Quote from: sqzbox on December 30, 2012, 01:29:46 AM
I write my own programs to test theories and concepts before playing. Guess what! I still don't play!
Fascinating! What concepts should we avoid in your opinion to save ourself some time?
welcome to the forum! :thumbsup:
Golly gosh - that's an interesting question. And, surprisingly perhaps, one that has never been asked of me before. And you know what? as I sit here and think about it I find it rather difficult to answer. Why on earth would that be I wonder, since I have been researching and studying and testing for more than 10 years!
Computer testing is limited. Only rule-based or, if you prefer, objective strategies can be tested. Any strategy that has a subjective component is unable to be fully modelled and so can't be reliably computer-tested. Also, such strategies as dealer signature, ballistics, etc. can't be tested because they rely on the physics of the system being used - that is, the physics of the specific wheel/ball/conditions under scrutiny and, for some reason, casinos don't like their players to bring computers to the table. I acknowledge (and believe) that some highly skilled players can win consistently using these techniques but unfortunately I am not one of them. That kind of approach requires a very specific skill set and personality/character that is just not me - I guess I just don't have the patience to develop the skills necessary.
But what I can do is run Monte Carlo simulations of principles that might be able to be capitalised on for real play. I am trying to find such a principle and while I have lots of ideas I haven't yet proven anything with a large enough edge to defeat the inherent disadvantage of the odds. I know that there are bucket-loads of mathematicians out there who state categorically that mathematically-based systems cannot defeat the wheel - but, again, I am not one of them. Maybe my view is based on the romantic notion that "there is more under the sky that has not been discovered ... yada yada etc." but I am convinced that it can be done. Further, I believe that it HAS been done, but who in their right mind would publish this? That's another topic of course so I won't discuss that any further here, but one thing I will say - NEVER close your mind to anything. All through history people have always limited themselves by their closed-mindedness and negativity and time after time have been proven wrong. What was it that Kennedy said about going to the moon? Something like "we don't go because it is easy, rather we go because it is hard!" - or some such. And Einstein's quip? Well, it was exactly that - a quip! Just because Einstein said it doesn't make it so - you have to consider the context. And I find myself raving again! Well, again, back to your question.
I have tested all sorts of theories. All have come back to the probabilistic expectation in terms of results in the end. So therefore we have to be more clever. This is not going to be easy. And furthermore, I doubt that anybody who has solved the problem is likely to publish the complete solution here. Sorry, but that is a reality. But we can support each other in terms of generating ideas and testing principles. Actually turning that into a successful play strategy will be over to the individual of course. Anyway, what I can say is this - patterns? forget it. Anti-patterns? same thing. Insurance betting? not successful. Anything commercially available? nah. Follow the last, opposite of the last, etc. - complete fails. (On this latter style you can find an article I once wrote here - http://xerxx.se/oops/main/reading/rr000020.html (http://xerxx.se/oops/main/reading/rr000020.html) ).
What about money management? such as progression, clever in and out, hit and run, etc. Again - insufficient by themselves. It doesn't matter how you manipulate the chip placement, if the selection strategy doesn't have a flat stake edge greater than the odds disadvantage then they will not be successful long term. The reason for this might not be that which you expect. Who are the professionals in this game? The casinos of course. Not the dealer, or even the pit boss, but the people who construct and manage the business model. They know that in reality gambling is all about the bank - basically, who has the biggest. Anybody with a bank bigger than the casino's, and with unlimited betting, could take them down. Hence the reason for table limits. If your bet has a limited cap then you cannot go high enough to win a coup. Think about it - even a simple martingale on even chances will EVENTUALLY get a win - provided the sky is the limit. But a cap, ANY cap, stops that strategy dead in its tracks. Again, this is a reality.
So, Bally, on looking back over what I have written here I do not really see a good answer for you. If you could be more specific in terms of your questions perhaps I could provide better answers - there is just so much that can be studied since the field is so massive. Also, I am not sure that this particular thread is the right place to go into specifics and maybe start a long discussion. As I am new to the forum I am not totally familiar with all the options in terms of the boards offered - perhaps Vic could suggest something. I'm happy to answer specifics as far as I can, and you won't find me a negative soul - but I will douse a fire if I think something is just plain wrong.
regards
Bryan
(and yes, I am a sqzbox player!)
Thank you Bryan for a very well thought out reply. You raised loads of interesting points that I hope will be discussed by us all at some point in the future.
regards
bally
Bryan, anything I can help you with, just shout.
As for the functionality just say what you want to achieve and we'll respond :nod: :thumbsup:
Bryan :thumbsup:
Hi Bryan,
Thank you for your post,it was very insightful.
Sqzbox -" After all, it SEEMS sensible to "follow the trend" which is really just the last decision, or, if you want to be a bit more sophisticated, follow the decision before last which captures a proportion of two types of trend (all the same, or alternating)."
I read your posting at the link referenced. That and what you have written here are refreshing reading to say the least. Have you considered a form of detachment from bet selection, nothing more than a guess, and the effectiveness track? Some people refer to these conditions as win streaks and losing streaks. What about using the bet selection process as a tool to produce favorable periods for the purpose of exploiting them.
I'm also curious what it was about patterns and anti-patterns that gave you the impression that they are worthless or useless? Have you ever exploited a perfect occurring pattern?
Bryan, can I just say what a breath of fresh air your writing is and how right you are..!
A very warm welcome and I for one look forward to your next clear-sighted and insightful installment..! :thumbsup:
Thanks so much for the warm welcome - I look forward to many thought-provoking discussions. Perhaps a brief word or two on patterns might be appropriate since Gizmotron asked my thoughts regarding them.
I think it has already been mentioned in other posts that the human brain is a pattern-matching machine. This is vital to our success in the game of survival. Without this ability every animal would fail and die out. We do it without thinking and it is extremely powerful. We see patterns in everything, which themselves are parts of larger patterns, and so on ad infinitum - there is no end to what we can spot if we actually apply a little mindpower to the exercise. As a tool in the game of roulette perhaps it is useful but can it be exploited for consistent success?
A friend of mine recently referred me to an excellent book that I would recommend highly to you also. Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I am in the process or re-reading it and this time making the effort to jot down in summary form the gems contained therein.
Patterns are just structural overlays on what has already occurred. There is no evidence to support the contention that once a pattern has been found it will continue - or even if a pattern appears to be emerging then outcomes will go on to form the pattern predicted. Roulette outcomes are random - period. Consider the coin tossing exercise (because it is easier to visualise a binary when performing a thought experiment rather than the possibility of one in 37). If we have, after a few tosses, a pattern of any kind that we spot, what is the likelihood of the next toss being the continuation of that pattern? 0.5 of course - no matter what pattern we have spotted. So there is no advantage. Anti-patterns are just the logical inverse and again is 0.5 so again no advantage.
Having said all that, I do acknowledge that when playing a game of chance some controls are necessary (you have to have a starter and a stopper at the very least right?) and patterns may be a useful structural overlay that can provide them for you - but make no mistake (in my view at least) these control overlays are not predictive or in any way provide an edge. They are simply mechanisms to provide structure to your play. Consider a calendar for example (they seem to have been in the news a lot lately). The universe doesn't know that today is Monday, or that it is the 31st Dec, or that it is new year's eve. This is a man-made structural overlay on the passage of the days that helps us coordinate our activities as a single human in the activities of the race as a whole - nothing more. It doesn't help us determine whether or not tomorrow is going to be wet or dry (neither do the forecasters actually and they have a lot of science at their fingertips).
Have I ever exploited a perfect occurring pattern? I have to confess I have not. The reason being, it is my belief that a pattern may continue or it may not and the likelihood of such is exactly equal to the probability of the game - therefore no advantage exists. The research I did on this is in that article you read and, although it was about baccarat, I think the principle applies to all games.
Regarding your comment on detachment and streaks - there was a British guy whose name escapes me who wrote a nice little strategy called Gambler's Luck I think it was. He basically stated exactly that - sit around with a relatively harmless little strategy until your luck comes in and then leverage that as best you can. This is not a bad strategy at all really, but for me and my rather scientific mind, that is too subjective and doesn't fit into my frame of reference of studying the game using logic and computer simulation.
regards
Bryan
sqzbox, thank you for answering all my questions. My goal is to convince you that there is more to detachment than you have explained. You see, the smart player must accept the truth that attempting to follow trends offers no advantage, as you have clearly stated. Hence the need for total detachment from any bet selection process. I'm not talking about rule based or progression but any randomness characteristic. There is no advantage and no prediction offered.
All you have of use is the current nature and characteristic of the effectiveness. Every loss is a signal that you are not in a perfect win scenario. I believe it's useful to attack all winning steaks and to back down from chaos and losing streaks. Have you done much work on this?
You clearly have no use for trends. This is exactly what you have decided to do without. Perfect patterns and trends occur. While you successfully bet on them the casino is like your own personal ATM machine. That is a fact. I know of no other opportunity gambling that is better than that. All it takes is having a strategy that pays for when it does not work.
Download Ebook: Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in private area for friends:
http://betselection.cc/private-general-board/download-ebook-fooled-by-randomness-by-nassim-nicholas-taleb/ (http://betselection.cc/private-general-board/download-ebook-fooled-by-randomness-by-nassim-nicholas-taleb/)
Another one in private area for forum colleagues.
Download to the book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable:
http://betselection.cc/private-general-board/download-ebook-the-black-swan-by-nassim-nicholas-taleb/ (http://betselection.cc/private-general-board/download-ebook-the-black-swan-by-nassim-nicholas-taleb/)
Thanks Wannawin - I hope people take advantage of this and give them both a jolly good read. The text is nicely written and reads like a novel but don't be fooled - there are a lot of vital concepts in there even though the vehicle he references are the financial markets - the same principles apply to our subject matter here. In particular - take notice of the references to "expectation" and what that really is. Also the "Black Swan" - this is the statistical anomaly, or rare event that nobody expects to fall victim to but always do. The Black Swan is why progressions fail if they are being used to attempt to overcome an odds disadvantage. And if you want to tackle something really heavy going, try "Treatise on Probability" by Keynes (1920). Now, I don't pretend to completely understand this brilliant work - it is way above my head. But reading it can still give you some insights into how really clever people tackle the problem, and perhaps indicate that a s..tload of work has already been done and is available to us if we wish to research it.
Gizmotron - I hear you. I think I understand what you are saying - that tracking or measuring "effectiveness" and adjusting, tuning, etc. until you are in-phase with what is transpiring can lead to a significant and real advantage. I believe you. I haven't been successful personally with that approach - perhaps I lack the necessary intuition. Maybe my focus on the scientific approach has shut that down in me, or maybe it was never there, or perhaps it just withered and died due to lack of use ("use it or lose it" as they say). This approach is, I would suggest, an entirely subjective one and therefore one that I couldn't put in a virtual lab and test. For that reason (and only that reason) I haven't pursued that approach.
regards
Bryan
Wow, what an interesting post. My gut reaction is to tell you that two things made me seek my success by working very hard at this. Simplification & patience is the secret. It is a simple thing to look at my chart and to see the best occurring trends. It is a simple thing to probe the gambling session to see if a string of wins is forming. If so then the trends are holding up. If those conditions continue then I attack and keep attacking. If they fail then I back off. To do this I must avoid digging deep holes. I back off to a single minimum side bet when any change occurs that changes the win streak. Without going into it in fine detail, that is all there is to it. It's also as far as I've taken it.
I've given away my software charting method and my list of randomness characteristics. They are posted here on this forum. I've clearly stated that following complex characteristics of trends and patterns is only a device to deliberately manipulate the effectiveness track.
In my opinion patience is almost impossible to use absent playing experience. That includes trying to guess when to attack the effectiveness streaks.
Sqzbox -" Gizmotron - I hear you. I think I understand what you are saying - that tracking or measuring "effectiveness" and adjusting, tuning, etc. until you are in-phase with what is transpiring can lead to a significant and real advantage. I believe you. I haven't been successful personally with that approach - perhaps I lack the necessary intuition. Maybe my focus on the scientific approach has shut that down in me, or maybe it was never there, or perhaps it just withered and died due to lack of use ("use it or lose it" as they say). This approach is, I would suggest, an entirely subjective one and therefore one that I couldn't put in a virtual lab and test. For that reason (and only that reason) I haven't pursued that approach. "
Sqzbox -" This approach is, I would suggest, an entirely subjective one and therefore one that I couldn't put in a virtual lab and test. For that reason (and only that reason) I haven't pursued that approach."
I'm working on it as a computer simulation & as a validation of proof for peer review. The algorithms source code will be the subject of review. My language of choice is LiveCode. It's one of the best xTalk languages. The code is almost the same as reading commented code. So the common structure, custom functions and common methods will easily be identifiable. If successful I'm sure there will be people that reconstruct it in other languages. Attempting to write human intuition and selection is no easy task.
QuoteIt is a simple thing to probe the gambling session to see if a string of wins is forming
Quotetracking or measuring "effectiveness" and adjusting, tuning, etc. until you are in-phase with what is transpiring can lead to a significant and real advantage. I believe you
This is exactly what I and a few others do, with great effect for me atleast, I've played probably 2 to 3 thousand short sessions doing simple formation watching, increasing bet size when the time is 'right' my session targets are 12 to 15 units PLEASE don't confuse this with hit n run, I don't wait for an event to happen, I play what's coming out, I play all EC groups and as Bayes may agree, I am only touching the tip of the iceberg with what I do, I also only play on BV NZ the amount of units I aim for is set to cover the 10% they take each session.
If you can work with random then it isn't too difficult to stay ahead.
Superman, this approach might be of use. Once you master dozens & columns you can move on to the opportunities of collisions, 16 numbers. Their odds are very close to the even chance bets. I'm finding them very interesting.
Mucho fascinating! I confess I really like your term "effectiveness track". It resonates well with me, and I suspect fits well with the way our brains process incoming data too. I remember seeing a doco that described how we recognize faces, often from a great distance and with great accuracy - apparently we spot a bunch of "differences from the norm or average" and these differences are what defines the individual for us, without any conscious effort at all - it all just happens automatically. So our brains are already wired to measure and refine and make judgement. I guess all you have to do is hook into that, which means personal disciplines to make sure you treat the incoming data with the right part of the brain, leaving all the other stuff to the side. In other words, you have to "see it the right way".
I'm also fascinated that you are attempting to turn this into a rule-based strategy so that it CAN be simulated and therefore tested - a bold and ambitious venture I dare say! But where would we be if we weren't willing to tackle the difficult tasks in life - I wish you much success and look forward to hearing how you get on. As a programmer myself I know how much effort it takes.
Bryan
Perhaps it is worth mentioning at this point a little of my own background, because we do see a lot of references to programming and languages and tools and so on, and I think, to a degree, pretty much anybody can call themselves a programmer if they do a little work with excel or the like. The advent (and proliferation) of tools such as excel with an accessible macro capability puts very powerful tools at the hands of the layman and this is a good thing in my opinion. Likewise other tools such as the roulette xtreme (I think it is called) which provides an environment for testing strategies that anybody can use brings the power of computer testing to the world - again, a good thing.
But I'm old school. I spent my career working on mainframes, DEC machines to be specific, and coded in what is known as 3GL's. I hate PC's (although I am forced to work with them) and generally speaking I find the quality of apps (what we used to call programs) pretty poor. In my opinion Bill Gates has a lot to answer for! DOS was never the right choice for an operating system! But, here I go again - raving! Must be getting old or something. Anyway, I am fortunate enough to own my very own VAX machine which is a brilliant number cruncher and I use this to write my own programs and run the simulations. So I will not be very helpful in PC matters - sorry.
However, I am trained in programming the old way - that is, we paid attention to efficiencies both in terms of processing and memory usage. We understood how to create readable modular code, reuseability, etc. and how to structure a logical pathway, with error handling and correction. We understood boundary conditions, interfaces to devices and people, and how to timeshare resources. We solved the problems of file sharing and locking, how to detect and avoid deadlocks and multiple-user file accessing - long before the PC pundits came along (who then, in their arrogance, attempted to reinvent the wheel thereby imposing pain and suffering on the poor user all over again, including dates in the wrong format, wrong size paper, numerical rounding that doesn't work, file sharing that behaves weirdly, and so on and so on that persists to this day). All this was solved and fixed 25 years ago in my world. Still, PC's do make good gaming machines!
So I might be able to help with a logic problem or structure suggestions or whatever, but I am not likely to be helpful in language specific issues - unless it is VAX Basic or VMS DCL. That's me in a nutshell - slowly becoming a dinosaur, and resisting all the way!
Bryan
I've been working on creating foundations to stand on. I want to create functionality that allows the software to ask questions like I would ask the question. I instantly relate to dozen 1, numbers 1 to 12. Throughout the software this will be an object that has the ability to know if one of its numbers hit on the current spin. It will pass on an ability to know if it was part of an occurring pattern. It will know if it's a sleeper. It will know if it belongs to any global effects that exist long term & short term. In other words I'm going to create a Roulette playing genius mind. Software can evaluate so many functions that hundreds of conditions can be considered for each number and grouping. I doubt that a person could find the truly abstract and elegant permutations that randomness has to offer. Thank goodness there are only 37/38 numbers and only 12 options for outside bets to consider for pattern recognition. Yes, this is a huge task.
Welcome Sqzbox
Looking forward to much that you have to offer. The resources within this Forum are formidable. Perhaps your musicianship will enable an 'effective' inter-action of right and left brain activity -lol.
Have you thought about a more 'efficient bet' in your studies?
Best XXVV
Thank you Sir X ;) ! So - an "efficient bet" eh! Are you poking the hornets nest? I tell you what - I'll trot over to the private forum and post a little challenge. Maybe we can get a rewarding discussion going. I'll use the private forum because I really don't want to waste my time with naysayers and general negativity - I'm happy to be told that my ideas are stuff, but only if the responses are well-reasoned and well presented. I am a great believer in Aut tace aut loquere meliora silencio.
Gizmotron - I love your approach. You are basically, if I understand you correctly, making each of the possible 128 legal bets an object in its own right. This should be do-able, and, I think, a very smart way to do it. In the early days of research into AI I recall a study done on attempting to simulate the way a school of fish moves. Computer power was not what it is today and the scientists involved found that, while the simulation worked, it required huge amounts of resource and was very slow in real-time when run. So they changed their approach and assigned each fish in the school (this is a virtual school of course) its own process (or object in today's lingua). Each process had 2 simple rules to follow - always keep moving and swim as close to your neighbour as you can without touching. This worked astonishingly well apparently and performance was greatly enhanced. Anyway, I believe that your approach is eminently sensible and would be easily extensible, once perfected, into other possible bets such as neighbours, tiers, wheel sectors, and the like. Good luck!
regards
Bryan
Sqzbox, I was just thinking how this opens the door to extensibility. If every programmer has a weakness then mine is namespace overloading and recursion. But there is a beautiful thing I like about these kind of features. I can break the rules and store the attributes in a line delimited kind of a text object. Each object can have an unlimited number of easy to read lines. That way I won't go crazy with huge lists in hierarchies and/or arrays. Function calls, with their attributes can be position based or XML based. I built a non-traditional parallel linear parser for an experimental markup language experiment. I can use it to power a read/write process for each objects list of characteristics and attributes. If I wanted to, and I really don't, at this time, I could make these objects available for each spin. These would be mind numbing data sheets, if math types wanted to see them that is. It's actually coming together.
Gizmo - are you testing me? ;) While I am a great believer of KISS there is no doubt that at times a complex problem requires a complex solution. What you are attempting is really, it seems to me, to develop an expert system. There are commercially available packages that allow for the development and running of such things - have you thought about utilising one of these? Or even, tackling the problem in this way? Developing an expert system in the defined sense of the term does require a change in approach - "knowledge" becomes key, rather than "information". However, defining that knowledge can be tricky. I guess by going through the development process that you are, helps clarify all this in your mind. I know that for myself often the "doing" helps clarify the requirement and the solution, and sometimes starting again from scratch with this enhanced understanding can be quite beneficial. It sounds like the main issue will be the proper definition of the objects properties and doing this in the way you suggest does allow for easy adjustment - which has to be good right? But if this is truly the main issue, then perhaps your time is better spent there and building this knowledge into an already existing expert system engine rather than doing all that yourself. Just a thought.
I spent yesterday canabalising Sims that were developed over the past few years. Many of them are good at extracting sleeping dozens from the stream of spins for an example. I'm an expert at using pull parsing as a way of extracting & populating structured data. I know how to think your way through reading randomness, my way, and using it to manipulate the effectiveness track. If I were to attempt to use another method I would get lost in the demands of the intelligent system. I don't want to use cookie cutter 4th or 5th generation solutions. I will develop this much faster if I just solve actual thinking issues by making it the same process as human association and visual dexterity. You see I know this topic. I play this in real time using a pen and index card at a live casino. All I have to do is task the computer to see my list of characteristics in the flow of spins, select the best occurring trend, check it against the effectiveness track, and apply the next bet. There is no way I would want to cram all that into a bunch of classes in a language that I probably detest. It would be like using excelScript. I'll show an example of a structured data document. Maybe you will see how easy it will be to see what I mean?
Example of extensible data structure:
// -- this could be held in a global variable
// -- contains object data set for the dozens set
// -- used for best trend selection
<dozSetData>
// -- 30 spins deep
<dozStream deep="30">3,13,20,12,34,0,5,12,16,...etc</dozStream>
<dozSleeper dozOne="3" dozTwo="6" dozThree="2">2</dozSleeper>
<dozSingles numSingles="3">yes</dozSingles>
// -- global effect sleepers
<dozGlobalSleeperGroup occur="yes">5</dozGlobalSleeperGroup>
<dozGlobalSleeperD1>6</dozGlobalSleeperD1>
<dozGlobalSleeperD2>4</dozGlobalSleeperD2>
<dozGlobalSleeperD3>5</dozGlobalSleeperD3>
// -- global effect singles
<dozGlobalSinglesGroup occur="yes">5</dozGlobalSinglesGroup>
<dozGlobalSingleD1>2</dozGlobalSingleD1>
<dozGlobalSingleD2>7</dozGlobalSingleD2>
<dozGlobalSingleD3>4</dozGlobalSingleD3>
</dozSetData>
// -- contains object data set for the dozens set
// -- used for best trend selection
<dozSetData>
// -- 30 spins deep
<dozStream deep="30">3,13,20,12,34,0,5,12,16,...etc</dozStream>
<dozSleeper dozOne="3" dozTwo="6" dozThree="2">2</dozSleeper>
<dozSingles numSingles="3">yes</dozSingles>
// -- global effect sleepers
<dozGlobalSleeperGroup occur="yes">5</dozGlobalSleeperGroup>
<dozGlobalSleeperD1>6</dozGlobalSleeperD1>
<dozGlobalSleeperD2>4</dozGlobalSleeperD2>
<dozGlobalSleeperD3>5</dozGlobalSleeperD3>
// -- global effect singles
<dozGlobalSinglesGroup occur="yes">5</dozGlobalSinglesGroup>
<dozGlobalSingleD1>2</dozGlobalSingleD1>
<dozGlobalSingleD2>7</dozGlobalSingleD2>
<dozGlobalSingleD3>4</dozGlobalSingleD3>
</dozSetData>
Fair enough. I suppose, when you get right down to it, it is really just a bunch of rules anyway.
Quote from: sqzbox on January 02, 2013, 05:27:57 AM
Fair enough. I suppose, when you get right down to it, it is really just a bunch of rules anyway.
It is. It even includes a layer for subjective qualities. I'm including a layer for percentage of perfection and a layer for difficulty of session. It will compare these traits for the best qualifiers. In the end it is nothing more than a complicated set of rules. An agile set at that. Everything I have experienced in playing says this won't work. If I can catch a moving target with a simple computer sim then that will be amazing.
As fascinating as this is, and it is, isn't this getting a little off topic..? This was made a sticky by esoito to provide good advice for the inexperienced newcomers, it was intended to enlighten them of the pitfalls and to try to steer them away from losing their first bankroll all in one night..??
TC -- you're right!
But I was reluctant to say anything whilst there was so much of interest being posted here.
And it's a good example to the newcomers of the quality posts available on the forum.
Eventually the thread will run out of steam (most do in the end!) and then Victor or I can consider splitting it.
I agree completely. In fact I said as much way back in reply #6 and even offered Vic a chance to suggest a better forum but I don't think he got my point as his reply was about functionality, which wasn't what I was asking at all.
Gizmo - let's call it quits on this branch of discussion at this time, and let me just say in closing that I am really looking forward to reports on your progress - perhaps in a more apropos thread. Thanks for your detailed and interesting info on your work.
Thanks Bryan, indeed if I were a mod I would assign you a place of your own, I believe we have a lot to learn from you. :thumbsup:
Hi sqzbox,
Welcome to the forum, you've written some interesting posts, and nice to have another programmer here. :thumbsup:
BTW, regarding PCs, there are alternatives to Windoze; have you tried Linux? it's a very nice platform for developers with lots of free tools for those who like to get "under the hood". And of course there's the Mac, which is also Unix based.
Regarding testing, I rarely write full-blooded simulations of systems any more, at least, not to find out if they "work", but only to test concepts and find probabilities which are too complex to be be calculated manually. Like you, I prefer a scientific approach, I focus on trying to find ways to reduce the variance - if you can do that, then you have the game beat, and it's not necessary to find a flat-bet winner in my experience.
I noticed that the topic had split too. I didn't want to suggest it right away. These were Bryan's first posts. I didn't want it to be tossed around right off the bat. I would like it split off in my software section. That way finding it will be easy.
Confession time. Byran, I'm only using the 12 outside bets and the colissions of about half of them to offer as a proof of concept demo. I believe it's enough to manipulate, conjure, or extrapolate the effectiveness track. In the end, the primary task is to win by allowing myself to win. Proving it will be this year's task.
Quote from: Gizmotron on January 02, 2013, 04:12:21 PM
I would like it split off in my software section. That way finding it will be easy.
Done.
I had to provide a title for the splitting to work.
Let me know if you want it changed.
It's a better name than I was thinking. It's what it is too. Good name.
Quote from: Gizmotron on January 02, 2013, 11:20:45 PM
It's a better name than I was thinking. It's what it is too. Good name.
Thanks, mate. I appreciate that. :thumbsup:
Hi Bayes - and thanks for the welcome. Yes I've thought about Linux but, I don't know if you are familiar with VMS or not, but after working with this most elegant OS for so many years I have to say I find Linux unnecessarily cryptic and difficult compared. I've stuck with Windoze (love it!) because in my consultancy work I have to stay with an industry standard - and even, dammit!, have to recommend Windows when interoperability is a consideration, which is most of the time in business.
What you say about testing concepts rather than systems is exactly where I am at also. However I still refer to what I do as Monte Carlo simulations because, while I am not applying funds in any way, I am running simulations of strategies to expose the true probability resulting - this is what a MC sim actually is. I am not "betting" but rather comparing the actual hits to expected hits and determining the resulting probability compared to theoretical probability so as to determine any advantage (or reverse which is just as good).
Gizmo - "proof of concept" is all it takes. This is the scientific method. I'm particularly interested in the concept, as you say, of abstracting the bet selection from the effectiveness track and seeing where that leads.
All the best
Bryan
The trick is to first understand the problem. I think Einstein had a nice quote regarding that. I came to the conclusion that I was allowing myself to win. But it's a little different than that. I'm isolating synchronization. This is a new field of research emerging.
http://plus.maths.org/content/sync-emerging-science-spontaneous-order (http://plus.maths.org/content/sync-emerging-science-spontaneous-order)
"And here we get the first taste of Strogatz's excellent skill in guiding the reader through a mathematical proof, explaining the first tractable model of group synchronisation developed by a Japanese physicist, Yoshiki Kuramoto. Reading this section feels like touring a beautiful architectural structure, appreciating its ingenuity and creativity, its beauty and its strength, giving a real feel for the proof without any of the mathematical details that might put some people off. That isn't to say Strogatz shies away from mathematical concepts, there is much discussion on linear and nonlinear dynamics, differential equations, differences between particular mathematical models, but these are always explained in a physical, tangible way. "
Imagine that. A scientific study of the concept of spontaneous order. And they might have missed Roulette of late. HAR HAR HAR.