OnceDear's Blog
Messing with Marty
Here's a report on this last few days messing about with a very watered down d'Alembert style progressive. Maybe someone would be kind enough to tell me if it has a proper name.Don't try this at home!
In case this post will provoke some negativity I'll start the ball rolling: Martingale, d'Alembert, and similar progressives are just a fun way of losing your money!
Money management and progressive systems can do nothing to diminish a house edge and are as bad an investment strategy as Russian Roulette.
By the same reckoning, such types of progressive betting don't actually make the house edge any worse.
So, what the heck. I just had a few days messing with progressive wagering. This was a pretty watered down d'Alembert.
To add context: The game of choice was online RNG Blackjack (HE<0.4% after comp point credits)
The progression applied was generally 5,10,15,20,25,25,25 with a few wild moments of flat betting 50 when I thought all was lost anyway.
Starting Bankroll was £208 credit in my online account.
Objective.... Well, I guess that it was to recover £**** of what I lost earlier in the month and to have some fun $:o)
Of course, Winning was not to be expected.
No hunches,prayer or superstition: Basic Strategy at each hand. No counting or AP play apart from 0.1% comp credit.
It went pretty well.
( There's an error in the table, in that I encountered an 11 losing hand streak once only)
Because I was progressing timidly, and not rigidly following the progressive, that bad streak barely cost me £200
By OnceDear's rule of thumb, my probability of doing this well was something like 208/2252 or about 9%
For the record, this did fully and comfortably reverse my most recent month of losses. I actually cashed out £1,250 when my balance reached £1,500 so what you see charted is the sum of that cashout+remaining balance
Also, for the record, I'm happy to provide evidence to Mike, any Moderator, or selected other members of my choosing.
A Matter of Scale
It's funny how the scale of wagering can work out:-Tonight at my local joint, I was playing my usual min stakes BJ for an hour or so when an atypically high rolling visitor joined the table. This is a small provincial place.
I'd bought in for £50 and he bought in for £300. That's a big initial buy-in for this game :)
I staked £3 to £5 per hand, he was staking about £100 into each of two boxes, paying very little attention to his wagers. It lasted moments and he went to the ATM for a few more hundred. At one time he had his entire bankroll sat in a playing box, but halted just in time to say that wasn't meant as a wager. He was over-wagering like a complete jerk, so much so that the duty manager came over and asked if he 'was new to the game and needed any help.'
I'd been there about 20 minutes before him, just messing around, but he was Mr flamboyant. I thought maybe he would be entertaining to watch, as a guy with more money than sense. Maybe he would win big.
Anyway, I soon left the table to cash out and we met at the cash desk. "Did you win,?" he said. I showed him that I was cashing out £101.50, 6 pathetic chips. So I said, 'Yeah: I doubled my money again*. . . . He handed his Visa card to the cashier and bought another £1K of £100 chips. I hung around just another 15 minutes, to watch him play. His money was gone in a flash.
Fact is, that I enjoyed my £50 victory. I wonder how he's feeling now.
* it's what I do once a week or so. Buy in £50 or so and walk out if I lose it, double it, maybe triple it, or occasionally just survive an hour with it. They do good bar food. :)
I have no problem being a small fish, after all it's mostly -ev
Comments
I kind of imagine your stories like an Andy Capp cartoon. Does your wife come down to the casino and bop you on the head with a rolling pin and drag you back home?
I miss that comic strip.
She would if she knew I was there
:)
I Just Couldn't Stay Away
After my previous post, I've been boycotting my online casino of choice. I lasted a couple of weeks, during which time I've dabbled with another one.But tonight I was just in the mood for a bit of online RNG Blackjack. Hardly a trip report, but I found it amusing
So sod it... I banged £50 credit in.
Played a while and clambered up to £102.50 Whoop Whoop: I doubled it
and then I lost it all. Drat! What a silly arse.
What the hell. Popped in another £50
Played a while and clambered up to £225.50 Whoop Whoop: I recovered it all and quadrupled my buy in.
and then, like a tit, I lost it all. Drat! That's me £100 in the hole.
What the hell. Popped in another £50
Played a while and clambered up to £95. Hmm could have been better.
and then I lost it all. Drat! That's me £150 in the hole.
What the hell. Popped in another £50. That's got to be it. Losing £200 was about to upset me.
Played a while and clambered up to £400
Cashed out my £400 for a nice recovery and £200 profit..
PHEW! What a lucky tit I am.
Comments
"One grain of luck sometimes worth more than whole rice field of wisdom." (Charlie Chan at the Circus)
Unless, of course, the one grain of luck is the whole field of wisdom. (The knowledge of luck.)
I did the exact same thing recently. Except I didn't win in the end. I lost it all. And it was more than you. But not much more.
Of course, the profit was short lived in my case. Stupidity prevailed.
You guys!
In subsequent similar sessions, I won it back and more.
Then I lost it back and even more.
Then won it back and even more: I'm still a lucky fool :o)
Last 3 days up about £850. Charts below updated to show the roller coaster.
Punished for Bonus Exploitation
Well. That will save me some time and money!In my previous blog post, I illustrated how lucky I've been in increasing my online bankroll. £100 to £6,000 on day 1 followed by a steady decline of most of that, followed in turn by a recent rapid ascent to eventually reach 10K. All with Blackjack, and a lot of good fortune. Bonuses were helpful, but much of the winnings was at normal RNG blackjack which I was getting a taste for -EV by about 0.55%
Along the way I've managed to profit by playing through and winning from some Blackjack bonus cards of typically 50 to 150.
But now it ends.
I suppose I suspected that I was out of favour the last few times I made cash deposits. With each deposit, an automated chat box would pop up telling me to start chat to discuss the great deposit bonuses that would be open to me..... But recently, each time has been followed by a sheepish live operator telling me that no deposit bonus was available at that time. Oh-hum, I NEVER accepted them anyway.
The only bonuses that I had interest in were the bonus cards added to the shoe. I'd hang around at the live play tables and play my 50 per hand when bonuses in play. I'd try to just take one bonus per day on up to 15 days of the month.
But last week a 150 bonus did not get credited and I queried why.
Here's the reply, redacted just a little.
Well Screw you, casino. You won't now be getting any of my remaining winnings back, as you were sure to do soon enough.Quote: my online casino
This email is to inform you that we have made a decision to deny you from obtaining any promotional bonuses from us in the future.
Just as I was starting to get addicted to a -EV game.
Comments
Quote:
"which is highly inconsistent with our philosophy of rewarding players who take risks and enjoy gambling."
="which is inconsistent with our encouragement of LOSERS"
What is that typical British passive-aggressive nonsense at the end?
Maybe you shouldn't have been so aggro with the bonuses. It's tough to toe the line between being a player who the casinos want to keep and a consistent winner. Eventually you will be shut down. Oh well, plenty of other casinos.
Quote:What is that typical British passive-aggressive nonsense at the end?
Not aggressive. I was just expressing mild irritation. They've reneged on a 150 bonus that they should have just given me and told me was my last.
Quote:Maybe you shouldn't have been so aggro with the bonuses.
Very probably. I always knew I was pushing my luck, while staying within their own rules. I always new they had a catch-all rule "We can dump on you when we feel like it" I also had a rule: " I can stop playing here when I like." They invoked theirs - I invoked mine.
Indeed.Quote:Eventually you will be shut down. Oh well, plenty of other casinos.
I meant the last line of their response.
Let me get this straight. You were depositing money each time. You were using bonuses freely offered. You were doing well with them on a -EV game. So now you're no longer welcome?
Really? Idiots. How exactly is taking a bonus "abusing" it? Why the hell do they offer it if they don't want people to use it? Just stupid.
That's pretty much it BBB.
Their rules permitted me to receive up to 15 bonus cards per month worth up to a total of £2000. It was a clear, written and reasonable limit All I had to do to receive them was to be playing (live dealer £50 minimum BJ) during the time that the cards were in the shoe, and that was no secret. So, that's what I did, hung around till the chance to get a bonus card was high and collected a few. After that, it was just a matter of staying lucky long enough to play through wagering requirements of those bonuses. I managed to do that a few times, thus making and withdrawing some money at what was a low house edge -ev game.
Their perception was that I was abusing good faith and benefiting unfairly. At no point did I attempt to exceed their stated numerical limits, nor did I cheat in any way. I just vultured a freebee.
Fact is, I was in a -EV game that was rendered +EV by using their generosity carefully.
I suppose they expected the recipients of these bonuses to manage them badly and get wiped out by wagering requirements, which would likely happen to most. It's not may fault that the bonus funds were eligible to use to win more bonus cards, thus making a virtuous circle possible.
.
As it happens, those bonus cards netted me a modest sum when compared to my perfectly bonus free periods where luck was firmly on my side.
Concerned about Beginners Luck
Beginners Luck Good or Bad in The Long Term?I'm lucky at Blackjack. It freaks me out how lucky, and it's starting to worry me. Let me explain and share my thoughts.
My Blackjack life started in Jan 2014 when I signed up with an online casino. I'd printed off the basic strategy card and credited £100 to my account. With sign up bonuses I had £250 to play with. This is where my beginners luck began. I've posted about this on the forum, but basically, on day one, I turned my £100 sign up into over £6,000. Beginners luck doesn't come much luckier than that.
At that time, I cashed out my winnings and put the money towards a new car. I knew that if I continued playing, it was only a matter of time before I gave all the money back, and I was damned if I was going to do so in a hurry. So, I restricted my play to an amount I'm comfortable losing as 'entertainment spending' I'd credit a few hundred pounds a month and play with that. Sometimes I'd cash out, and sometimes I'd lose. As expected, I was trickling the money back. No big deal as it was entertaining and I can afford it.
But luck came back to haunt me a few times now. Along the way, with the help of some aggressive play and a few bonuses, I've had a few sessions where I've won significantly. £2000, here, £4000 there. The wins keep wiping out my losses and my attempts to send the money back to the casino. :)
I'm starting to worry now that this is not a blessing, but is more a curse!
I'm afraid that I'll get cocky and will submit to a compulsion to play and that there is a big comeuppance awaiting me. I need to take stock - Maybe slow down.
So, I'm posting this, as a warning to my future self and as an invitation to comment.
Below are two charts from my 'Cashier History' The first shows how my running balance has changed over time and the second shows my transactions on the account. Note my spectacularly lucky first day and note the equally amazing luck I had in the last month, where I again took about £5K profit. I'd expected the initial downward trend to continue. On the second chart, positive values are withdrawals from the account to my bank and negative values are transfers from my bank into the casino account, which I like to maintain with a modest value.
Note that I'm making more transactions and that they are progressively greater in value. I'm afraid of that trend. Is that a symptom of something?
I invite comments, not so much about how lucky I am, but more about how I should proceed to not get addicted.
I'll update these charts occasionally to show how I actually proceed ( to be a dick and give it all back plus more?)
Comments
Regarding getting addicted, just speaking for myself, I can say for sure I would be obsessed and wanting to play all the time, if I won all the time. Just saying .
The pattern you *might* be able to avoid is to be addicted to increasing the size of the bets progressively. That is almost for sure to have you giving it all back. Personally, I have found myself doing this, but very modestly, so I think it is possible once you know that is a pattern to avoid. If you can, you might be able to stay a winner for a long time. To be a lifetime winner at BJ purely based on luck has to be hard to do IMO due to the fact that the variance is low.
I don't think you have to worry about addiction. You have just been lucky. Remember, there is someone on the other side who has the opposite luck as you (probably me :) )
You might be playing at Plus E.V. with the bonuses. It's not hard to buck a 0.5% house edge with bonuses. So, keep playing if you enjoy it. Winning helps it be more enjoyable. If you find yourself chasing and making bigger and bigger deposits, that's not a good sign.
Cheers Teddy,
I sure as hell am getting +EV with the way I'm doing bonuses, and not just a little bit.
It's only recently that I've shown an interest in bonus acquisition.
It's not dead easy, but I'm going to attempt to never credit real money to my account again.
:o)
Thanks OG,
At least I know the risk. Posting my concerns here should help me to focus on taking appropriate care.
I do see that by increasing the size and frequency of my buy-ins that I am effectively increasing the size of the disaster that could get me.
I've done a back of the envelope assessment of my Action placed over this period ( >£1m) and I've estimated my position on the distribution curve. I reckon I should currently stand at a balance of about -£7k and that my lifetime SD is about £8k, so I'm very roughly 2 SD away from where I should be: I.e. pretty damned lucky, but not extremely so.
I'll state for now my medium term objectives.....
To attempt to use the top £1.5k of my bankroll to explore meaningful advantage opportunities.
To not allow my running balance to drop below £5K at any time over the next 2 years. If it goes below £4k, to stop playing real money.
To not waste too much time playing. Time is something that I'm currently losing rapidly to the game.
To ENJOY it and not have the game become a chore.
and of course...
To embrace the Variance
"which is highly inconsistent with our philosophy of rewarding players who take risks and enjoy gambling."
LOL!
Well....
As a reminder to myself of the joys or horrors of gambling, I've updated those charts.
With a recent spectactular run, I clambered over £10k lifetime profit. Then I had a bad few weeks and chucked £2.5k back.
But now, since I've reigned in my play, I'm at a comfortable £8.1k. The x-axis is not linear and the latest £900 climb was over just 3 evenings.
ps. Yes. i know I'm just small fry. This is for my benefit.
Charts updated 22 Nov.
Thanks, gods of variance, for another easy £500 today.
Note the dramatically scaled back activity since they p1553d all over my bonus exploit.
Tee Hee. Did I say £500?
Scratch that, make it £900
Charts updated after a few short and successful sessions messing about with Martying.
I know. Martying is dumb, but it was fun getting that last £2,500. Nice to be north of £10k profit.
$:o)
Charts updated after a successful few days messing with Marty. Yeah. I know :o)
And again after another session takes me through the £12K line
Just to confirm that I'm not always lucky: With Starting credit of £150 won my way up to just over £1200 over a LONG evening of online play. But then over the course of less than an hour lost it all. Ouch. I don't buy into the concept of it only being house money or paper profit.
Sort of proves that I am putting myself at risks that are growing out of my comfort zone. Lucky so far that my 'gambling' has not left me at my expected value of about -£10K.
I'm conscious that just because I'm ahead now, I should not become bold if I want to stay in profit.
Still above £12K and aspiring to stay there. If that means by abstaining, then that's what I shall do.
Charts updated after my most recent three buy-ins of £50, £50, £200 turned into £0, £0, £4280.
I'd actually been further ahead by another £1200 or so before losing that bit back. (RNG BlackJack with HE of <0.4% after comp bonus)
But the £4280 is cashed out (£1250 completed, £3030 pending for 4 days)
So...My humble £100 buy in a couple of years back is now worth £18088.61 in withdrawn hard currency. That's profit of 17988%
£20,100 is an alluring psychological target now.
By my estimation I could throw all my bankroll behind trying for that and have a probability of success of just a bit under (18088/20100)=89%
I won't be doing that though!!! The £1200 squandered reminds me I'm vulnerable.
Comments
Footnote:
OK. With £1k in my account, and feeling smug, I figured I'd push for another £100 doing more of the same.
SHEESH! I soon regretted that.
Estimated Probability of £1100 being hit before £0 an estimated 1000/1100 =90%
Not wanting to jeopardise all £1000, I penciled in Probability of hitting £1100 before £500 = 500/600=83%
1000.
up gently
1025
up a bit more
1056
Streaks from hell. . .
Down ( not every bet detailed here, just the theme)
1000
900
800
750 (Odds now stacked against me)
700
600 Sweating a bit, will I cut my losses if I hit 500?
498 (Don't ask) Yes. resigned to quitting while behind. Start flat betting 25s and 50s A few doubles work, a few don't. Volatility all over the place.
458
398
348. Oh to hell with it. Let's pray I get back to 500 where I'll call it quits
448
498
548
.
.
.
Keep going
748
hmmmm. This is exciting
848
900
1000 Whoop whoop whoop. I survived. Now, where was I? Don't want to go there again.
.
.
Bobble about a bit between 900 and 1050
.
.
1100
Objective met.
That was bloody stupid. It could have gone oh so badly.
Once again, Oncedear is a lucky tit.
Shall I push for another 150 to bring it to a nice round £1250?
.
.
.
Well, of course I did. With £1100 of firepower, £1250 was just a short stroll away.
.
.
.
.
And I made it. Current balance £1253.50
Enough. pack it in OnceDear, silly sod.
Congrats! Of course some people win with progressive systems some of the time! Have you actually cashed out?
Thanks,
Yes, have cashed out the £1003 leaving me 250 to play with.
So, over the course of the last few days a deposit of £200 (+ 8 of comp money) became £1250 of cashout, another £1003 of cashout and a residual balance of £250.50
Not bad for a stupid losing 'system'. YES. I confirm and assert my belief that this is a losing system. Doesn't stop it being fun.
Of course there is a tiny bit of selective reporting here. I did not post much detail last time I lost. But overall, I'm still way ahead. Will update the charts below later.
What a lucky tit you are!
Yeah, Thanks Teddy. I'm certainly lucky and I guess I do gamble like a tit by my own admission.
Check out the updated graphs in the initial post below. You'll see that this lucky streak just about overcame my steep losses for earlier in the month.
On a serious note, I'm conscious that I am tending to increase the amount wagered each session and each buy in. That could be working as a sort of loss chasing exercise which is not unlike what a Marty does. I'm not generally chasing losses, but I am conscious that I'm setting myself up the potential to make some big ones. That bankroll chart in my first post does make the 12K total profit look an appealing and achievable target ( 80 - 90% probability if I put my whole bankroll at risk against it). But I won't be doing that.
Incidentally I chucked away that residual £250 after getting it over £600 and pressing on. Taking a long break from it now.
Is there no end to this madness?
Having chucked away the residual £250, I credited £300 with which to try to win it back. What we Brits call a mugs game.
Similar game play, mostly 5 - 10 - 15 -20 - 25 -25 with the odd moment of madness.
Kept playing till balance £550. Withdrew £450 leaving residual £100
Played that residual £100 till balance £508.50. Withdrew £408 leaving £100.50
Wagered £0.50 at low stakes roulette.
Cashed out remaining balance of £101
I'm starting to think this RNG Blackjack loves me or is trying to lull me into a false sense of security... Nay invincibility $:o)
Re-updated the charts to show that I did indeed crack that £12K profit line.
REALLY MUST Pack it in now and 'do a Mendelson' and quit while I'm ahead.
Yeah. I know, Progressives don't work.