Hi ybot

Thanks for most conciliatory note. I really respect that. No offence was intended or taken.

However the facts are that Dr Blakey was a full time professional player and as verified by various sources played at Melbourne Casino daily and in one of the VIP Rooms. He was accompanied sometimes by others who have corresponded with me directly.

Thus despite theoretical expectations the way he played more often than not resulted in wins. Sometimes he lost, or nearly lost, but that means he won or broke even. More often than not, being brutally honest, he won, but he could handle and mitigate defeat. It is NOT easy to teach that.

Now is not the time or place to go into MB methodology really fully, but I do intend to within my Blog Section, probably next month. There is already much MB material there but we can renew and review it thanks to at least two others who did have direct tuition from MB, and we can clarify extra detail. Also I invite Jason Chan to join the party if he is available, or any others who wish to share.

Also those who question or disagree are invited to join, but will have to be literate than a one syllable negative. No abuse or libel will be tolerated and will be edited out by me.

My own position is neutral and objective. I will be critical of inconsistencies and will describe how some students were left scratching their heads. If you teach you have a responsibility to be clear and articulate, whether you charge or not.

Above all I want to understand how he beat the game. I think I know but want to go into this in more detail. That can help me, and you. It may be that his technique was more than just mathematical, or an adaptation thereof. When we are in times where Moore's Law has shown the acceleration of knowledge, but that in some fields ( such as mobile communications doubling of present value was achieved in months not years, consistently, and was not understood by most professionals. Today in neuro-plasticity research and in other areas of medicine growth is exponential and through overlaps achieves even greater acceleration. Why in this context of our time when 'knowledge' and 'understanding' is constantly challenged do you make closed statements - most unwise.

However MB is the one man who developed my passion for the game as a worthwhile activity ( ie one could win) when he colourfully  illustrated his success as described in his campaigns at Launceston. He self published and for some reason some seem to be very jealous and upset over the published material. There were other writers but he sold his book in the lobby of Jupiters.

I can tell you as I had direct correspondence with Crown Casino after his untimely death, that Martin was hugely respected as a successful professional who brought credit to the game and the casino for the manner in which he behaved and the casino management behaved.

Compare that to some recent shocking publicity about US high rollers. I found the same when I played at Casinos Austria and Sky City - at times some players behaved in a manner drunken, aggressive and obnoxious. They were losing. Winners do not behave like that. They gratefully accept their good fortune, their well earned skill and timing, cash in and depart suavely.

MB always did that, as did my two professional mentors in roulette. One played at Jupiters, the other at the Ritz and Sky City and Christchurch Casino when it first opened and that was where I met him at the tables.

The best times you remember, value and celebrate, usually through really colourful and harmonious interaction. That is the delight of live casinos.

Thanks ybot for your post, and look forward to further correspondence down the line.

Best
R.

Hello ybot

Can you please further outline what you mean by your last post so that further discussion can follow. Rinzler expressed a closed mind attitude a year ago, but the work of Dr Blakey actually has been shown to be valuable and he was a genuine very successful professional roulette player based in Melbourne. Martin corresponded with many over his approach to roulette. In recent weeks I have been contacted by several who are his former students and a new thread will be established to review his work.

For some reason there have been several Forum members over the years who have been particularly  polarised by his approach, and have attacked  him personally. It was on that basis that I wrote on the original BetForum.cc website to defend a respected  senior player who did not deserve the libelous and fraudulent accusations from trolls and mischief makers that actually contributed to the stormy early demise of that website. I note it is now to be re-floated.

There may be some valuable practical lessons to be learned from the late Dr Blakey's work, and with an open mind we can examine what has value and what may not. No one can deny that Martin was a colourful and refreshing character when he first came on the scene in the 1980's, and it was he who showed in a blaze of self publicity that roulette could be beaten and that a professional life playing roulette could be sustained. He achieved it but does he satisfactorily demonstrate how others could? That is a debate ongoing. Writers such as Jason Chan have shown that with intelligence and appropriate application that is possible.

From my own professional point of view I am open to take a fresh look at this subject (on my Blog section) but will not accept and tolerate the offensive views of troublemakers, and naysayers. I expect there will positives and negatives in the course of the new thread but we can steer to utilise the best principles, and identify the flaws and risks.

Thanks ybot for your timely question and I will start this work in August with a fresh appraisal.

Quote from: Missmusibat on July 21, 2015, 10:25:36 AM
XXVV, I respect your experience. Without calling any names, I have been playing roulette and bacc since am in my twenties. Now am in my seventies. Taking just a leaf out of my experience, in the style of play you are advocating with multiple sets of interpretations if you are taking a four hour window, just try for once imagining that the alternate spins doesn't exist. You would get the same experience as if you have taken into account every spin. I can prove this for any trigger/any sets of interpretations. I respect the privacy of everyone's bet selections and hence request you to try for yourselves and see before believing it.

Thanks M., and also for Peter my apologies for this intrusion to your own thread.

Yes you may well be right I believe, but what I am trying to focus upon here is the fastest use of information, and parallel with this the string of meaningful linkages that original spin sequences enable for as you have seen from my earlier post my cluster methodology relies on linking 'independent' spins into short signals of say 3 to 12 spin duration. The mode of 'same' or 'change' can either continue a short cycle or break up into choppy short sequences where change is the norm. This latter phenomenon can be very profitable, but is of course quite alien to those who see every spin as an isolated event.

Yes one of my mentors, BC, a roulette player who traveled the world and played at the Ritz in London, advised me 25 years ago of this every second or third spin selection as a means to avoid being spun out by unsympathetic/ hostile croupiers, long before the advent of internet casinos. It worked for him when under pressure as he often was because he played with aggressive progressions on a huge risk bank and his bank of high value chips at the table was intended to be quite confrontational to the casino hierarchy with whom he was in constant battle (lol). His nightmare was being spun out while still trying to not only configure his latest targets but also arriving at the correct size bet for the form of progression he devised and copyrighted (alphabet).

My style of play over the years has totally reversed and simplified a lot of that and hence this interesting exploration at the moment for very short and fast sessions, sometimes no more than 10-15 minutes, sometimes only one spin, as that win enables the +5% gain. Also I flat stake ( thus have a bet with a proven edge). My goal is to enable bet stepping using the powerful principle of compounding. You can read about this in my own Blog on this Forum.

Thanks I will overlay your suggested approach to some of my past live data and as a fascinating exercise compare the original live feed with an edited approach using a/ every second spin and b/every third spin.

You have reminded me also of the work I did with a colleague on this Forum 5 years back exploring penultimate cycle betting cycles. As with all matters roulette, this phenomenon came into focus, in a cyclic manner, every now and then with great results.

I do not mean to be negative with regard to your suggestion but perhaps at least sceptical regarding maintaining the signal linkage between clusters when edited as you have suggested. We shall see and in a week or so, will report.

Thanks for your comments, contribution, and please also excuse me Peter for this small digression within your own thread. All most interesting.

Quote from: Missmusibat on July 20, 2015, 11:17:15 PM
You can opt to skip spins to gain time for your bet analysis. So you could count the numbers from every alternate spins or every 3 spins to buy you bet analysis time. You will find that the results, strike rate will be the same as if you are chosing to consider every spin for your triggers.

choosing

Yes of course this is a practical and pure 'seamless' mathematical approach. However I prefer to work at each spin as my bets often change spin by spin as I play multiple sets of interpretations ( for example finales/ streets/ wheel sections/ columns) and my goal is to enter and exit as swiftly as possible in the particular style of play I am now advocating ( just one of many valid approaches) and by selecting for example local Dublin time 8pm onwards over a window of four hours or more, the spin frequency can be more than halved because of patronage. Just look at the Wiesbaden live data for example comparing Tuesday afternoon to Saturday night play by comparing dealer change times on tisch#3.

I certainly now question the assumption of the 'seamless' nature of spin sequences in comparison to my views 20 years ago, because of live table experience.

Thanks for being so candid Peter.

My personal view ( and that of much recent research published and able to be accessed via this Forum and professional casino research journals in advantage play) is that RNG is designed to defeat the player, in fact is specifically commissioned by the casino operators to do so.  I was keen to see if indeed your method can be applied to the relatively fast Bet 365 and Dublin feeds live, and for what duration of session to enable a modest return. You have demonstrated both in a short illustration.

It would be really helpful if you could simply record say a schedule ( ie no video necessary) of your most recent 10 sessions in this latest format. What would be ultimately most enlightening is the series of outcomes over a 30 session spread, so as to enable a net gain and strings of 3 or more winning sessions that might then enable unit values to be stepped. However this will work only if losses are controlled and true net gains are enabled. It is essential to be clear of casino cheating so that the variables are known and controlled. No easy matter to then prove you have a (relatively) consistent winning methodology but RKG is very clever when limits are placed ( stop losses) and suitable short stepped progressions may be applied to bets such as sixain, and wheel neighbours.

The quality of the bets must always be carefully evaluated and of course remaining 12 targets can be erratic at times requiring stops/ starts/ pauses.

The control of variance is at the root of the problem of consistency, and only after prolonged testing can better bets be found in suitable small windows of opportunity. More to the point, not only better bets, but evaluation of context so as to enable suitable conditions and cycles of suitable characteristics, such as noting of clustering and repeat numbers. Such behaviour often comes in short cycles and I encourage you to look into this. Yes I am a firm advocate of 'connections between spins', as well as the well known 'independence' of spins. It seems a paradox but both statements are true, yet at different levels.

The French Roulette rules are best if possible but they are not available for Dublin.  Bet 365 has now cut available time to bet in order to make between bet analysis more difficult. Thus a bet that looks ahead would be helpful - this is not a glib remark but instead a bet that is triggered by a promising 'tendency towards a certain outcome or set of outcomes' and which can be turned off if failing or amplified if working successfully over say 2-3 spins.

In my view a modest gain of +5% on a RB is sufficient gain. ie +25 on a 500 unit bank. If the variance is controlled and demonstrated then unit values can be high value although small in number ( up to +25). Question is, can RKG demonstrate this over a suitable statistically significant sample size? If so then you deserve to attract much success.

Good result by anyone's standards.

Will keep observing.
R.

Thanks for re-surfacing this excellent thread  Whybot. There is some excellent work here.

There is a thread on the General Discussion page for May this year which features useful fresh input from Sqzbox, Xander and some questions from myself on the subject of How Do We Define and Calculate The Edge.in roulette.

Greetings H.

Too small a sample to tell. Sorry, because when is enough, enough?   30x100  is not enough ( sorry Charles), or 40 x 100.

Intriguing. Suggest you prepare several more equivalent sample tests. Say for example 7 sets of 4,000 and compare.

10,000 spins might be a better single sample module, and then compare say at least 3 samples. I have one colleague who generated several million RNG spins to test his method which has a family of bets showing about +2 to +5% edge.***Such a small degree of tuning, but it needed vast samples 'to be sure'. He now plays the methods live ( requires comparative cycle analysis from 100 to 300 spins - takes a huge amount of patience - not for me). He plays now with larger value units live and has been doing this ( despite a few personal behaviour blips/ meltdowns- these can be trained out) for the past 12 months. We meet several times a week at the casino.

Also compare live vs RNG. Why would one result differ so much? One suggestion is that your bet choice is very 'transparent'/ legible ( easily read)  to the RNG program so as it is designed to beat you ( this is a fact) you cannot camouflage your bet. My own bet methodology is harder to read because it involves multiple spreads of 9 number targets. In theory if I had say six or seven sets going simultaneously the poor program would become confused because all numbers might be covered at any one time ( but of course and even though flat staking ) were at different stages of a six or seven step bet method ( earning from +27 to -27).

However I am keen to see  the sort of bet you placed and why the RNG seemed to be so comparatively negative, or perhaps over a set of several samples these results might be equivalent between live and RNG. However I suspect the simple flat bet RNG result is doomed.

I was surprised nevertheless with a very small RNG sample test I did recently at how the bet dealt with RNG ( just like any other source) but it was a ridiculously small sample of only 98 spins ( although spread over 4 sets ( so 4x 98). Still way too small to form any valid opinion.

What actually were you seeking to demonstrate? It has raised several issues so thanks Hans.

*** The flaw with the approach from my friend S. is that his generated samples in RNG were not generated in response to any bet. They were neutral. In live RNG play the program will generate results in response to what you lay - takes only micro seconds to process. S used to play online in a shadowy style where there would be other players at the table, and so he could 'hide' behind their smoke screen. This will not work in the live RNF in the casino as he may be the only player active, and he has been caught out there in this manner, so I think now prefers the Rapid Roulette live table. I will check to see his latest comments. His bet is vulnerable because it may only expose say 3 to 5 targets occasionally.

Thanks.

I will use the ratio as 1.19 as a measure/ benchmark of bet relative efficiency in future. Goodness me, if the same result could have been achieved with a single chip outlay as opposed to nine chips, what a leap!

The triple digit bet edge is wishful thinking evidently ( although can be witnessed in short cycles of 20-30 spins sometimes).

Still not sure whether the 'house edge' figure should be deducted or is that irrelevant?

This has been most helpful.

Ah yes thanks, I used the wrong figure for outlay ( I used income). Apologies.  +24% it is then.

120% came from +459 divided by 385 spins, a sort of efficiency percentage measure, or 1.19 efficiency ratio.

It  seems there can be various ways of viewing which may assist the player, but in the end all that matters is the net profit where possible.

Thanks

yes it is based on results.

So what about measuring % return per spin.

Take for example the recent RNG test with 385 spins and a net return of +459 units.

The approx +120% ratio is a measure of sorts but not pure edge per se over the house?

Even though 385 spins were observed it does not mean that I played all of those spins***. In fact I played about 55% of those spins with 9 targets, ie 212 spins, ie outlayed  1908 units to result in 2367 units, ie + 459 units.

Using EV/IBA that would be  2367-1908 = +459 and divide that by spins 385, ie 1.19 , so what is the edge?

Surely not 1.19% ( seems like a lot of effort for little edge), or 11.9% , or back to my original ratio 120%.

Instead following your advice,  459 divided by total outlay ( a sort of measure of bet efficiency) 2367 gives 0.194

ie bet edge of +19.4% ( less -2.7% overcome?)     for this session result alone of course.

Is this correct?

*** let me throw a small spanner in the works here...

I actually played 96 spins but recorded 98.  Also I played this simultaneously on 4 independent sets of targets, some times playing sometimes observing and waiting and in one case 97 spins were used.

So adding all the results for every set together added to 385 spins and the net result was a fortunate +459 units on 212 spins that were actually played.

This question relates to my field of experience being roulette, and flat staking play in particular. Recently I have encountered several surprisingly different interpretations of 'winning edge'. Can you please provide some clarification for us ? The easy one is the house edge which is a fact in European Roulette and of course larger for double zero roulette, but what about the one where a player has an edge over the house ( having overcome the house edge) based on a statistically significant sample of live bet experience and the consistent application of one particular bet methodology and strategy?

At present I use a percentage expression/definition based on a sample over many sessions ( average duration say 100 spins) with total spins in excess of say 5000 spins. It seems to me there is a 'trading range' within several sample sizes of 5000 spins and at present I strike the midpoint as a guide, qualified by a guideline range either side. Of course within a sample itself there can be sessions which are losses, but in the greater scheme of things it appears there can be a positive outcome for several bet types.

The context for this question is work on an ever more 'efficient' bet. I am grateful to Sqzbox and others for this terminology and participation in this research, and also to Xander for putting forward his own interpretation and definition of 'edge'.

As I understand some of the variables that may qualify any answer let me add that although I recognize  the most efficient bet may be a single bet (ie one chip placed upon one target) for reasons of time availability I compromise a little and actually stake 9 targets for every bet application. Hence if struck on the first attempt I earn +27 units. I keep going until a hit or stop loss at -54 units and resume later with a fresh attack when appropriate.

With respect, at the surface level, I just cannot see the point to which you are intending to drive here Kav. As stated earlier, heading negatively, which is what you appear to be doing using this 'reduction to zero', a sort of reduction ad absurdum,  in attempting to break the square, you will frustrate your worthy intentions. Please clarify further or correct me here. I do not want to make a grievous
error.

Quote from: Xander on April 20, 2015, 07:56:45 PM
The answer, to the thread, is to simply flat bet.

IMHO Xander is right in this context. I use flat bets to control the risk of escalating loss, yet step and even sometimes very simple parlay (2-3-5) short cycle winning opportunities ( but as with sports betting staking plans, cover worst case scenario to at least break even where possible - as with today's CHL football).

The reference to illogical is best expressed by the brilliant Sqzbox in his answer.

Your question, to my mind, has an unspoken subtext, and IMHO you are reaching out for real fresh creativity on the subject of roulette. For in dealing with negatives we are aware there are no winning answers. Instead we have to work with positives to find arguable provable methods and strategies.

Yes Kav, generic questions may be problematic, but abstract thought is particularly good because there you can push the familiar, the common, into the fresh, unrecognisable and unknown. This is what Art does, using the imagination, ie Mind, as with Picasso or Andy Warholl or TG whose brilliant oil canvas is in front of me as I write.

Roulette provides a wonderful opportunity to bring together Art and Science ( believe it or not- ie use of the imagination, reason and analysis), just as does Film and Architecture. But that is my niche view of the world - very subjective -lol.

Lateral thinking and the many many books by de Bono - this is all very worthwhile. So is knowledge of the latest research into creativity - reference Director of top international Film School at Columbia College of Art + Science Chicago, Bruce Sheridan. Note the importance of blending Art +Science.

Thanks Kav for raising the importance of thinking outside of the square - again a very important principle.

Then again thanks for relating this to roulette.

However I must agree with Sqzbox, Drazen and Mr Spock that your question is quite illogical. Consider a type of question that opens rather than closes down options. Also consider a big question rather than a small question.

Suggest you frame another question/s that really does encourage progress and creativity, like 'what do I see in roulette?' or 'what can I do to understand roulette more completely?' or 'how can I minimise my losses while learning about roulette and gaining live practical exeperience?' or 'how can I win at roulette?'  or 'how can I go about structuring my goal to beat roulette?' or 'can roulette be beaten and if so what are the best methods?' or 'what is the most efficient and effective way to use my resources such as time, money, intelligence, in order to benefit myself and others?'

One of the most effective applications of creativity, and a real sign of curiosity and intelligence, is indeed to ask a question. However the quality of the question can also be developed so that the best questions really are the most challenging, and offer the best opportunities for fruitful outcomes.

Frame a question that encourages as well as challenges.

Our fundamental purpose in studying and enjoying roulette is to profit with maximum timely honed aggression when suitable, as well as playing with steely and intelligent defense to mitigate loss at other phases of the experience cycle.

Those scales need to be well calibrated and under constant vigilance. This involves practical applied psychology and rational analysis using a variety of methods well proven by empirical research. All readers here will have their favourite combinations and we need an effective arsenal to deal with what we encounter at the wheel.

I personally disagree with some fatalistic comments that imply sustained success is impossible. It is also misleading to talk of HG, because success may not be as you had imagined it.

We know consistent success is elusive at times; it is cyclic.  But the truth is what we seek needs to be more clearly defined, imagined, seen, and that is where well constructed questions can be such a useful creative tool.

Hope this helps some . It will be bound to upset others however I am sure. Thanks Kav for your efforts to reach out.