The Lose Less Progression

picasso · Sep 29, 2008

Here is my system, for me so far it isn’t a loser, I call it: the lose less progression.

Where I play the house advantage is .69% if I play perfect basic strategy (well, I play an almost perfect basic strategy; I haven’t memorised all multiple hands of 16 vs 10, have you?)

Anyway, the house advantage is very small, but it is still there. I figure if I could lose less money than the flat better, I would be well off and I would challenge the house advantage. Can it be done without counting? Yes and no. My negative progression aims at loosing less money, not winning; here it is:

(10$ table, DAS, H17, 8 decks, no surrender, peek, max bet 500$)

10-10-11-12-15-20-30-50-90-170-330

Anytime the progression goes up and you win, you go back to minimum bet. Notice (do the arithmetic) anytime you win when the progression goes up, you lose less money than the flat better. Say you win at 11$, you have lost 9$; the flat better has lost 10. Double or split according to basic strategy, but if you have a small bankroll, you need not double, but splitting with the no DAS rule would be a good defensive measure.

How often do you lose 11 hands in a row excluding pushes? It will happen, sometime in someone’s lifetime. Again, my progression is called LOSE LESS, not win more.

Try it, good luck and have fun!

shadroch · Sep 29, 2008

I'm not sure what you consider a lifetime,but the chances of losing eleven decisions in a row are a heck of a lot shorter than " once in a lifetime".
I assume you consider a double down loss as two losses,not that it really matters.
As the idea of your progression is to " LOSE LESS", then simply flat betting the table minimum and playing near perfect BS will work much better.
Just for the record,almost every serious BJ player has BS down 100%( including the various 16 vs 10 multiple hands).

ihate17 · Sep 29, 2008

picasso said:
How often do you lose 11 hands in a row excluding pushes? It will happen, sometime in someone’s lifetime. Again, my progression is called LOSE LESS, not win more.

Try it, good luck and have fun!

To answer your question: You should have statistically one losing streak of 10 or more hands in less than 24 hours of table time. So if you play 250 hours in a year, losing 10 or more should happen to you about 10 times per year.
Personally, I have stated here before that I have had 3 streaks that I am sure were over 20 straight losses, the last one if you count losing a double or split as 2 hands would have been about 30 straight.
So, you do not lose 11 in a row all that often but you do lose it often enough to wipe out anyone who plays this kind of progression long enough. Many small wins, followed by that moster loss that more than wipes it all out.

ihate17

N&B · Sep 30, 2008

Fortuneately in both instances for me I was still ahead after 2 vastly separated strings of 12 in a row. I think I play less than most report here. So I've lost 11-in-a-row or more twice. And I do consider myself unfortunate considering the # of hands played. Each of the strings netted a loss of 18 and 17 units respectively time-wise. (The power of keeping a journal !)

picasso · Oct 2, 2008

I took out my little pocket calculator out and figured that losing 11 in a row, excluding pushes, should happen once every 3,360 hands of play. I play, at most, 4hrs a month. At 30 hands per hour, I should lose 11 in a row every 2 years and 4 months. I may be unlucky and lose 11 straight tomorrow morning and tomorrow night! So far, the system has been good to me; I either make a small profit (100$ or less) or break even. Maybe my progression isn't responsible at all, it may all be «chance».

Nevertheless, I play my progression knowing very well progressions shouldn’t work. I've used it on Casino Verité and lost 11 consecutive hands, but by the time it happened, my profits outweighed my losses.

I will not quit my day job!

Sonny · Oct 2, 2008

picasso said:
I took out my little pocket calculator out and figured that losing 11 in a row, excluding pushes, should happen once every 3,360 hands of play.

I get 0.53^11 = 1,022 hands to lose 11 times. That's about once every 8.5 months using your numbers. Also, be aware of the fact that your average bet is much higher than 1 unit because of splits, doubles and your bet spread so you only need to lose about 7 hands before you lose 11 units. That brings the odds down to about 0.53^7 = 0.0122 = 1-in-82 hands. That's more than once every three hours using your numbers. You've been lucky but the odds will catch up to you.

-Sonny-

picasso · Oct 2, 2008

Thanks for your feedback! I count a lost double or a split to be just one loss. Since a player is supposed to win most doubles, money won therein should more than compensate for the ones you will lose, but then again, I have seen nights where I couldn't win any, even 11 vs 6! Like I mentioned in my first post, you need not double within the progression, but you would win less money not doing so.

Remember, the progression has to lose 11 consecutive hands (not units) before going bust.

ihate17 · Oct 2, 2008

Your caluclator is having trouble caluclating

picasso said:
I took out my little pocket calculator out and figured that losing 11 in a row, excluding pushes, should happen once every 3,360 hands of play. I play, at most, 4hrs a month. At 30 hands per hour, I should lose 11 in a row every 2 years and 4 months. I may be unlucky and lose 11 straight tomorrow morning and tomorrow night! So far, the system has been good to me; I either make a small profit (100$ or less) or break even. Maybe my progression isn't responsible at all, it may all be «chance».

Nevertheless, I play my progression knowing very well progressions shouldn’t work. I've used it on Casino Verité and lost 11 consecutive hands, but by the time it happened, my profits outweighed my losses.

I will not quit my day job!

You have loads of experience available to you on this board but can chose to ignore it if you wish, you did post to the proper voo-doo board.
Most people will calculate hands per hour at a fairly crowded and slow table at 60 or so hands per hour. Perhaps your tables are always full and the players and dealers very slow and then 30 hands per hour is really possible. All of that really does not matter in your case because your blackjack life is simply one long session.
At just 4 hrs or 120 hands per month, you will get your beating of 11 in a row on the average of once in 9 months and not every 4 years as you mentioned.
But what really matters is that it is a losing system and you posted on a site where people are helping others with winning systems.

My guess is you posted here for feedback and you got it. Use it or ignore it.

ihate17

picasso · Oct 2, 2008

ihate17 said:
You have loads of experience available to you on this board but can chose to ignore it if you wish, you did post to the proper voo-doo board.
Most people will calculate hands per hour at a fairly crowded and slow table at 60 or so hands per hour. Perhaps your tables are always full and the players and dealers very slow and then 30 hands per hour is really possible. All of that really does not matter in your case because your blackjack life is simply one long session.
At just 4 hrs or 120 hands per month, you will get your beating of 11 in a row on the average of once in 9 months and not every 4 years as you mentioned.
But what really matters is that it is a losing system and you posted on a site where people are helping others with winning systems.

My guess is you posted here for feedback and you got it. Use it or ignore it.

ihate17

Yes, my table is really slow, always full, people constantly coming and going, asking for change...and yes most croupier are slow. I agree, my blackjack life is really one long consecutive session.

You misread, 2 years-4 months not 4 years.

If people here are trying to help each other out with winning systems, my guess is that they shouldn’t be on a forum called «voodoo betting strategies»

zengrifter · Oct 2, 2008

picasso said:
If people here are trying to help each other out with winning systems, my guess is that they shouldn’t be on a forum called «voodoo betting strategies»

But YOU did choose the correct forum for your post and we respect you for it. zg

GeorgeD · Oct 2, 2008

picasso said:
Yes, my table is really slow, always full, people constantly coming and going, asking for change...and yes most croupier are slow. I agree, my blackjack life is really one long consecutive session.

You misread, 2 years-4 months not 4 years.

If people here are trying to help each other out with winning systems, my guess is that they shouldn’t be on a forum called «voodoo betting strategies»

Even if it would only happen every 2 years (and I think it's more often) that doesn't mean it won't happen to you each of the next three times you play.

That's the funny thing about odds, it's not that results follow a nice smooth graph around expected results, but that unusual results (losses or wins more than expected) become less significant as more events occur, so the graph is very erratic, but it evens out over time.
Ie: flip a coin 10 times and you may get 8 out of 10 heads, but each one makes up 10% of your "average" Flip it another 10 times, now each of the first 10 now count as 5% of your average.

The even stranger thing is the seeming contradiction that even after 10000 flips if you come out with 70% heads the odds of the next flip being tails is still 50% because all prior flips are in the past and therefore meaningless to the next flip. This is what the gambler's fallacy logically tries to contradict: that past events predict future events.

Part of the point of Voodoo Forum is to show people where their progressions will likely fail. If you want to go for them anyway that's up to you. Maybe you'll get lucky and win, but isn't the bottom line that if a simple progression would lose less (hence win more often) wouldn't many more people be using them if only to hustle comps from the Casinos. Prove to me that this will reduce HA to -.01 or maybe even -.02 in the long run and Ill be betting multiple black, maybe purple and be spending vacations living in a suite with food, drinks and hookers.

picasso · Oct 2, 2008

GeorgeD said:
Prove to me that this will reduce HA to -.01 or maybe even -.02 in the long run and Ill be betting multiple black, maybe purple and be spending vacations living in a suite with food, drinks and hookers.

:celebrate:celebrate:celebrate:celebrate:celebrate:celebrate:celebrate:celebrate

Kasi · Oct 4, 2008

GeorgeD said:
Even if it would only happen every 2 years (and I think it's more often) that doesn't mean it won't happen to you each of the next three times you play.

You're right it just means that the chances of it happening the next 3 times you play are really really really small lol.

GeorgeD said:

Part of the point of Voodoo Forum is to show people where their progressions will likely fail. If you want to go for them anyway that's up to you. Maybe you'll get lucky and win, but isn't the bottom line that if a simple progression would lose less (hence win more often) wouldn't many more people be using them if only to hustle comps from the Casinos. Prove to me that this will reduce HA to -.01 or maybe even -.02 in the long run and Ill be betting multiple black, maybe purple and be spending vacations living in a suite with food, drinks and hookers.

Click to expand...

The other part, to me anyway, is to show how long such voodoo systems may last before failing.

Of course any betting system will not reduce the HA, but I can prove to you such systems will increase the chance of achieving a $goal given a time unit and $roll compared to a BS flat-bettor with same $roll and same amount of time to achieve that goal before busting. Or variations of that.

They will win more often but at the cost of higher risk of losing all.

Like take a 1-16 play-all guy in 8D with $10K and a $5unit. Maybe he wins $8 every 100 hnads. Maybe his risk is 5% or less. Take a voodoo guy with $10K betting $800/hand and he will probably win $800 in less than an hour 90% of the time. The other 10% of the time he won't have $10K anymore. If he does and is willing to take the risk, he'll have $800 in an hour or less 90% of the time. In an hour he'll have the EV of this card-counter in 100 hours 90% of the time.

Pick your poison. Take your chances. Goals, rolls, time and risk. Whatever.

One only has to make up a min bet every 2-3 hours to break even anyway.

Once one realizes that one could make up 160 units 90% of the time in just1/160th of the time compared to a card-counter and, if achieved, realizes one is good to play min for the next 1000 hours if content to not lose, well, wherever you go, that's where you are.

With alot of leeway in between those extremes. It's not like you have to make it all up in an hour lol.

I know I'm the odd man out here, sometimes giving my views of card-counting without ever making a dime I ever chose to record anyway from it, but, you know, after a few hundred thousand hands in constant -EV, voodoo - the chance of winning x units in the next whatever hands with whatever roll - was all I ever had.

All I know is my voodoo return exceded a flat-bet return a few hundred thousand hands later. By thousands and thousands of flat-units. Add a few bonuses and life has been good.

Voodoo has its place - other than existing soley for being summarily dismissed by card-counters. If you win, you're "lucky" and will inevitably lose. If you "lose", well, what did you expect anyway? All this, while card-counters "steam", often vary their bets in crazy ways in an effort to get "the most money out I possibly can" just because the count is better than normal or hit TC+10 or something, basically often can't even answer themselves the questions of how lucky they are to be ahead or behind by so much after so long, and often ask strangers how should I bet my money in the first place now that I know how to add and subtract 1 when looking at a card?

C'mon, who is really more "voodoo"?

sagefr0g · Oct 6, 2008

trying to win just one unit

got a question on craps.
say you just want to get up one unit.
well, i know for a given blackjack game you can use the calculators in CVBJ to determine the probability of getting up one unit using either the probability of reaching a goal with a time constraint calculator or the probability of reaching a goal with no time constraint calculator.
so the question is how about craps?
is there some formulas, links to calculators or what ever that can provide such infomation?

k_c · Oct 6, 2008

sagefr0g said:
got a question on craps.
say you just want to get up one unit.
well, i know for a given blackjack game you can use the calculators in CVBJ to determine the probability of getting up one unit using either the probability of reaching a goal with a time constraint calculator or the probability of reaching a goal with no time constraint calculator.
so the question is how about craps?
is there some formulas, links to calculators or what ever that can provide such infomation?

This is the "gambler's ruin" problem. Bet 1 unit at a fixed EV. On each bet gambler either wins 1 unit or loses 1 unit. (Dead link: http://www.bjstrat.net/cgi-bin/ror.exe) _What is the probability gambler succeeds in reaching a goal or is goes broke trying?_

This is purely a mathematical calculation. (It does not use statistical parameters such as standard deviation, variance, etc.)

Tarzan · Oct 6, 2008

Losses off the chart

I took a whopping 22 losses in a row today, which I think is my lifetime record! I was stunned. It's a good thing I was staying at minimum bets or I would have been toasted! I was heads up and it was the darndest thing I ever saw but hey, it can go like this! The dealer slammed 20,21 or blackjack every hand and I got 12-16 and broke every time I hit it. On the few hands I lucked out and got a 20 they pulled a 21. Minimum bets during that meant I was "able to keep up the fight" and ultimately walk out (slightly) ahead after a few hours and a few high bets in the better counts. Progression betting works----In the very short term only! I have seen it catch up to people (that advocate utilization of betting progressions) in the worst possible way. Watching others play as I mosey about the casinos I have seen some real "train wrecks" from people using a betting progression. Stay with a betting progression and eventually the casino will have all your money is the bottom line and they know it.

sagefr0g · Oct 6, 2008

k_c said:
This is the "gambler's ruin" problem. Bet 1 unit at a fixed EV. On each bet gambler either wins 1 unit or loses 1 unit. (Dead link: http://www.bjstrat.net/cgi-bin/ror.exe) _What is the probability gambler succeeds in reaching a goal or is goes broke trying?_

This is purely a mathematical calculation. (It does not use statistical parameters such as standard deviation, variance, etc.)

thanks so much k_c.
just i'm curious as to where the maths of the calculation comes from in the links? Theory of Blackjack Peter Griffin by chance?
also i'm wondering why apparently it's assumed just probability as a factor and not stuff like standard deviation & variance & maybe variation of playing strategy?
what ever great link just what i was asking about.

k_c · Oct 6, 2008

sagefr0g said:
thanks so much k_c.
just i'm curious as to where the maths of the calculation comes from in the links? Theory of Blackjack Peter Griffin by chance?

It's my own proof. I do not like to use a math formula unless I can prove it to myself. That's how I learned math up through college calculus as a math major. I had to quit college to work and would need an extensive review to be where I was but the stuff is really not used in daily life except that it kind of teaches you logic. I did work maintaining data for rocket engine test engineers at one time, though.

You can Google "gambler's ruin" to find some more info on the math.

sagefr0g said:
also i'm wondering why apparently it's assumed just probability as a factor and not stuff like standard deviation & variance & maybe variation of playing strategy?
what ever great link just what i was asking about.

Basically what is being done is saying the probability of reaching a given goal with a given bank equals (prob of winning)*(prob of reaching goal with [bank+1 units])+(prob of losing)*(prob of reaching goal with [bank-1 units]) and using the fact that (prob of winning)+(prob of losing)=1. Also you use the fact that (prob of reaching goal with 0 units)=0 and (prob of reaching goal with goal units)=1. It turns out (prob of reaching goal with bank units) is equal to the sum of a geometric sequence, which can be expressed mathematically. The last step is easy: (prob of ruin)=1-(prob of success).

ihate17 · Oct 6, 2008

A real short visit to Vegas

Perhaps around 10 years ago, during a fight weekend in Vegas where rooms are rare and table limits are high, two guys sit down at this $50 table in a mid sized joint on the strip.
One of them quickly shows that he is a progression player and goes thru about 10 straight losses starting at $100, hitting the $5,000 table max on his 7th bet and keeping it there till he ran out of money. Something like 26,000 gone in a matter of minutes and the guy and his flat betting friend leave the table.
Later that same day I land up at a table with the friend and ask him about his buddy and he tells me, that they arrived just before his buddy took that beating and since then he has been trying to get an early flight home. Vegas is a tough town if you were planning on staying 4 days and lose all your money in the first 10 minutes.

shadroch · Oct 6, 2008

Its 1979 and after a summer of interning at Western Electric, my three friends and I fly down to Paradise Island for a four day end of summer blast.
I walk into the casino and bet $5 on a BJ table. Lose and double my bet. Repeat it several times. I find myself down over $250, and have less than sixty dollars left for the next four days. Take a $10 taxi back to our hotel.
The next day I find that I'm the big winner amongst my friends as two are compleatly tapped out. Turns out that between the four of us we have less than $100 for the rest of our vacation. I didn't step foot in another casino until 1997, and didn't gamble until 1999.

The Lose Less Progression

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