It could mean everything, it could mean nothing, but I believe that such ''hard'' questions are helping to realize where we stand and why we hold such position.

I don't want to influence your votes but I have some rhetoric questions;

If a progression and/or money management were the only assets one needs to become long term winner, wouldn't we already winning on long term basis?
My opinion regarding progressions is that all belong to 2 main categories:

1) Losing frequently less money and winning few times more money
2) Losing rarely large sums and winning frequently few money

There are also sub-categories of the main 2, but no matter how you decrease or increase your bets and your bankroll from session to session you cannot become winner if your selection has not an edge.
I believe that progressions only change the distribution of wins VS losses ratio, but not the totals.

Talking about bet selection, is payout the only element one should consider?
Or there are more elements than this?
Statistics for example could assist to establish some specific entry and exit points, of course everything is an approximation and estimation according facts, not theories, that's why knowing what usually happens is practical and useful, while what could happen is not.

What could happen remains possible but not in the same frequency with what usually happens, therefore by selecting an event which occurs with high frequency in combination with not losing too much when you lose is the essence of winning.
What I've described is the possible effect of a bet selection, not of progressions.

You might argue that all bet sections will balance out eventually, let's assume that this is correct, why does this prevent someone winning?
Perhaps because your first assumption (events have to balance) leaded to another one which is that someone would stay with the same bet selection all the time!
So no matter if one gets ahead or behind, by keep on betting always the same, eventually would lose by the house edge percentage because events have to balance out at some vague point in future.

I don't know about you, but for me this theory contains many ifs in order to be accepted as de facto axiom.
If...we could assume many things without practical value, we've to discard such things in order to focus on the most important.

If a perfect bet selection exist, then HG already exist.

Since no perfect bet selection exist, thus no mm could be HG...

We could only risked near perfect bet selection, and then, risk with near perfect mm.

Just my thought.

All betselections are good or bad only to the extent of their respective coverage of probability. Momentarily, it can go bad or good but in long run it is always at its mathematical expectancy. In a random game, no betselection is good or bad unless a bet has different House edge than others. For example, 0-00-1-2-3 basket bet is a bad bet in itself as it carries higher house edge than any other bet.
                   Only a very wise MM that can handle most of the(if not all) probabilities and can get a net win without much harm can beat this game.

IMO MM is paramount and a bet selection need to make sense (have some logic attached to it), be that pattern capturing, being able to identify it's losing jag and reducing to the nth degree the chance of that happening, whatever.

Last 4 sessions, playing a mathematical fully mechanical mode of play.


W   L   W   L   L   W   W   L   W   L   W   W   W   W   L   L   W   L   W   W   L   W   L   L   L   W   W   L   L   L   L   W   W   W   L   L   L   W   W   L   L   L   L   L   W   W   L   L   L   L   W   W   W   W   W   L   W   W   W   W   L   W   L   W   W   W   L   W   W   W   W   W   W   W   W   L   W   L   W   W   L   L   W   L   W   W   W   L   W      
51/38   57%   
                                                                        
W   L   L   W   W   L   L   L   W   L   W   L   W   W   W   L   W   W   W   L   L   L   W   W   L   W   W   W   L   W   L   L   W   W   L   L   W   L   L   L   L   L   L   W   L   W   W   L   W   W   W   W   W   W   W   L   L   W   L   L   L   L   L   W   W   L   L   W   L   L   L   W   L   W   W   W   L   L   W   W   W   W   
42   /40   51%   
            
   
L   L   L   W   W   L   L   W   W   L   W   W   L   W   L   W   W   W   W   L   W   W   L   L   L   L   W   W   L   L   W   L   L   W   W   L   L   W   W   L   L   W   L   L   L   L   L   W   W   L   L   W   W   L   W   L   L   W   W   L   L   L   W   L   L   W   L   W   W   W   W   L   W   L   L   L   L   L   L   W   
36/43   46%   
                                                                        
W   W   W   W   W   W   W   L   L   W   W   W   L   W   W   L   W   L   W   L   L   W   W   L   L   L   L   W   L   W   W   L   L   W   L   W   L   W   W   W   W   W   L   W   L   W   W   L   W   L   W   W   W   W   W   W   W   L   L   W   L   W   W   L   W   W   L   L   W   W   L   W   L   L   W   W   L   W   L   L   L   L   W   L   L   W   L   W         
51/37   58%   


   

It's a good question and funny that it came up because I have given this a lot of thought recently.

I think you need a combination of both bet selection and MM. Both of which may go through different phases during your session. Gizmo has really hit the nail on the head with the three states. 1) Working. 2) Holding it's own. 3) Not working. You can use this for both bet selection and MM. I also find it works best over short games. Not necessarily because I believe in hit and run, but because I think you reach a certain point in the spin count where you can have too much information if you are looking at a lot of different stuff and why make things more complicated for yourself.

Quote from: RolexWatch on August 17, 2016, 07:09:50 PM
IMO MM is paramount and a bet selection need to make sense (have some logic attached to it), be that pattern capturing, being able to identify it's losing jag and reducing to the nth degree the chance of that happening, whatever.

Last 4 sessions, playing a mathematical fully mechanical mode of play.


W   L   W   L   L   W   W   L   W   L   W   W   W   W   L   L   W   L   W   W   L   W   L   L   L   W   W   L   L   L   L   W   W   W   L   L   L   W   W   L   L   L   L   L   W   W   L   L   L   L   W   W   W   W   W   L   W   W   W   W   L   W   L   W   W   W   L   W   W   W   W   W   W   W   W   L   W   L   W   W   L   L   W   L   W   W   W   L   W      
51/38   57%   
                                                                        
W   L   L   W   W   L   L   L   W   L   W   L   W   W   W   L   W   W   W   L   L   L   W   W   L   W   W   W   L   W   L   L   W   W   L   L   W   L   L   L   L   L   L   W   L   W   W   L   W   W   W   W   W   W   W   L   L   W   L   L   L   L   L   W   W   L   L   W   L   L   L   W   L   W   W   W   L   L   W   W   W   W   
42   /40   51%   
            
   
L   L   L   W   W   L   L   W   W   L   W   W   L   W   L   W   W   W   W   L   W   W   L   L   L   L   W   W   L   L   W   L   L   W   W   L   L   W   W   L   L   W   L   L   L   L   L   W   W   L   L   W   W   L   W   L   L   W   W   L   L   L   W   L   L   W   L   W   W   W   W   L   W   L   L   L   L   L   L   W   
36/43   46%   
                                                                        
W   W   W   W   W   W   W   L   L   W   W   W   L   W   W   L   W   L   W   L   L   W   W   L   L   L   L   W   L   W   W   L   L   W   L   W   L   W   W   W   W   W   L   W   L   W   W   L   W   L   W   W   W   W   W   W   W   L   L   W   L   W   W   L   W   W   L   L   W   W   L   W   L   L   W   W   L   W   L   L   L   L   W   L   L   W   L   W         
51/37   58%   


   

Nice results RolexWatch!

What kind of mechanical method did you use? Is it a template based or pattern based bet selection like FTL or OLD?

I believe that usually truth lies in the middle, not on the extreme ends of opposite sides.
We cannot disregard easily neither bet selections, not bet progressions.

The thing is that a large bankroll of say 100,000 $ or even more is harder to broke but the persons who are gambling with such bankrolls are not betting the minimum, their initial bet is something like 25,50,100 or even more per unit, therefore whether you have 1000 $ bankroll and bet 1 $ units or 100,000 $ and bet 100 $ units it's the same in terms of risk of ruin.

It's highly unattractive for 100,000 bankroll to bet with 1, 5 or even 10 $ units, additionally is needed sufficient spread between minimum and maximum bet limits.
A high maximum with high minimum is no good, neither is a low minimum with low maximum, the greater the difference between minimum and max bet the better.

Another fact is that gamblers have lost millions at roulette tables, if the brute force of vast capital was sufficient to guarantee profit, that would never happen.
Imagine bankroll as force, imagine prediction accuracy as technique, the best warrior must have both, force and technique.

There are several examples in history where the larger army has been defeated by much fewer men, also in one on one combats smaller individuals beat larger because they used their technique, their intelligence to beat brute force.

A few examples; David and Goliath, Leonidas and the 300, Trojan horse, Mongols were many but this was not the key to their largest unified empire ever existed, they were very disciplined, with well organized and extensive scouting teams and formidable archers.
In other a combination of things makes the best possible results, we cannot rely only in one asset.

It's wrong to consider that since casino has much larger bank than ours it's going to win at the end because the aim of every gambler is not to empty the entire bank of the casino, but to win some money.
If someone was trying to broke the bank, then yes, he/she would be in great disadvantage if he/she wouldn't possess at least equal amount of bankroll.

Another misconception is that time is against the players, what matters is not the duration but what happens on that duration.
I'm sure you have experienced shorter and longer sessions with positive and negative results, time doesn't control the outcomes but gives the opportunity to every possibility to happen.

So if you start winning and decide to go, the next time you'll go will be the continuation of your previous time and every time thereafter will be a continuation of the first time.
If you think that every time is not continuation, then think the following, if you could win easily and stop while ahead equally easy will be to begin negative and the what would you do?
Take the loss and go? Or risk more money to win less?
So as you see, neither hit and run could help anyone.

My philosophy is the following, every bet is a part of a session and every session is part of the long term, thus if we could win most of our bets while maintaining the balance between risk and reward, we would become long term winners.
Win ratio could be deceptive because it risks more money to win more times, this is not the solution.

Positive progressions increase after wins, negative progressions increase after losses but do wins and losses follow a specific distribution pattern??
Instead of focusing on the distribution, it would be more accurate to focus on totals and establish a sophisticated money management on that basis.

Every bet selection has each unique characteristics, therefore a progression should accommodate the specific characteristics of that bet selection.
First of all is important to understand a few things like, why my selection wins/loses, why my method has the potential to become long term winner, why I would bet this instead of the other.

All these questions will help to determine which bet selection has the best possibilities to be long term winner.
House edge cannot prevent long term winners, this doesn't mean that house edge doesn't exist nor that the casinos will still have profit.
Let me give you a simple example, I'm betting always on Red and after  100,000 bets Red has appeared 50,900 times while Black and 0s were 49,100 times, this means that I've won 1,800 times more than I lost.
These figures are really possible and nobody can say with certainty that after 100,000 results would be 48,650 for one side, 48,650 for the other and 2,700 for 0.

Actually what happens in reality is not this balance but smaller or larger deviations, the larger the total amount of results the larger could be this deviation.
Within a small sample like 10 spins is much more likely to encounter a balance, but think about 100 spins sample, 1000 spins sample, apparently becomes more and more possible to deviate from the theoretical mean.
Expecting results to balance is VERY big assumption, actually reminds me of the gamblers' fallacy, what could happen within 100 bets is just a microcosmos of what could happen in 100,000 bets, the same in larger scale.
You could find a streak of 20 EC within 100 and 100,000 but in the larger sample chances to find more than 1 such streak are tenfold.

Quote from: RolexWatch on August 17, 2016, 07:09:50 PM
IMO MM is paramount and a bet selection need to make sense (have some logic attached to it), be that pattern capturing, being able to identify it's losing jag and reducing to the nth degree the chance of that happening, whatever.

Last 4 sessions, playing a mathematical fully mechanical mode of play.


W   L   W   L   L   W   W   L   W   L   W   W   W   W   L   L   W   L   W   W   L   W   L   L   L   W   W   L   L   L   L   W   W   W   L   L   L   W   W   L   L   L   L   L   W   W   L   L   L   L   W   W   W   W   W   L   W   W   W   W   L   W   L   W   W   W   L   W   W   W   W   W   W   W   W   L   W   L   W   W   L   L   W   L   W   W   W   L   W      
51/38   57%   
                                                                        
W   L   L   W   W   L   L   L   W   L   W   L   W   W   W   L   W   W   W   L   L   L   W   W   L   W   W   W   L   W   L   L   W   W   L   L   W   L   L   L   L   L   L   W   L   W   W   L   W   W   W   W   W   W   W   L   L   W   L   L   L   L   L   W   W   L   L   W   L   L   L   W   L   W   W   W   L   L   W   W   W   W   
42   /40   51%   
            
   
L   L   L   W   W   L   L   W   W   L   W   W   L   W   L   W   W   W   W   L   W   W   L   L   L   L   W   W   L   L   W   L   L   W   W   L   L   W   W   L   L   W   L   L   L   L   L   W   W   L   L   W   W   L   W   L   L   W   W   L   L   L   W   L   L   W   L   W   W   W   W   L   W   L   L   L   L   L   L   W   
36/43   46%   
                                                                        
W   W   W   W   W   W   W   L   L   W   W   W   L   W   W   L   W   L   W   L   L   W   W   L   L   L   L   W   L   W   W   L   L   W   L   W   L   W   W   W   W   W   L   W   L   W   W   L   W   L   W   W   W   W   W   W   W   L   L   W   L   W   W   L   W   W   L   L   W   W   L   W   L   L   W   W   L   W   L   L   L   L   W   L   L   W   L   W         
51/37   58%   


   

With the MM factored in, what was the net win/loss for each of  these 4 sessions?

The results themselves mean very little other than the 4 sessions were fairly stable for your BS.

My own MM would have smashed the 46% result, done almost as well with the 57/58% results, but struggled with the 51% result.

So it's always a blend of BS & MM

Those FOUR points are important

Bet selection , proper bankroll, Money management, and Discipline.


ND

The thing is that if you don't have a good understanding of how this game works you are becoming a loser, like in everything else.

It tries your limits, tests your patience and discipline, doesn't care about your emotions, neither about if you are good or bad, the only thing which being rewarded is what you can do, the same goes for the world.

There is not any progression which can endure all sessions, variance is formidable foe even for the best of progressions, happens very few times but just once is enough to wipe out entire bankrolls.

And when this moment arrives what would you do?

You must spend almost the whole day at the table with vast bankroll in order to turn such situation around.
It becomes pointless because you are risking too much in order to gain too little, the best in such occasions is to be absent, but how could you know, you realize it when already late for maneuver.

That's why you need a plan, winning every day/session is not realistic but having a net profit every 7 days/sessions is realistic with the proper plan.

Variance is a wild beast which cannot be tamed by progressions, progressions seems to work when variance is milder, usually is but that's not enough.

So such time and money is far beyond the reach of average gambler, but even if you had would it worth?
I understand risking 100,000 to make 10,000 or more, not to take 1,000 or less, or even worse by chasing your loss.

Have you any idea what you are dealing with?

Step number one, know your enemy.
Step number two, control yourself and you'll control the game.
Step number three, set a realistic plan in action by focusing in medium term.

By completing the initial smaller things we have made a big step towards success.

It's true that like in life, roulette shows that nothing is equal, while probability theory shows how things should be, it remains just a theory but what we see in everyday life is not what should have been but what actually happens.

Consider results as cards of a deck, they are repeating with different order each time, when your progression could win any possible order of the deck, then you would be a long term winner.
That's what variance does, it's changing the order of the events, that's why linear progressions will never work.
Where is the end of the rainbow?
You never know, you don't want to know, so instead of swimming against the torrent why don't you let it drift you away where the rainbow ends?

If we would bet always the same selection with the same amount for all the time, we would be losers with 99.99% certainty.
The opposite is valid too, therefore the key to success lies in differentiation.
So the next reasonable questions are to which selection will you change and when, let's ignore bet amounts at the moment.
An accurate prediction wins regardless of the amount of chips standing on the top of it, the exact opposite is also true.
The results are changing, if we want to be more correct than wrong we should imitate those results by changing selections, thus adjusting to the stream of results instead of stubbornly sticking with a specific selection.
Selections change and the same happens for the rules and conditions, they cannot fit in all possible situations, therefore they should alter from time to time.
Differentiation leads to flexibility and flexibility to long term profit.