Some really nice discussion on progression suitability - personally I think I would stay with B&B or Cocoon, being the coward that I am.  But I look at the last sentence in GG's progressions and shudder a little bit "this goes on until a win or pre-defined loss".  At least there is mention of a pre-defined loss - I think this is important. 

Actually, I would like to go back and re-visit a comment made by Turner right up at the beginning - "to pass 3-3-3 with the same bet has no relevance as the trigger didn't work this time".  Yes yes yes!  If you don't get a hit within, oh I don't know, say 6 - 9 spins, then the strategy didn't work this time so best not to try and force a win.  Take the loss, grab a cigarette, come back and start again - maybe with a slightly higher starting point.  If the game win rate is as high as Turner suggests, then there is no point in escalating bets up to a stupid level in an attempt to force a win out of the game - Madam Roulette will bite you!

And the stats will support my contention that the highest chance of a hit happens on the first attempt, slightly lesser on the next, and the next, and so on.  So the longer the game goes, the smaller the chance of a hit becomes.  Anyway, apart from that, there is mathematical evidence to support the fact that an advantage (if there is one) disappears the longer you chase it.  Therefore games should be limited to a number of attempts dependent on the strategy employed and in this case I would suggest 6 - 9. 

So what would be the best progression to use on this basis?  Not sure - there are more experienced people than myself here who can offer suggestions I would think.  But I would suggest a two-tiered approach - tier 1 is the in-game progression, limited to a short series of 6 - 9 spins (determined by trial and error perhaps?); and tier 2 wold be a game-level progression, perhaps a multiplier is applied to the tier 1 progression after a losing game, or a "plus 1" to each bet or some such.

regards
Bryan

Fair enough!  I'll accept that.  It just seems to me that the bets get quite high and it doesn't take too many misses at that point to have a big loss.  Have you decided on a most suitable progression?  How has it been going for you?  Anybody else trying it out?

I've been trying to replicate your numbers and for the life of me I can't do it. Could you work a small example - say the first one using Turner's progression?  I gather you played it as 111222444 etc.

The first line - LLLWW like this?
L bet 1 on each so -1 (only have 1 6-line to bet at this stage)
L bet 1 on each so -3 (now have 2 6-lines to bet)
L bet 1 on each so -6 (now betting 3 6-lines)
W bet 2 on each 0 (6 units bet, 12 units returned, profit 6)
W bet 2 on each so now +6 and quit

The next line I got +18 and quit 3 bets before you did.  If continued to the end as given I get +54 but only if you don't reset when in profit. Why not reset at +18?  you did in the first line. Or - why not continue the first line until a larger profit like you did in the second line?  The rules seem a bit arbitrary and somewhat inconsistently played.

In fact, it seems to me that the large profits only come when you are not resetting - so you are playing a dangerous game aren't you?

regards
Bryan

IMO - self-paced instruction modules are useful and valuable but do not replace human instruction completely. Unless you are versed in the computer "way" you will struggle.  I know really intelligent people who still struggle to grasp the simple principles of structuring their personal file system and constantly lose files or shove everything on the desktop and so on. And who can't see the desktop in anything other than 2 dimensions causing them all sorts of troubles with losing windows and other problems with the UI. 

While the old adage "you can't teach an old horse new tricks" is not completely true, I think it fair to say that those of us who did not grow up in the digital world can find it difficult to fully integrate modern technological concepts - particularly programming.

There ARE such thinks as "good practice", efficient internal data structures, and other concepts such as queues, recursion, iteration, functions and subroutines, various forms of array structures, mapping, linked lists, sorting algorithms, and so on, that are often not fully covered by language-specific instruction programmes. Even simple (not very useful) things like the difference between "program" and "programme" are not well understood.

I admire anybody who is willing to take all this on by themselves, and they deserve our help if we are able to provide it.  Rather than just point a person at an on-line course and leave them to it, how about we try to add a little value to their learning experience? 

Perhaps we could set up a sticky in the programming area where we list people along with their particular skills who are willing to receive questions. Let the student take the on-line courses that are appropriate for what they want, and provide a place where they can find a suitably qualified teacher to answer their questions and provide general advice to help cover the principles that may not be well addressed in the language they have chosen.

Even starting off can be a problem.  What are they wanting to accomplish?  If they just want to play with simulations then perhaps they would be better advised to learn roullette xtreme. If they want to learn a programming language then why? What are they wanting to do with it? Which language would they be best advised to learn?

Best to all
Bryan

Razor - good luck with this.  I also believe that an answer does lie down this trail.  If I may make a prediction however - I think your program will show a small advantage which will turn out to be roughly 50%, or half, of what you are expecting.  And that the advantage will not be more than 2.7%.

Oh, and one more thing - I just noticed that the proposition includes "in the long run".  I'd just like to qualify that.

The phrase "in the long run" is subjective in this context.  I would like to propose that "the long run" in my post above is REALLY long - more than a lifetime.  Whereas in terms of the thread subject I would suggest that the meaning is - longer than one or two games worth of events but less than one lifetime.

Bryan

Can I both agree AND disagree with the thread proposition?

Having been a programmer in the past and these days a Business Analyst you could be forgiven for thinking that I should know better than to propose this.  Surely, you could argue, there can be only one truth here? How can it make any sense whatsoever for both sides of the proposition to be true?

Well, let me try and explain. I'll try to be brief but it may not be possible.  But I'll try.  And remember, this is only one person's thoughts on this - mine, of course.

After a long time of study of a range of ecarts using various progression techniques I came to the conclusion that a progression was equivalent to a flat bet - the actual amount of the flat bet being dependent on the particular progression under review.  Problem solved I thought - progressions were therefore useless so let's not waste our time any further in trying to solve the roulette problem this way. Note that this study was not done using any form of theoretical mathematical proof - the approach was empirical, but sufficiently large to support the hypothesis strongly.

However, at another time in my research I worked through a thought experiment that goes like this - using any even chance game, and where there are no limits, and where my bank is truly limitless, a simple martingale WILL eventually result in a win. Now, ignoring the poor return on investment and all the practical aspects involved, this shows that from a purely theoretical point of view a progression can win when a flat bet cannot.

So we would have to ask the question - if a progression can defeat a a game why would the first study not have shown this?  I am not sufficiently strong in theoretical maths to be able to answer this question that way, but I would suggest that the answer lies in the nature of randomness and the consequential effect known as Black Swan events.  These events aren't necessarily bad - it depends on which side of the event you have placed your gamble.  For example, you could go through your entire life playing the lotto only when expectation is positive (yes that can happen) and not win a bean because the probability is low - but for the person who does win ( and eventually somebody does), that is a positive Black Swan event for them.

So I guess that what I am saying is this - for practical purposes, if we actually want to win inside our lifetime and on a consistent basis, we have to treat the situation as per the empirical evidence which exists within our expected "volume" of personal betting history, i.e.  that progressions are effectively the same as flat betting. But the reality from the universe's point of view (which is really long) is that progressions ARE different to flat betting, however this is of no practical value to the human gambler.

So, to summarise, it is my view that it is a waste of time and effort to go down the path of trying to turn a losing flat bet strategy into a profitable one by throwing any form of progression at it.  End of story!  Kaput!  The fat lady has sung!  It just can't be done in a meaningful way - that is, within a reasonable length of ecart.  UNLESS, you happen to be the lucky one who is on the right side of the Black Swan when it appears - and the probability of this occurring within your lifetime is very low.  So why would you bother?

Therefore, ladies and germs, let us turn our thoughts to creating something new!  Let us jump out of our respective mental boxes and move into uncharted territory!  Be creative!  Discover or create new principles - not rehash old ideas long since proven to be worthless!

<I'll get off my soapbox now>.

All the best
Bryan

Spike - "Do people really do this?"  Of course we do!  On a NZ wheel there is absolutely zero risk.  It is EXACTLY the same as spinning with no bets on.  And you can do it continuously by simply hitting the rebet button.  I'm at a loss to understand why this should shock you so.

Thanks.  As you can see, the translator's do quite well but subtlety is lost and some choices of phrase are, I am sure, don't quite convey the author's meaning.  Any clues on the Sergio article?

Thanks Sam.

A couple of key phrases not translated well were -

sulla ricerca di un evento sfavorevole ma a scarto controllato, and
mai una progressione comunque), vi consigliamo un evento svantaggioso al pagamento compreso tra il 55% e il 75% di percentuale di svantaggio.

Do we have any Italian speakers here?  I came across a site by Jonathan Visconti (peddling his systems of course) but there was an interesting topic here - http://www.sistemaroulette.it/vincere-nel-limite-del-possibile/#comment-137

The reason I am interested is because I am trying to track down an article which is referenced in the discussion - by Sergio.  By using babelfish I can get an idea of what is being said but can't actually join any discussion and ask questions because I do not speak Italian.

Just wondered if there is anybody here who could comment.

thanks.

Understood - will do.

Could I just ask a couple of unintelligent questions?

Am I right in assuming that you have 6 groups? And that these are ordered?

How do you handle the wrap-around?  For example, if this is your virtual view -

A B C D E F

Then what do you count going from F to A?  It could be 1 or 5 depending on your view.

And how do you get a set of results that contains 7 possible distances when you only have 6 groups and so can only possibly have 6 possible distances?

Sorry if I have missed something obvious - don't want to waste your time.

Very true MG, which is why I always check my assumptions or fundamental principles as best I can, and the math too of course.
Gizmo - looks like we have found our fundamental "point of difference". 

Thanks also to Vic and Bayes for their intelligent responses - I appreciate it, from all of you.

However, given only the 5 of us seem to be talking about it and it looks like we can't move the thing forwards in any meaningful way, I'll give it a couple more days and then perhaps take it off-line.