Are big losses more common than big wins?

[Cardguy]

Just trying to get a better handle on the roller coaster ride. I've played 79 sessions over the past year. I've ended up ahead in 63% of the sessions. When I break it down, I find the following:
# of small wins (<$500) - 39
# of small losses - 17
# of medium wins ($500-$1000) - 8
# of medium losses - 6
# of big wins (>$1000) - 3
# of big losses - 6

I usually play for 45 to 100 minutes at a time and I usually leave when I finish a shoe where I was betting big at the end (whether I'm winning or losing). Obviously my sample size is way too small to draw any conclusions but I would assume that in the long term wins should slightly outnumber losses at all levels. Is this correct?

[Freightman]

Just trying to get a better handle on the roller coaster ride. I've played 79 sessions over the past year. I've ended up ahead in 63% of the sessions. When I break it down, I find the following:
# of small wins (<$500) - 39
# of small losses - 17
# of medium wins ($500-$1000) - 8
# of medium losses - 6
# of big wins (>$1000) - 3
# of big losses - 6

I usually play for 45 to 100 minutes at a time and I usually leave when I finish a shoe where I was betting big at the end (whether I'm winning or losing). Obviously my sample size is way too small to draw any conclusions but I would assume that in the long term wins should slightly outnumber losses at all levels. Is this correct?

Some of those small and medium wins were fair sized losses when you hit the big count and you dug out. Those big losses happened when the card gods were not nice, and you didn't dig out. Sound right? - if not, then I would need more specifics.

[bjarg]

Are big losses more common than big wins?

They are if you have win limits.

[Three]

No the the large losses shouldn't be more common than large wins. What you are most likely seeing is too small a sample size for extreme wins and losses to reflect expectation. The other possibility is exit strategy bias. Trying hard to post a big win will more often make your larger wins into smaller wins or even losses rather than bigger wins. Great counts tend not to clump from one shoe to the next. Trying hard not to post a loss will result in bigger losses. At some point you are not that likely to post a win and should be happy to post a smaller loss. Trying hard to get back to a win often causes the posting of bigger losses. I would think it is more likely too small of a sampling to reflect expectation. Especially given your posted exit strategy. Rare events take a long time to approach expectation.

For the actual expected session results you can either sim sessions given your exit strategy and see what the distribution is for a series of millions of sessions is or assume a normal bell curve for distribution and lay out the odds of each range using the monetary SD and the average session length in number of rounds. The latter won't be near as accurate since you know your assumptions of session length and a normal bell curve will be wrong but they should be reasonable approximations. You can get the SD for your number of rounds by multiplying the 100 round monetary SD by the square root(the number of rounds per session divided by 100). Your session EV will be the EV for 100 rounds times the average number of rounds per session divided by 100. With the session EV and standard deviation you can use the normal bell curve distribution to find the number of results that should fall into each monetary bin defined by EV and the number of SD's away from the average EV. The resulting spread of expected monetary ranges defined at each SD breakpoint chosen and their frequency predicted by the normal bell curve gives you a fair idea of what you should expect.

[Freightman]

They are if you have win limits.

Or
Let's say you always play for exactly 1 hour, and quit regardless of being up or down, and with no consideration where you are in the shoe and at what count.

This will likely reduce your win percentage and equal out your big win big loss scenario. Your dollar bucket of win loss should be about equal, your hopefully higher percentage of wins should be your profit.

This, however, will limit your profits. It might be 1 long session, however, we can manipulate those sessions. This equates to higher win rates, more profit, though unfortunately, more big losses than big wins.

These are intuitive comments - others may well have differing opinions.

[Three]

With an exit strategy that doesn't produce a win/loss bias a good way to visualize what your results should be is to see the bell curve around your session EV. You should expect fairly symmetric realist around the average EV or a session. That means the frequency of small wins below EV should should equal the number of wins between EV and twice EV. Then the number of wins between twice EV and +1 SD should be the same as the number of losses less than -1 SD. Then the number of wins from +1 SD to +2 SD should equal the number of wins between -1 SD and -2 SD etc. Since the bell curve is centered at average session EV rather than 0 there should be higher frequencies for the same range win as the same range loss. The trouble with the approximation is there will be a small degree of skew to the actual results bell curve so actual results will be slightly different than the assumed perfect been curve shape. The sim results would give you the true frequencies for any win/loss range bins that are not outliers.

[Bigdaddy]

A 63% session win rate seems high. Could it be that you're cutting your win sessions short (biased to book a win), and playing longer through your losing sessions trying to get them to turn around?

[Cardguy]

Thanks for the comments. I suspect I do have a mild exit bias. If I've played for 90 minutes, haven't seen a high count, but I'm ahead, I'm fairly likely to quit as I'm getting paranoid of playing for too long. On the other hand, if I'm behind, I think I might be more likely to continue in the same situation. I do not have a win or loss threshold. I base my exiting on whether or not I have shown my big bet (especially at the end of the shoe), and how long I've been there. If the count goes high mid-shoe but then tanks by the end of the shoe so I'm back to small bets, I might continue to play more unless I've been there for more than 90 minutes.

[Norm]

Are big losses more common than big wins?

No. Assuming you are playing correctly. But, both are common.