People’s intuition is usually that Kelly bets are too aggressive, that betting half of everything you have a on 75%-25% bet is too wild. But the Kelly criterion is actually quite conservative in that it maximizes not the expected size of your bankroll but it’s expected logarithm
This is actually a misunderstanding of Kelly’s criterion. Log(x) is monotonically increasing in x. The reason we use logarithms at all in the Kelly criterion derivation, is that it allows us to conveniently move the exponent. The Kelly criterion maximizes your return assuming you may play a number of rounds approaching infinity. If you’re only playing fewer than infinity rounds, your expected value increases if you bet a larger percentage of your pot size.
This is actually a misunderstanding of Kelly’s criterion. Log(x) is monotonically increasing in x. The reason we use logarithms at all in the Kelly criterion derivation, is that it allows us to conveniently move the exponent. The Kelly criterion maximizes your return assuming you may play a number of rounds approaching infinity. If you’re only playing fewer than infinity rounds, your expected value increases if you bet a larger percentage of your pot size.
reference: https://explore.paulbutler.org/bet/