mrs. Guggenheim, you cut the crazy robot against you twice for every time you get it as a partner.

[hrothgar]

FM75, on 2013-July-08, 14:50, said:

The game - Video Bridge - you are guaranteed a hand with HCP equal or better than the other 3 hands.
http://www.bridgebas.../client/vb1.php

The payoff matrix:
http://doc.bridgebas...ire_Bridge.html

You start with $100. Before any deal, you can pay $1, $2, $5, or $10, and get paid off at the rates above. What is the optimal bet size over a series of games?


Note: If you had to put your entire pot in play on each deal, and were betting on a coin toss, where the payout was 10% to the winner, you would lose 1% per round, on average.

In BBO, you can only bet your entire pot if you have $10 or less (or maybe it is 10, 5, 2, 1, or less than 1). Further, you have a choice, of the 4 different antes.

I suspect that the optimal bet size is some fraction of your total stake.
Once your stake gets above a certain level, you should be betting the maximum (in this case $10)
Not sure where the break point is

[johnu]

You don't know what your hand is going to be before you place the bet. Your expectation, is basically the same every single hand you play assuming you aren't going to play better or worse over the course of a game. Therefore, if you have an positive expectation because you are a good player, bet the maximum. If you have a negative expectation, your best strategy is to not play.

I suppose with variance, even with a positive expectation, you might go broke before you start winning, so I suppose you could bet the minimum until you increase your bankroll enough that the chance of going bust is virtually 0, but who wants to play that long? So, just bet the maximum whether you are a good or a bad player. If you go broke, just start another game. It's a virtual certainty the betting the minimum $1 will not win enough to give you a top score.

As far as the robots are concerned, they seem to be substantially less capable than the robots in the money tournaments so you may not have to be an advanced player to have a positive expectation.