Non-Self Weighting Strategies

[Daisydog]

I'm about 2/3 through Mason's Gambling Theory and Other Topics. He talks a lot about non-self weighting strategies. I get what they are and the concept make a lot of sense to me. However, I didn't notice anywhere that he explains why he calls them "non-self weighting strategies". Can someone explain where this terminology comes from?

[drzen]

Try this.

It's easier to understand for a game like blackjack, where if you bet $5 on every hand, you are following a "self-weighting" strategy, but if you whack it up to $50 when the deck favours you (ascertained by counting cards), you are following a "non-self-weighting" strategy (because you are increasing variance because your expectation is higher).

So far as I can make out, it boils down to two things:

1/ don't play the same hands the same way always
2/ play situationally because your expectation will vary according to the situation.

[BigBuffet]

"The non-self-weighting player waits until he has the best of it and then takes maximum advantage of the situation. That is, he will make as big a bet as possible and take advantage of a very small edge if that is all the edge he has."

To me this theory means making fewer decisions (playing fewer hands) but making the most of the good hands.

AKA tight aggressive.