How likely is it that I'll come out on top with this?

[Lonesome Gambler]

First of all, I'm 100% aware that I run the risk of losing all my money over the long run. That said, let's say I want to play some $25 CSM games (don't ask), and I plan on setting a limit of $100 on my potential wins. With a $300 BR, is it even worth considering that I could wind up with $100+ more times than not, and to a significant enough degree to make it worth a 40 minute trip to the casino twice a week? I don't have the ability to run any sort of sim, and I know that the math is foolish, but from playing many sessions at home with $25 flat bets, the results were typically something like this:

1: Win $150
2: Win $112.50
3. Win $112.50
4. Lose $300
5. Win $100
5. Lose $300
6. Win $100
7. Win $150

So, in this scenario (with each trip costing about $5 each in transportation), I would have made a total of $125, which ends up being about $13 a trip for a total gameplay of less than 30 minutes per trip. Not exactly lucrative, I know, but I want to know just how probably a scenario like this could be. Again, it's on a CSM, so we're just talking BS, flat bets.

Now, I know that over the long run, I'm still looking at approximately a 1/2% house edge (CSM, S17, DAS, SA1, NS), but would it be in any way reasonable to think that, with a $300 BR, I could ride the flux to the $100 mark often enough to make a long-term (albeit humble) profit if I always stop as soon as I hit that mark?

[SuperTrump]

There is no way of beating a negative expectation game in the long run.

Betting limits, stop-losses and progressive systems make no difference.

You may 'get lucky' in the short term but overall you will lose more than you win... So to answer your question... Find another game with better rules!

[jimbiggs]

Only four posts and you chose the perfect forum for this thread. Nice job.

[standard toaster]

what is the strategy? just flat betting?
If so to answer your question no it is not likely that you will be out ahead more than not. In fact its the opposite.
If you are playing a progression strategy or any other voodoo strategy you will still lose in the long run.

If your interested in why progressions and other systems dont work there are a ton of links in the faq

Ive been starting a book and have a section that sums a bunch of points up.
Here is the link its not an updated copy... ill just wait until the end for that.
http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/view.php?id=988174&da=y

[sagefr0g]

Originally Posted by Lonesome Gambler

First of all, I'm 100% aware that I run the risk of losing all my money over the long run. That said, let's say I want to play some $25 CSM games (don't ask), and I plan on setting a limit of $100 on my potential wins. With a $300 BR, is it even worth considering that I could wind up with $100+ more times than not, and to a significant enough degree to make it worth a 40 minute trip to the casino twice a week? I don't have the ability to run any sort of sim, and I know that the math is foolish, but from playing many sessions at home with $25 flat bets, the results were typically something like this:

1: Win $150
2: Win $112.50
3. Win $112.50
4. Lose $300
5. Win $100
5. Lose $300
6. Win $100
7. Win $150

So, in this scenario (with each trip costing about $5 each in transportation), I would have made a total of $125, which ends up being about $13 a trip for a total gameplay of less than 30 minutes per trip. Not exactly lucrative, I know, but I want to know just how probably a scenario like this could be. Again, it's on a CSM, so we're just talking BS, flat bets.

Now, I know that over the long run, I'm still looking at approximately a 1/2% house edge (CSM, S17, DAS, SA1, NS), but would it be in any way reasonable to think that, with a $300 BR, I could ride the flux to the $100 mark often enough to make a long-term (albeit humble) profit if I always stop as soon as I hit that mark?

say you just play about 17 hands, about one shoe at a table with four players and that will be it for your trip. for a hand shuffled s17das six deck game flat betting $25 perfect basic strategy. i know your talking a csm, but just consider this example.
note the expectation and standard deviations. so your gonna tap out if you reach two or three standard deviations to the bad and one standard deviation to the bad isn't gonna be the best experience of your life.
the goal reaching probability isn't meaningful for a given trip because you'd just be playing about 15 minutes. the trip ROR, i guess would be realistic.
for the goal reaching probability i guess you could say that would be your doing this for ever chances. thing is it's like 74.13 times you'd make $100, that's $7413 and 25.87 times you'd lose $300 thats -$7761. so you'd lose about $348 on average every hundred trips (1,700 hands) you made if you played forever. thing is the results could be skewed all over the place by the standard deviation so you could be much worse off or maybe some better as things would go. then the more you did this over and over and over the more you'd lose over time.
really i guess you could lose your $300 a hundred trips in a row and lose $30,000 right off the bat (ie. 100 trips losing every time). could happen, i guess not to likely though.

[Lonesome Gambler]

Ah, thanks! I know I'll lose in the long run no matter what; it just seems like—all things being equal—a large enough bankroll and a small enough win goal combined would be enough to potentially weather the negative variance a majority of the time. In other words, if it's nearly as likely that I'll swing -$100 or +$100 during any particular game, the fact that I can withstand at least 2 entirely negative swings off the bat but only need 1 to hit my win goal would at least make it seem like I could come out (modestly) on top after a long number of regular sessions. In this case, my win goal is only 4 units up from my starting BR, and I have a total of 12 units to play with on any given trip. Playing with fire, I know, but it's tempting to believe the shoddy math that I'm doing in my brain!

I guess this curiosity is the result of having nothing around here but 8-deck shoe games with 65-75% pen and a pit boss at nearly every table! Oh, and did I mention the $25 min? Don't worry, as soon as I get a couple tens of thousands of dollars together, I'll stop worrying about making lunch money on some CSMs...

[sagefr0g]

Originally Posted by Lonesome Gambler

Ah, thanks! I know I'll lose in the long run no matter what; it just seems like—all things being equal—a large enough bankroll and a small enough win goal combined would be enough to potentially weather the negative variance a majority of the time. In other words, if it's nearly as likely that I'll swing -$100 or +$100 during any particular game, the fact that I can withstand at least 2 entirely negative swings off the bat but only need 1 to hit my win goal would at least make it seem like I could come out (modestly) on top after a long number of regular sessions. In this case, my win goal is only 4 units up from my starting BR, and I have a total of 12 units to play with on any given trip. Playing with fire, I know, but it's tempting to believe the shoddy math that I'm doing in my brain!

well like below see the standard deviations for different numbers of hands played. just 5 hands you could easy lose $64 or $128, just 8 hands you could easy lose $81 or $162 or $243 almost your whole trip role.
then say about two shoes, 34 hands, not to hard to lose from $169 to your whole trip roll. so at that $25 a wack the more hands you play the danger of tapping out increases pretty dramatically is how i see the risk part of the question.

I guess this curiosity is the result of having nothing around here but 8-deck shoe games with 65-75% pen and a pit boss at nearly every table! Oh, and did I mention the $25 min? Don't worry, as soon as I get a couple tens of thousands of dollars together, I'll stop worrying about making lunch money on some CSMs...

yes, that $25 dollar min would scare me, heck the $5 min csm's scares me.