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.

Fair enough.  I suppose, when you get right down to it, it is really just a bunch of rules anyway.

There are 128 legal bets on the felt (I think I have this right - did I count them up correctly?). In addition the wheel can be partitioned into neighbours, tiers, and any sort of breakdown you care to think up.  People can "cover zero", use the "imbalances" such as columns with more blacks than reds and vice versa, and so on and on. You can dream up all sorts of possible bets and the sky is the limit - there may be almost an infinite number of possibilities. It is no wonder that discussions, forums, schemes, systems, seem endless and there seems no end in sight of ways people are dreaming up to attack the game. What is a person to do?


I'd like to lend some brain power to "efficiency". If we were to accept that there is such a thing as "advantage play" (and I realize that this is contentious in its own right and worthy of a whole other discussion, but for the purposes of this one let's just accept it at face value), then how can we implement this in the most efficient way?  The line between negative and positive advantage is small, would you agree? Even with an advantage, turning this into a profit requires efficiency because playing inefficiently will swallow up the profit in the blink of an eye.


Or even - how can we find, or define, an efficient bet?  Should we use the math (i.e. statistics) or just plain logic. Statistics can be dangerous - but powerful when used appropriately. To quote Nassim - "it is a mistake to use statistics without logic, but the reverse does not hold: It is not a mistake to use logic without statistics".


To help kick it off and keep us on topic, here is a definition of efficiency.


A level of performance that describes a process that uses the lowest amount of inputs to create the greatest amount of outputs. Efficiency relates to the use of all inputs in producing any given output, including personal time and energy.
Being efficient simply means reducing the amount of wasted inputs.
Happy thinking!


Bryan

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.

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

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

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

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



           

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

What's going on?  Why wouldn't it post?  It was a simple cut and paste.  I'll try one more time.
Scenario 1 – 1 chip on all 38 numbers for 38 spins (he is using the American wheel).  Using the probabilities we would get a single hit on each spin so the arithmetic is like this: cost 38, return 35 plus our chip on that number = 36. Net loss = 2. Over 38 spins our total net loss is 76 units and our outlay is 38 x 38 = 1444. Calculating our loss in percentage terms is 76/1444= 0.0526.  Or 5.26%.

mmm - I wonder what happened to scenario 1?  Oh well, here it is.


Scenario 1 – 1 chip on all 38 numbers for 38 spins (he is using the American wheel).  Using the probabilities we would get a single hit on each spin so the arithmetic is like this: cost 38, return 35 plus our chip on that number = 36. Net loss = 2. Over 38 spins our total net loss is 76 units and our outlay is 38 x 38 = 1444. Calculating our loss in percentage terms is 76/1444= 0.0526.  Or 5.26%.
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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 ).


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!)

Well, it is the same of course.  I personally don't subscribe to Jack's theory BUT I have to say, I haven't quite figured out how to come to terms with the concept of betting against yourself - which is what you are doing if you bet more than one number.  It would seem to be a bad idea yet the arithmetic shows quite clearly that it has no cost.  Consider the following 2 scenarios - one betting all numbers and one betting just one number.


Scenario 1 – 1 chip on all 38 numbers for 38 spins (he is using the American wheel).  Using the probabilities we would get a single hit on each spin so the arithmetic is like this: cost 38, return 35 plus our chip on that number = 36. Net loss = 2. Over 38 spins our total net loss is 76 units and our outlay is 38 x 38 = 1444. Calculating our loss in percentage terms is 76/1444= 0.0526.  Or 5.26%.
Scenario 2 – 38 chips on 1 number for 38 spins.  We get one hit (probabilistic-ally speaking).  So – cost is the same at 1444 (38 x 38).  The return when we get our hit is 38 x 35 plus our 38 chips on the number = 1368 so our net total loss is 1444 – 1368 = 76.  Again, calculating our loss in percentage terms is 76/1444= 0.0526.  Or 5.26%.So I'm afraid that his theory doesn't stack up – at least, as far as I understand what he is trying to say.  If you think I haven't understood his theory properly then that's fine, explain it to me a bit more and I'll try another scenario.