Martingale Strategy?

[onemoretry]

According to the math, if a player found a game with a positive edge including comps and incentives and played it 100% computer accurate, they would see a positive result.  
That is not completely accurate. There will always be a range of results, some better, some worse, around that edge, and depending on the amount of the edge and the number of hands played, a player could be in negative ground.

[FloridaPhil]

Thanks for the clarification.  They could be in positive ground as well.  If I had quit playing VP back in 2008 right after I hit 4 royals in one day I could have claimed to be a lifetime winner playing 7/5 Jacks or Better.   As long as there is a tomorrow, how you are doing is a moving target.

[asteroid]

The mathematical reason of FP's CS longevity-of-play is shown in the linked picture (97.95% OEJ, 100 coin machine with 5 coins qualifying for full pay NRF and a minimum of 5 coins bet):In this example, if your goal is 1000 betting units starting from 990 betting units (a win of 10 units) you have a ~91% chance of achieving this before losing your bank roll. OTOH, if you try to win the same 10 betting units starting with 90 units (with a goal of 100 units), the chance drops to 71% (refer to linked image please). So short coining increases the number of units available for achieving an X unit increase.Martingaling doesn't work because of finite bank rolls and finite casino bet maximums, but what is true is that for a given hand to converge to its theoretical probability, you must get more than the average number of the given hand (say a 4oak) for this convergence to take place if you are under the expected average for that hand - convergence cannot take place if this doesn't occur. Obviously the reverse is true also (if the hand is over-represented in its frequency the hand frequency must eventually decrease so that it can converge to its average). This convergence axiom is why the house edge will take its toll. This converge axiom is blind - it doesn't exert itself for the house and not the player. It is both or none and we know it applies for the casinos.

[FloridaPhil]

At this point we should talk about CS in the past tense.  At the time CS did exactly what I wanted it to do, which was cut my losses when playing sub 97% VP games for extended periods of time.   If I was forced back into a Mississippi gambling junket or a long stay in a cruise ship casino, I would use it in a heartbeat.It saved me a bunch of money, but it came with some significant negatives like short coin royals, smaller jackpots and reduced comps.  Comps have real value.  I didn't see it back then and that was a mistake.  I think discussions on how to maximize comps are more helpful than how you play the game itself.  A few small adjustments in our play have nearly doubled our free play and comps.  That has much more value to us than a few cents of ER ever will.

[olds442jetaway]

I use a very mild version of Martingale. It does help that Mohegan allows many small step increases in betting and you can keep your bets reasonably small. That said, I am still way behind for the last few years. That is entirely due to the lack on Royals hitting as they should. That has increased my losses from one percent or so a year to around 2 or 3 percent. If one runs 2m or so a year through the machines, a 50k or so loss is guaranteed per year if you have only a 97 or 98 percent return on coin in. Also contributing to that kind of a loss is discipline. I have wrote in the forum about that before. The mild Martingale is really fun on machines that allow the correct amount for the Royal for bet 1 on the deuces wild games. Mohegan just addes a few All Star 2 machines that are in the under 97 return range being 16/13 but with the flexibility of betting options, one can make some nice mad money if you are careful with discipline and know when to fold em. The 800 for one option is as usual only available on the spin poker games. When you have also the option of five ten or twenty five cents to bet and many lines or many types of bets per line, your options are amazing. I have the most fun and with minimal risk on these new machines betting 3 lines. If no luck after a few hands at bet 1 per line I go to bet 2 per line and so forth. Anytime i exceed my original amount in the machine say a hundred bucks, I just start over. I just started playing these last week and it has been pretty easy to take the machines for anywhere from twenty bucks to a hundred bucks per session. I'm done the 50k losses on great paytable dollar machines that never give me the advertised returns. Thats because last I knew, I won't live till infinity till the math comes around.

[billryan]

I suppose not everybody is built to handle simple math.

[olds442jetaway]

In vp, the facts of math cannot be doubted. The fact that time is not on our side is the gambler's biggest problem. In a lifetime of playing, after hitting a nice jackpot early on in a session, I have never equaled or beat the money I had after hitting even a minor jackpot early on after 8 or 10 hours of playing after that. That's why there are no clocks in the casino. If we were robots and programed to quit when ahead a fairly nominal amount, I think most of us could be ahead by the end of a gambling year.

[billryan]

Why do you think a robot could beat a negative game?

[FloridaPhil]

[quote=Olds442jetaway]In vp, the facts of math cannot be doubted. The fact that time is not on our side is the gambler's biggest problem[/quote]This identifies the biggest player misconception of VP math strategy.  Bill is right, but math doesn't have enough time during an average player's time in front of the machines to assure your results will mirror the game's odds.  Your individual results will depend primarily on the frequency of rare jackpot hands.  In these math calculations, there is always a chance some will win and some will lose. If your quads and royals come up on time, you fall into the part of the result curve that wins.  if not, you are in the loser column.  Stating you will always win if you play by the math is inaccurate . Stating you will always lose if you don't is just as wrong.  Long term and short term to a computer and a human are two different things.  Players are not computers running millions of hands in a mathematics lab.  If they were, there would still be winners and losers.  Recently Bob Dancer stated on this forum that he was a long term loser on 9/6 Jacks.  In his case the math was right as the game is negative.  He made up for it with comps, incentives, cash back and whatever else he could earn from his play.  If the only thing you are going to count as a win comes in the form of a white ticket, your results could be all over the place.  It's the accumulative result that makes him a long term winner.Since the beginning of this year I've lost about $5K playing VP.  I've won about $6K playing slots.  I've received over a dozen free hotel rooms and a lot of free drinks and food.  I'm a long term accumulative winner this year and math had nothing to do with it.  God willing, I'll call you in 10 years and tell you how I'm doing. 

[mdmick67]

If you have to include the comps that are received to offset your losses, then you really haven't won! Knowing how to play to the math is important but knowing when to deviate by using special plays results in more wins. You can argue all you want but all the games are negative and you will lose.