Security equivalent?

[donkeykong2]

Simple question regarding risk attitudes. How much % of your expected winnings for sure would u consider to be equivalent utility wise to your actual expectation?
e.g. u believe u win x$ an hour on average and u could choose an amount y u could get regardless of your results, u would have to play as usual. what amount is equivalent to the uncertain x$?

[smbruin22]

i've always wondered about risk-averse vs. risk-loving personalities in poker, but i've pretty much never seen anything about it, which is somewhat surprising.

one thing i've found in B&M tournaments (with decent buyin amount) is that you can take advantage of people really wanting to stay in tourney (hence, highly risk-averse) to put off crazy bluffs. if they want to be risk-averse, it would be alot smarter to do it pre-flop than when 40% of their chips are in the middle..... online $10 MTT, no one seems to care much about dying so lay off the bluffs there.

[SplawnDarts]

I think there's a discussion of this in SS1 FWIW.

The gambling population has widely varying opinions on this, of course. Most place a slightly negative value on variance, but many place a substantial positive value on it. That risk-valuing attitude is especially common amongst top players, probably because such people are more likely to take up careers in gambling. It's also why a lot of top players are busto from time to time.

[BillC]

Its called Certainty Equivalent and it can be computed using your utility function often via quadratic approximation. Search

Kelly CE
Risk Adjustment for poker players
bjmath.com

[donkeykong2]

ah thx