Quote from: sqzbox on January 08, 2013, 02:17:16 PM
Some might say that RTM would cause an overload of tails in the short term future (i.e. the next 100 spins in my example) in order to achieve statistical balance over the 200.  But here is where I disagree.  It is my assertion that the likely future is ALWAYS normality.

Yep, some seem to think that there's some kind of force which pulls the outcomes back to balance in the short term, but that IS GF. It's an amazingly stubbornly held belief held even by many educated people, but after you've lost a couple of bankrolls, you learn. 

Bayes -"The trouble is, trying to capitalize on trends is also a fallacy (the inverse gambler's fallacy)..."

Trying to capitalize on the effectiveness of following trends is not a fallacy. In fact it is nothing more than trial & error. I'm pretty sure that you were just making a generalization. I also suspect that you might have considered that this might have hooked my interest.

But there is something I read that was far more interesting. You are not convinced that patterns hold much value. In fact they are one of the least discussed features of randomness. I took a beating for suggesting the existence of elegant patterns. Perhaps now, people are more inclined to become more aware of their significance?

Quote from: albalaha on January 08, 2013, 03:08:15 PM

Bayes,
           What is the probability of getting 5 or 7 reds in a row? Don't u feel that they can appear more often in a session than the mathematical probabiility says?

See 75 Blacks, 105 Reds and 5 Zeroes.

Black is 2.57 STD below the mean in that sequence. Probability doesn't say there has to be a set number of  5 or 7 in a row, and it depends how many spins there are in the session. The longer the odds, the more spins you need for the average to manifest. Don't forget that probability is an AVERAGE, and there is quite a high margin of error each side of it. For the full picture you need the standard deviation and this is always relative to the number of spins.

There is a famous quotation about statistical observation and probability:


        Then there is the man who drowned crossing a stream with an average depth of six inches.  ~W.I.E. Gates

Quote from: Gizmotron on January 08, 2013, 03:36:28 PM
Bayes -"The trouble is, trying to capitalize on trends is also a fallacy (the inverse gambler's fallacy)..."

Trying to capitalize on the effectiveness of following trends is not a fallacy. In fact it is nothing more than trial & error. I pretty sure that you were just making a generalization. I also suspect that you might have considered that this might have hooked my interest.

But there is something I read that was far more interesting. You are not convinced that patterns hold much value. In fact they are one of the least discussed features of randomness. I took a beating for suggesting the existence of elegant patterns. Perhaps now, people are more inclined to become more aware of their significance?

Gizmo, I know. I was just playing devil's advocate to make a point. 

To be honest, I don't think our respective methods are so different. I use trial and error too, but my emphasis is more on the "maturity of chances" rather than trend following. In a way, I'm trying to catch a trend in the same way you are, but perhaps just start earlier in the sequence. I also watch out for patterns, but again, usually bet for them to break rather than continue, then I'll bet the anti-pattern and continue until a loss.   

Quote from: albalaha on January 08, 2013, 03:49:45 PM
There is a famous quotation about statistical observation and probability:


        Then there is the man who drowned crossing a stream with an average depth of six inches.  ~W.I.E. Gates

I have learned if you put one foot in hot water and the other in ice it is on average comfortable.

MG,
      I mean to say, probability and randomness may go against each other at any moment and that is what we call as "variance". If you bet on corrections, u need not benefit from it. In long run, every bet is almost same but u can't say so about a session that we are going to play.

Quote from: Bayes on January 08, 2013, 03:28:25 PM
Yep, some seem to think that there's some kind of force which pulls the outcomes back to balance in the short term,

Roulette always seeks to balance itself, but its an erratic process.
Its undependable and maddening, you're right to ignore it completely.
It always balances in the long run, unfortunately the casino only
allows bets in the extreme short term.

I have learned if you put one foot in hot water and the other in ice it is on average comfortable.
  That's brilliant Ralph - love it!


Ok folks - we are up to 7 pages now and that is probably enough for this particular discussion.  I haven't finished, but with all the great discussions going on at the moment I suspect my little prod in the direction of my own thinking is probably overshadowed somewhat.  Before I lock this one down, however, I thought it might be useful to summarise the thoughts that I believe we are mostly agreed on.  This, in itself, could be contentious but we can always agree to differ.  But I am willing to keep it going for just a little bit longer in an attempt to reach some sort of consensus, although this may not be possible.  I'm ok with that.

1. The likely future is always normality.
2. Given the point above, RTM is unlikely to be a usable concept in the time frames we play in.
3. While one statistical measure may vary considerably from the norm, others maintain normality.

There may have been others - feel free to add, although that may trigger another discussion.

1a. Even the wild swings of randomness are part of what normal is. As opposed to  a magical belief of what randomness is.

Thanks everybody - locking it off now as it seems to have run out of steam.  Continued with a bit more of a focus in the thread entitled Combinatorics - let's bounce this around for a bit.