Someone please De-Bunk this system before I take out a second mortgage

Scenario: Sit down at a $5 table with $200. Let’s estimate the odds against you at .55. The probability of losing two hands in a row is: (.55) (.55) = (.55) ^2 = .3025,
3 in a row = (.55) ^3 = .166375, etc.

If you lost every time, and at each loss you doubled you bet (to hopefully cover your loss and return to even) your bets would look like: 5, 5, 10, 20, 40, 80 (total = 160) before you had exhausted your bankroll. But the probability of losing 5 hands in a row is only: (.55) ^5 = .05032, or 5 %. In other words, you have a 95% chance of avoiding a 5-hand losing streak.

The same probability works against winning 5 consecutive hands. But I play online, and it’s easy to stand up and bank your winnings. So I get $20 or $30 ahead using flat betting, stand up with the profit, and then sit down again with my original buy in. As long as you have the money to cover 5 losses this seems to work. What am I missing?

AsparaChief said:

What am I missing?

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What you are missing is... IT DOESN'T WORK! FOGGITABOUTIT! Cape'ce? zg

Chief, just try it for a while with play money. You'll see what we mean.

Negative Progressions

Folks, here's the problem with Negative Progressions. It is very common for a player to play for quite a while using them before they up and bite him. I think that's why we get so many posts indicating the reinvention of this killer progression.

But, it only takes once where a player get's caught up in the progression and has $1000 out on the table trying to recover a double loss of only $10. It's going to take a LONG time to recover that $1000 loss playing $5 a hand.

Again?

Can we get a sticky thread in the Betting Strategies about this? Titled something like: "The Martingale: Read this before you start thinking you've found a money tree", and have a little explaination of Negative progressions and why they dont work.
It seems like most of the threads in this section are from newbies on that topic. I admit to being among them, what seems like a long time ago.

Ive found that negative progressions can work if you cap your bets. I cap at 320 making an initial bet of 5, and seem to do ok, if you hit a losing streak it sucks, but it just means youll take longer to get back to where you were.

LeonShuffle said:

Chief, just try it for a while with play money. You'll see what we mean.

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I started out with 100 on yahoo, am up to 25000 using a cut off at 320 neghaitve progression straegy.

bullseyeguy said:

I started out with 100 on yahoo, am up to 25000 using a cut off at 320 neghaitve progression straegy.

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Bull$%!t! I do not believe you!

aussiecounter said:

Bull$%!t! I do not believe you!

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I couldnt care less if you beleive me, its the truth.

bullseyeguy said:

I couldnt care less if you beleive me, its the truth.

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Geez, I was going to go into an in depth explaination/rant about why Martingale won't work, but I've decided to take the $180 I have in my wallet and go to the casino. I'll chat to you guys tomorrow, after I've won my nearly $50000.

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

bullseyeguy said:

I started out with 100 on yahoo, am up to 25000 using a cut off at 320 neghaitve progression straegy.

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Well Bullseyeguy, you won't find an experienced Blackjack player anywhere who will encourage you to continue in a REAL casino with REAL money out of your pocket in your plan to use the Martingale Negative Progression. That ought to be a strong clue that there is something sinister about it.

I've played the hell out of it on simulators and it can certainly look unbeatable. But take it from me, eventually it'll turn on you! Even if you place that $320 cap on the bets. What if you start off losing two or three trips in a row? There probably wouldn't be much left of your bankroll.

But if it seems to be working for you, stick with it. It is sort of fun to use in the free online games.

Online casinos will often have some pretty long losing streaks of 7, 8 or more hands. In any 5 playing sessions of about 40 hands, you'll likely come across at least two or them. Funny thing is, once I stopped using Martingale so much, the long losing streaks were less frequent. When I encountered choppy action, lilke win 1 - lose 2 - win 2 - lose 1 - win 3 - lose 2, etc. I'll use the Martingale until I lose 4 in a row. That is when I see the long losing streaks come back and I use the minimum bets on those. In my opinion, casino software, no matter what brand, do examine your play and make small "adjustments" which are not in your favor.:cry:

When you reach that $320 cap and lose it, it means you've lost 7 hands and $635 to that point, assuming no double losses. To make that up, you must now win 127 hands before losing 7 in a row. That doesn't sound good.

As a follow up to the post I JUST MADE, I just logged on to Omnicasino where I'm playing for the monthly bonus. I lost the first 6 hands I played, pushed the next, and lost the next for 7 losses without a win.

As has been pointed out,the problem is that you can go a long time doing these progressions before they go bad.
around 1997,I did a martingale-like progression on the game sic-bo. Worked like a charm.
Went to AC,started with a $1 bet and walked out up about $280. Went next door to Trump Plaza and was up about $80 before it went south.Lost enough rolls in a row to wipe out almost all my winnings.
Went home and practiced much more. Found out that you would have a tremendous losing streak very rarely but often enough to wipeout your winnings.Betting a #1 unit,losses of 1-2-4-8-16-32-64-128-256-table limit next bet of 500 do happen on rare occasions,perhaps about every 1,000 hands or so. Just often enough to wipeout your profits.

LeonShuffle said:

When you reach that $320 cap and lose it, it means you've lost 7 hands and $635 to that point, assuming no double losses. To make that up, you must now win 127 hands before losing 7 in a row. That doesn't sound good.

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Thats assuming you never hit a BJ or a double downor a split, with alot of money on the table. If I have 160 down and double, I made up over 1/4 of the money back. Im not saying its a fool proof get rich quick scheme, but to a point it can work. And with an unlimited bank roll, it certainly can be unbeatable..... If Im wrong (and I may be) point me to somewhere that mathematically debunks this.

edit: I also stop when ive reached a certain number say 500 or 1000, Ill be going to the casino in a couple weeks and am going to test it with real money.....

bullseyeguy said:

Thats assuming you never hit a BJ or a double downor a split, with alot of money on the table. If I have 160 down and double, I made up over 1/4 of the money back. Im not saying its a fool proof get rich quick scheme, but to a point it can work. And with an unlimited bank roll, it certainly can be unbeatable..... If Im wrong (and I may be) point me to somewhere that mathematically debunks this.

edit: I also stop when ive reached a certain number say 500 or 1000, Ill be going to the casino in a couple weeks and am going to test it with real money.....

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First up, BJs are a bonus in this, but not that much. If you double down or split with big money on the table, you HAVE to realise that you can still lose these, and you'll lose twice as much.

It isn't a foolproof get rich quick scheme, it is a fools way to a quick bankruptcy! It cannot be unbeatable, listen to the experienced players here! The ONLY way the Martingale system can be profitable in the longrun is if you have a limitless bankroll and no table limits, i.e. it is not possible to win with it, because you'll never get those conditions.

bullseyeguy said:

Ill be going to the casino in a couple weeks and am going to test it with real money.....

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Don't.

KenSmith said:

For a basic strategy player, if we count every hand with a net overall profit as a win, every hand with a breakeven outcome as a push, and every hand with a net loss as a loss, we get the following percentages for a typical 6-deck game:

Win: 43.3%
Push: 8.8%
Lose: 47.9%

If you look at just those numbers, the game looks very expensive. But, some of those wins are blackjacks paying 3:2, as well as multiple wins due to doubles and splits.

For purposes of figuring win or loss streaks, most players would choose to ignore pushes. If you eliminate pushes, that leaves 91.2% of hands. Of that, the ratio of wins to losses is 47.5% to 52.5%.

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So you can expect to win 47.5% of hands, or lose 52.5%.

KenSmith said:

To figure the probability of a losing streak of n hands, given a probability p of losing a single hand (or roll, or coin-flip, or anything else), here's all you need:

p(Lose n in a row) = p^n

So, assuming p=0.53, n=10:
p(Lose 10 in a row) = 0.53^10 = 0.001749
That's once every (1/0.001749) tries, or roughly once every 572 tries.

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Change that to 7 instead of ten, and use the exact .525 instead of .53.
0.525^7=0.010992972052001953125
So once every (1/0.01099) tries, or once every 90.96 tries.

So if a new 'round' starts after each win, as a loss would be still part of the last streak, you will lose 7 in a row once for every 90 wins.

90x$5 win= $450 right?
now your one loss goes like this:
$5($5 lost), $10($15 lost), $20($35), $40($75), $80($155), $160($315), $320($635).

So you can expect to win $450 from your many little wins, but when the big losing streak does happen, you'll lose $635, so you'll be down $185. I'm not sure exactly what effect the BJs have, (they may even be factored into Ken's figures), but I'd bet my left nut it's less that $185 worth (I'm ignoring splits and doubles as they aren't sure thing).

Credits to Ken (and Mike for starting it) for the thread I got the probability equation from. Heres a link to the thread for anyone who wants to check it out:
http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?t=7&highlight=streaks

Guys, let me know if I stuffed up but I don't think I did.

bullseyeguy, let us know if you still feel like using this with real money. We're not being stuck up, 'holier than thou' about this, its just that this topic comes up regularly and each newby insists that it should work. It doesn't, and I hope my above mathematical explaination dissuades you from trying to use it.

Well actually, youd have to lose 8 in a row-5,5,10,20,40,80,160,320...So redo the math and figure that. Or just assume that with 7 it would look like this-10,10,20,40,80,160,320....90 hands time $10 =$900-$635=$265 profit.

edit: add on the fact that when you win a dd bj or a split, you get more money....and your odds if Im not mistaken are better than 50/50 on smart plays such as dd on 11 blah blah blah.....

Aussie forget about him and let him learn the hard way; you've done everything you can. Maybe in a month or so, if he's humble, he'll come back and tell us about his losses and then ask whats the best counting system for new players.