Anyone ever play roulette? I've never been in a casino before, and I'm not a fan of gambling, usually....but the ever popular martingale system really intrigues me, especially if you set a hard stop loss.
I'd really like to see everyone try this out, multiple times if possible, and post your results, and compile the data.
Statistically, compared to flat betting, in the long run betting systems do not work, because the house will always have an edge. You could get lucky in the short term but overall you are just going to lose money.
...if you are willing to take that risk for a little gambling experiment, martingale seems like a good way to go.
The Martingale betting system basically entails chasing your losses by doubling your bet in hopes that if your doubled bet wins you will recover your losses and gain a profit of your lowest denomination (your original bet).
I've tried it out, and it works well most of the time. The problem is, for those of you unfamiliar with the martingale, is that it breaks if you get too many losses in a row, and your bankroll or the betting limit caps you out.
Statistically, the Martingale will work most of the time...and fail sometimes. A computer simulation was run (I don't have the link but I'm sure it can be found through google) and they figured 19.xx% of the time the martingale will cause you to lose all of your money, while the other times it was profitable.
Instructions:
Spoiler:
If you'd like to test it...here's what to do
Roulette has many different ways to bet but we're going to focus on the most basic. Black / Red. It's about a 47.xx% chance to win your color. So it's nearly like flipping a coin, with a slight disadvantage. This machine gives you 1000 dollars....If I were to try it out I'd bring only 100 dollars, so my goal with this is to see if I can bring my bankroll up to 1100 without going to 900, using $1 chips.
Alternatively, and because it looks cooler, you can try to get the bankroll up to 2000 without going broke, using $10 chips.
Only place one $10 chip on 1 color, and spin.
If you win, repeat the bet. Keep doing this to slowly increase your money, $10 at a time.
If you lose, double your bet. Place a 20$ chip. If you win THIS bet, remove the chips and place a single $10 chip back on a single color and start the betting over again.
If you lose, double your bet again, to $40......win, restart at $10; else double to $80.
Then $160
Then $320 (keep in mind in the casino this would be $32 dollars if I only brought $100 for that day)
Now, with the martingale you need to keep doubling your bet until you win, which would in effect cancel out the entire losing streak and in terms of profit would be equal to having won the original bet before the losing streak even started. However, bankroll limits and bet limits make this impossible. If you get so unlucky that you get a string of 8+ losses, it's easy to go broke. I've seen roulette have a 12 loss losing streak, which would bring the final bet up to 40,960....which is not possible, or recommended on any level.
Personally, I like to set a stoploss at the 6th consecutive loss. $320 is the highest bet I will make, and if I lose that, I will quit playing, or if I'm bored, start over at $10. After all, the amount you bet has nothing to do with the odds.
If I started with $100 and $1 bets, that would mean the most I could lose is 1+2+4+8+16+32 = $63 (a seventh bet wins would break even without profit, and $64 is too much to bet on roulette anyways), leaving me with 37 dollars to take home or mess around with on video poker.
you should write down how many times you had to bet $32 before you reach your target profit, and/or how much money you made before you reached the stop loss
I always at least double my money at roulette not using the system above. I bet alternating corners down the middle. This system iirc (been a while since I did the math) results in a 50 some odd percent chance of losing 2 chips, 12% chance of losing your bet completely and 30% chance of approximately doubling your bet.
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Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:11 am Posts: 9449 Location: Your Dreams
Assuming you never ran out of money so you couldn't double the bet before, this would never cause you to lose money. it's an "always win" strategy. the problem is, that inevitable losing streak that puts you out of cash so you cannot continue the strategy.
_________________ Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails... ...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be? Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me █ ♣ █
I've heard of this before. However what looks good on paper doesn't always work in the real world. While it's incredibly unlikely that you'd loose red/black several times in a row it's not impossible. Not to mention any possibility of partiality on behalf of the house.
Or if it were that easy how would they stay in business.
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Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:11 am Posts: 9449 Location: Your Dreams
Rorinthas wrote:
I've heard of this before. However what looks good on paper doesn't always work in the real world. While it's incredibly unlikely that you'd loose red/black several times in a row it's not impossible. Not to mention any possibility of partiality on behalf of the house.
Or if it were that easy how would they stay in business.
It's not that easy. You do not go in with unlimited cash. If you don't start your bet fairly high, you'll make money so slowly it's not worth sitting there, even while winning. No, there's a reason this strategy, while valid, doesn't break the casinos.
_________________ Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails... ...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be? Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me █ ♣ █
Joined: Wed Sep 02, 2009 7:36 pm Posts: 7507 Location: Last Western Stop of the Pony Express
Casinos love this system, they make a lot of money off the folks who try it. The part of it where you walk away because you can't afford to double your bet anymore at least.
I saw a wheel hit black ten times in a row once. Most everyone who had been betting on black lost their winnings when it hit a red number.
_________________ The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin
"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones
I've heard people say they've had success with martingale bets while counting cards at blackblack....unfortunately I think the minimum bet at the casino is $20 for blackjack...and for some reason counting cards is frowned upon (even though the cards are plainly visible and any idiot can quickly count cards with a little practice----or, to simplify it you can just bet higher amounts when there have been many more low cards dealt than 10-Aces)
I wouldn't mind playing video roulette starting with bets as low as 25 or 50 cents in order to make certain I'll be able to double my bet 7+ times.. If 4 out of 5 times I go to the casino I can grind out 100 bucks an hour for an hour.....that's awesome and way better than grinding out 15 an hour at a job. Of course you could end up in the hole on more than one occasion. I think if you set a stop loss and hard time limits and profit limits and you don't mind gambling a little bit, it could give you a little supplemental income, and you can drink and cuss while you're at "work".
Someone needs to program a martingale calculator with stoploss and take profit variables
I recommend playing blackjack if you're looking for something with more human involvement than a slot machine. When you understand the rules and get a pretty good handle on the game theory, you can play for quite a while with not a lot of money invested (especially I recommend looking for lower minimum-bet tables, usually in the casinos that aren't on the main strip).
Though if you're really looking for a game that involves a lot of human interaction and will really let you get your money's worth out of "length of time played", I'd recommend looking into craps.
Edit: Oh, and since you're a first time gambler, here's the biggest tip anyone can ever give you: Put aside a set amount of money for gambling. Never gamble with any money other than the pile you set aside. And in your head, tell yourself "This money is gone. This money is spent. This money has been thrown down the drain and it will never come back." If you happen to come out ahead, good for you. Once you go through your pile though..... stop. You will enjoy gambling a lot more when you realize you're wasting the money to be entertained, rather than pinning your hopes on an immediate payoff.
Seriously. I thought my favorite strategy game was StarCraft 2. Nope. I was wrong, Poker wins, hands down. I'm patient. I'm logical. I'm good at reading people. I'm good at calculating odds. I'm good at managing money. Hold'em is right up my alley.
I want to eventually grind the 3/6 limit tables. I'll plan on bringing 500-1000 bucks or so for a weekend.
To be honest I intend to try out Blackjack but it looks boring (not as boring as roulette / slots / video poker), and I wouldn't want to throw down $20 a hand unless I had someone there helping me count cards.
Craps, I have no idea how to play craps.
Anyways, I'm about halfway through Caro's Book of Poker Tells and hopefully will finish that up this weekend or next, and I've just started getting into Small Stakes Hold'em by Ed Miller....these books are both awesome.
I've been having mixed results playing Pokerstars no-limit tables but I've since tightened up my game a LOT and switched to limit and I've been having a lot of success..of course it's all play money, though, so that changes things (in fact, I don't even consider it poker). With the play money on no-limit tables...it kinda defeats the purpose because noone actually cares about going all in....if they lose, they'll just reset their play money. That's a huge part of the reason I switched to limit, another reason being low stakes limit is good if you want to grind profit from the fish. Another week or two I'm gonna think about depositing like $200 at a US friendly poker site and play the microstakes tables...like .01 /.02 or .05 /.10. If I'm profitable there and get comfortable with playing live I'll be hitting the casino on a Saturday night to test out my game.
EDIT: I just want to say, another reason why I think poker is awesome for me right now, so much of the strategy has to do with psychology and tells which I've been studying for quite a while pretty damn extensively, and I had a 2-3 month long bootcamp internet research session on risk management and investment strategies. It's great how so much of successful poker strategy has to do with these concepts. Poker is so much more fun and I think possibly more profitable for me if I can apply my skills to the game.
I hate 7 card stud. Too many different face up cards to look at when you have a lot of players.
Texas Hold'em is great because if a card on the board helps you, you have to be careful because it might also improve someone else's hand. I love how it has 4 stages of betting on the community cards..I just love the dynamics of the game that the simplicity of it creates.
Even with a $500,000 reserve, and a $5 basic bet, you get cleaned out fairly frequently. Martingale works...but it's DANGEROUS.
If you have enough of a reserve to make the mathematical odds of being cleaned out too low to matter, then your winnings will be horribly unsatisfying in comparison.
_________________ Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails... ...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be? Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me █ ♣ █
I've been losing money at the cash games. For some reason I just have this urge to want to bluff but I know most of the people at the micro stakes like to call everything.
Most of these players, you can't think too hard about. I find myself going too many layers deep in complexity and different possibilities of play that I tend to ignore the fact that many of the people either are terrible and call everything, or they're new and read a bunch of strategy like me and play tight aggressive and I should never bluff these people or think about tricky plays.
So I'm down to about $40 bucks. Lost most of the money on cash games, mostly the $25NL because the 5 and 10 dollar tables are so bad it's impossible to gauge if you're playing well or are just getting lucky or playing complete newbs. The $25 table actually has people around my level of thinking, where they think about calling a raise and think about things like check raising and slow playing and semi-bluffs and more complex plays than complete newbs would, so you can play back at them as well. They respect your raises, fear your bluffs and generally react to things like table image and bet sizes.
Anyways...I've switched to playing sit and go tournaments. For some reason it's just less stressful knowing that all you need to do is finish in the money, and outlast most of the people...and if you lose, you only lose the amount you bought in for. Bankroll management is much easier this way. I can generally wait it out and play extremely tight until 2-3 players knock themselves out, then loosen up and try to outplay 2 more guys until I'm in the money, then I get serious. Once I get to heads up, I fall apart. It just seems like a crapshoot. You're either playing the hands and you're completely transparent or you're bluffing and getting called.
Seems like I do pretty well with the 6max sit and go's.
I've been playing:
6 Max Sit-N-Go for a $1 and .20 buyin/fee...I usually finish in 2nd or 3rd place. They only pay out for 1st and 2nd. Heads up matches are a huge problem for me, and I finish in 2nd most of the time. Any time I have a bad hand and raise (to keep the aggression going when blinds are so high), I get called. Every time I have a good hand and raise, they fold. Or they donk call and get lucky on the flop/turn/river. It just seems like it gets to a point where any time you bluff your opponent calls and gets lucky on the turn/river, because they reraise with hands they know are beaten on the flop just to keep the aggression factor high...or it's the complete opposite where we both play extremely tight and even though everything the opponent does seems completely transparent I just can't get any good cards. Heads up is so frustrating. It just seems like a nit fest or donk fest or some combination of the two. I hate heads up, and this is one reason why I do enjoy playing a pretty tight / aggressive $25NL cash game still.
I'm losing more than I'm winning but I think I've found a game type I really enjoy. I need to work on focusing on figuring out my opponents play style and putting them on ranges of hands so I can more appropriately bet/raise, check/call, or check/fold, and when and who to bluff. Most of my losses seem to come from me getting trapped...to where I'm semi-bluffing and it seems like, based on past play, that my opponent does not have anything based on their betting patterns and starting hand range, and then I don't improve my hand, and they end up beating my KK with 2 7 or some BS...lol.
I found a really profitable strategy this afternoon. I was playing $10NL (5 cent, 10 cent blinds) for about 5-6 hours and made about 20 dollars (tripling my money) playing an extremely tight but aggressive game.
Full Ring (9 players)
I would only Bet / Raise / Reraise with AA, AK, KQ, KK, QQ before the flop and limp in with suited connectors, suited aces and low pairs hoping to make a set or flush/straight draw. Raise top pairs in late position if it's checked to me or min-raised from a loose or aggressive player. Fold if a tight player bets / raises or calls a bet. Raise extremely hard on three of a kind and be careful with straight/flush draws and when there is a pair on the board (someone could have a full house). Fairly straight-forward TAG poker strategy...almost too tight, but they don't notice it. Any time I open a raise pre-flop it's for the standard 3x the big blind size. Raises after the flop are generally 1/3 to 3/4ths pot size, or full pot size if I have the nuts on the river. I generally will not bluff unless I know for a fact they'll fold (almost never) and I never go all in or call an all-in unless they're short stacked or I have the nuts.
VPIP is around 15-18 when I'm running hot at a loose table..sometimes profitable with higher VPIP of 25ish or so, sometimes even in the low 30s can work. Preflop raise is as high as I can get it, really depends on the position I'm sitting in and what types of players are around me. Aggression Frequency ranges from around 35% to 85% depending on the table.
I find at these levels I'm either sitting at a table which has fish calling my bets and betting/raising because they don't think you actually have a good hand, and it's profitable...OR I'm at a table with 5 other guys trying to do what I'm doing, and the only profitable solution is to leave the table.
Other than that...I really don't know how else to be more profitable or advance my game. I'm gonna stick to the $10NL Full Ring cash no limit games for a while and see if I can master those before moving on. If I can make a few dollars an hour on a table, I can easily pull up 3-4 tables and play them all to maximize my profit. It's easy for me as a beginner to keep track of 3-4 tables, because I'm folding so many hands. I hear of guys playing 8 or even up to 12 tables but I don't think I'd be able to handle more than 4. If I get to a level where I can profit here consistently then I will think about moving up in stakes I suppose. I'm not sure if it'd be better to move up in stakes to 10 cent / 25 cent or try 6-max cash games or just play more tables.
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5 card stud or go home!