Anyone tried the Martingale (or similar)?

Sonny

Well-Known Member
ThunderWalk said:
With so many so vehemently opposed to the act of doubling up after a loss, or any "progressive" system, I have to wonder if there's anyone here who has actually had any experience trying that method. Is all the bad stuff just theory or hearsay, or have you, or someone you know ever lost your shirt trying to make that method work?
I thought I would start a new thread for this question since many of you probably have some experience with progression systems.

I guess I’ll go first (this feels like a support group :laugh:)

Hi, my name is Sonny and I’ve used a progression system. I started playing BJ online in 1999. I had been counting cards for several years and knew that progression systems were useless, but they were fun and they burned through the wagering requirements much quicker. I came up with a conservative progression system that would only fail after losing 12 consecutive hands. You’ll never guess what happened next…

Yup, I lost twelve consecutive hands right away. I kept thinking that I would quit as soon as I dug myself out of the first hole that I made and broke even, but then other streaks kept coming. I had several more twelve-hand (or more!) losing streaks at different online casinos. Luckily I was playing exclusively with bonus money and never lost any of my own. However, after blowing through several juicy $200 and $100 bonuses I called it quits. I’m lucky that it only cost me EV, not actual money.

The biggest lesson that I learned is this: “Just because something is unlikely doesn’t mean that it won’t happen right away.” Just because you have a 1-in-50 chance of going broke doesn’t mean that it will take 50 tries to hit that losing streak or that you will be safe for the first 49 attempts. That catastrophic event might be the very first thing that happens, or maybe the second thing. The longer you play, the luckier you are that you haven’t hit that losing streak and the closer you come to hitting it.

-Sonny-
 

QFIT

Well-Known Member
Sonny said:
I thought I would start a new thread for this question since many of you probably have some experience with progression systems.

-Sonny-
I haven't jumped off my roof to test the theory of gravity either. I think I'll pass on both.
 

EasyRhino

Well-Known Member
I've done something very similar, a sort of "target betting", but only a couple times. Let's say I've for $48 in online casino chips, and the minimum withdrawal is $50. I've bet $2, and if I lost, bet $4, etc., until I can cashout.

One online casino had a weird bonus where if your chipcount was between $300 and $600, they wouldn't allow a withdrawal. So when my chipcount was in between, I started betting either the amount that would bring me up to $600 or down to $300, whichever was smaller.

But I don't use it to clear WRs, I generally just flat bet, and I'll change my best most often if I realize that the grindthrough is going to take too long or too short at my current rate of play.
 

21forme

Well-Known Member
QFIT said:
I haven't jumped off my roof to test the theory of gravity either. I think I'll pass on both.
Reminds me of a story I heard in college:

There's this old professor. Every time he walked into the classroom, he'd take a piece of chalk, hold it out in his outstretched arm, open his hand and look up.
This would go on, day after day, week after week. One day, a brave student finally asked, "Professor, why is it you go through this ritual every day?"

He replied, "According to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, there's a 1 in 10 to the minus 35 chance that when I open my hand, the chalk will go up instead of down, and when it happens, I don't want to miss it!"
 

dacium

Well-Known Member
Only an idiot believes the system can in any way work. It is mathematically proved not to work.

I recently wrote it up on wikipedia showing how it defaintly doesn't work:
see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_(roulette_system)
under the analyses section

You can even show any progression (any bet amount at any time) can't possibly work. This means for any system to be legitmate it must somehow use the knowledge of discguarded shoe cards. Since this doesn't happen on-line IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR THERE TO BE ANY ONLINE SYSTEM THAT WORKS.

I have tried martingale in real life at casinos and obviously I eventually took big losses. This is before I discovered card counting.
 

jomoats

Banned
Some hidden secrets of the martingale.

Sonny said:
I thought I would start a new thread for this question since many of you probably have some experience with progression systems.

I guess I’ll go first (this feels like a support group :laugh:)

Hi, my name is Sonny and I’ve used a progression system. I started playing BJ online in 1999. I had been counting cards for several years and knew that progression systems were useless, but they were fun and they burned through the wagering requirements much quicker. I came up with a conservative progression system that would only fail after losing 12 consecutive hands. You’ll never guess what happened next…

Yup, I lost twelve consecutive hands right away. I kept thinking that I would quit as soon as I dug myself out of the first hole that I made and broke even, but then other streaks kept coming. I had several more twelve-hand (or more!) losing streaks at different online casinos. Luckily I was playing exclusively with bonus money and never lost any of my own. However, after blowing through several juicy $200 and $100 bonuses I called it quits. I’m lucky that it only cost me EV, not actual money.

The biggest lesson that I learned is this: “Just because something is unlikely doesn’t mean that it won’t happen right away.” Just because you have a 1-in-50 chance of going broke doesn’t mean that it will take 50 tries to hit that losing streak or that you will be safe for the first 49 attempts. That catastrophic event might be the very first thing that happens, or maybe the second thing. The longer you play, the luckier you are that you haven’t hit that losing streak and the closer you come to hitting it.

-Sonny-
Most players go back to square one when they win a hand. Instead think of it as a bet spread and after winning a hand you lower the bet only one or two levels so you can chalk up some good wins. You need to decide ahead of time how far you'll go. Because you took on extra risk you want to be paid accordingly. Often times you'll get back to square one by winning all the bets.

This isn't a long term winner, so don't be fooled by an occasional big win.

Another way to use the martingale is to hold the bet after losing two in a row.
Continue with the last bet until a win is had, then continue the series. This will help to survive a 10 or 12 hand losing streak unless it happen late in the series.
 
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