Edge analysis for pressing 4 and 10 all the way

[Ahigh]

I've never come up with any strategies, but generally I believe strategies that are based on anything but roll bias are more successful the lower the edges are.

So I will make up a strategy, and one that you can use while you are not shooting and just waiting for the dice (no passline bet).

* Assumptions:
- Commission on the win for buy
- Round down on the commission at $25.

Start with 4 and 10 for $25 each.

On any hit, press the number that was hit "all the way" tossing in the vig.

Do this until pressing all the way would take you above $500. Then start say "go to $500" to the dealer.

Once you're at $500 just hope for as many hits before the seven comes and say "same bet" to the dealer on each hit.

If you get scared after hitting $500 say "EVERYTHING DOWN." If you are scared with profits, RUN FOR THE EXIT!

If you are scared with losses .. wait until your heart stops racing and go at it again.

It helps to either have a big bankroll or not to be upset by losing a grand or more. But you can win big hitting two or three after you get to $500 without much time passing.

[Ahigh]

Okay - $25 begets $50 -

Now at $50 - which begets - $100 -

Now at $100 - which begets $200 -

Now at $200 - which begets $400 -

Now at $400 - which begets $800 -

4 HITS an NOTHING taken DOWN - ZERO PROFIT - ALL $ ON THE TABLE -

PLUS what it cost YOU in the UPFRONT VIG -

IMPRESSIVE on PAPER - UNPLAUSABILE in REALITY !

I DO NOT hit that many consecutive 4's OR 10's in a hand !

Sorry , just not palatable in my book !

Doesn't work on vig on the bet! This is a Vegas strategy.

But bet goes

25
75
225
500

Vigs are 1, 3, 11, 25

Cost is lowest when you hit the seven first ($50).
Cost is highest when you get to 225 on both before hitting the seven ($58).
You will lose $50 to $58 for a while. But when it gets fun it's fun.

Part of what I'm coding up is to show with gnuplot some bankroll charts with various bet strategies. This one stairsteps down $50 at a time then rockets up $950 at a time, and often does not take long at all to catch the rocket. The compound edge never goes over 2.5% no matter what.

Compare that to parlaying a hard 6 or 8 to 1000 from $1 (which I have done on someone else's bet). 11*11*11 = 1331 . 331/1331 = 24% edge. Even 1 to 100 should be 1 to 121 with true odds on a parlay which has a compound edge of 17%.

This strategy requires a $25 start, but you can get to $2500 with a 2.5% compounded edge instead of 17 to 24% edge. I know many point out that when you win, you don't mind taking out the edge. But if you have a lower edge, that's more firepower for your next visit assuming you don't retire after winning.

Don't knock it until you try it.

I will provide more data, and of course you can stop at a lower number. It's just more fun to scare the house.

[Americraps]

You gotta hit 4 tens to make any mony. I had a hand that hit 11 fours once. But hitting 4 tens isn't easy in one hand.

[CrapsForever]

I need to grow the Cajones to bet like this on the 4's and 10's. These are my signature #'s and I feel most comfortable when the 4 or 10 is the established Point utilizing the 2V Dice Set or the 5/3 Hardway Set. As Buy Bets, I get "mentally stuck" once I get to the $100 Buy Level on the 4/10 and can't press any further ...serious wrench in my gameplan.

[Ahigh]

You gotta hit 4 tens to make any mony. I had a hand that hit 11 fours once. But hitting 4 tens isn't easy in one hand.

You only have to hit 3 to make money, and you can adjust the $500 number accordingly if you don't like that part. Make it $450, $300 or even $250.

And don't lose track of how fun this is. Even though the edge is low, it generates a lot of excitement.

If you want to play not to lose, just bet the minimum and the passline and order drinks.

You only need a slight bit of luck to kick the house in the pants. Get that streak of 4's or 10's and you've got seed money for playing this strategy for lots and lots of $50 to $58 losses.

Also keep in mind this is a strategy based on low edges from pressing the 4/10 all the way.



hits, bet, result, vig, edge
1 75 74 1 1.33%
2 225 222 4 1.78%
3 675 661 15 2.22%
4 2025 1978 48 2.37%

It gets up to 2.0% after a few hits, but never goes above 2.5%

Compare this to a hard 4 parlay starting at a buck:

hits, bet/result, vig, edge
1 8 1 11.11%
2 64 17 20.9%
3 512 217 29.7%
4 4096 2465 37.5%

After four parlay, it hits an edge of 37% with a house take of $2,465!!

I'd rather let the house keep $48 for me to win $1953 (1978-the original 25 bet). I see people parlay hardways all the time, which is much harder to get to these levels of pays just talking the math. Obviously, you do need to hit 4's and 10's. But systems, in my opinion, should be built on low edges, not on what you think you will roll, unless it's only a system paired to your personal roll. That's just my opinion.

Cranking the $500 down is a no-brainer for anybody to adjust this system. But compare this system to any other system .. especially one that starts with $50 or more on the felt, and I'm pretty sure this system will hold it own against any other system that doesn't employ the use of odds or lay odds.

The secret to winning without paying a big edge is get it done quickly with the fewest possible events. This system is built on the notion that you can do that. Most people that win a couple thousand bucks are there for a while and have a LOT of luck to get there paying all along the way.

If you want to play for a long time, this system only works if you lose your money. But you never risk more than $58 per shooter. And anything that starts with more than $50 exposure to the red can lose much faster with a string of reds.

The other thing about this system is that you can always get scared and take it down if the money looks alright to you at that point.

A "loose" approach to the strategy is "press all the way until it becomes ridiculous or against the house rules to continue."

Especially at Caesars, you can get paid when the minimum is $10 and the maximum is $50,000.

[Riggs]

Interesting stuff. Do you do this on the 4 & 10 on every roll? Apologize if you mentioned this and I missed it!

[Ahigh]

Just a reality check: the system I gave is not how I typically bet. I typically bet aligned to how I throw, which is to say I bet more six and eight and odds on passline and come bets. But betting systems, in my mind, are built on the foundation of low edges and getting paid quick. I invented this system just for this thread. This is not how I typically bet.

That being said, and knowing that systems are a function of the edges, I know this system will hold water against any other system based on these edges assuming the goal is to get paid rather than to play longer. It's more like a homework problem than anything in my opinion.

But I didn't want anyone to get angry when they discovered that this is not how I typically bet myself. I generally grind on my own roll knowing what I throw and betting small.

The best way to try this strategy is just to do it on the rail the next time you go to the casino (no risk just pretend you're betting it). The biggest problem you're going to have is running out of chips when the hits start coming, so you'll have to replace higher denomination chips with lower ones (IE: if you don't have hundred chips, use singles to represent hundreds, and maybe throw up five pennies to represent singles so you don't get confused on how you would have done).

But if you get a stack of singles to represent $2000 to start out with, and you have three green chips and four red chips, and five pennies to spare, that's enough to track the system on the rail. If you do this and have to buy another stack or two of singles to see how you would of done, don't blame me for only doing it on the rail instead of winning a couple thousand. IE: If you start with $2000 and stick with it, you have a good chance to win $2000 pretty quickly.

[House of Orange]

These numbers (edge) are not adding up.

[Ahigh]

The edge depends on commission on the win.

1/75 is 1.33% Buy it for $25, get paid $49 .. 25 + 49 = 74 .. they keep 1. You would get 75 at zero edge. So 1/75 is the percentage they keep.

Be more specific about how they don't add up. This is something that causes a lot of conflict due to two reasons:

#1) Some people believe the 4 and 10 are 6.66 house edge because how infrequently the buy with commission on the win is covered by those who do edges
#2) Some people only get commission on the bet for the buy on the 4 and 10 in other locations besides vegas. The edge when you pay the commission up front is considerably higher.

The other thing that might not be obvious is that I am showing the total edge as the parlay proceeds. IE compare true odds to the total amount of money they are keeping to see the COMPOUNDED edge.

So a $25 bet on the four at even money would go:

25 -> 75 -> 225 -> 675 -> 2025

But to get there, you have to toss in $1, then $3, then $11 = 1 + 3 + 11 = 15, and 15/675 and down is 2.22% add 33 to get 2025 and you're looking at ( 33 + 15 ) / 2025 = 48 / 2025 = 2.37%

The hardways if they paid even money would go

1 -> 9 -> 81 -> 729 -> 6561

But you pay a whole unit on each win, so instead you go:

1 -> 8 -> 64 -> 512 -> 4096

And they keep 2465 and give you 4096 compared to true odds. 2465 / 6561 = 37.57%

Let me know if anyone has questions or if (god forbid) anyone can correct what I'm saying here.

[Ahigh]

One correction I think is warranted.

True odds would be $25 -> ( 75 + 1 ) = 76 -> ( 228 + 3 ) = 231 -> ( 693 + 11 ) -> 2112 = .. so the parlayed edge should be (693-675)/693.

I was wrong, huh? But it's still better than 37%. At least I didn't have to wait for someone else to correct me.

Thanks for pointing out it looked fishy.

I forgot to add the vig into the bet for the comparison to what you would get with true odds.

I'm probably still a little off, but closer..

The edges for press it all the way throwing in the vig with a round down up to $3.75 rounding down to $3.00 is:

(76-1)/75 = 1.33% first hit
(228-225)/228 = 1.754% second hit (225 and down)
(693-675)/693 = 2.597% third hit
(2112-2025)/2112 = 4.1193% fourth hit

So the total cost compared to a true odds payoff is:

1st) $1
2nd) $3
3rd) $18
4th) $87

So the cost jumps up pretty high by the time you get to the 4th hit.

If anybody can correct anything I'm doing wrong, I want to look at parlayed edges more frequently to work on low edge parlay strategies. This still keep from creeping up on the parlayed edge, but it does go over 2.5% unlike what I previously believed.

[CrapsForever]

I went into last nights Craps session thinking about pressing the 4's & 10's all the way per this betting strategy format on this thread.

So I started slowly by Place Betting the 4/10 for $10 each (I know...I should only Buy the 4/10...I am intimidated to bet too much money on a player I don't know) I also bet the Hard 4 & Hard 10 for $5 each on this specific shooter (I had a sneaky suspicion the shooter would get lucky on Hardways) I usually only bet $1/$2 each Max on the Hardways but I figured...what the heck..go a little higher.

Shooter throws the Hard 4, then hits the Hard 10 FOUR different times in his first 7 rolls. I get so infactuated with the Hardway hits...I NEVER press the 4 or the 10 past the initial $10 bet and I continue pressing the Hardway that hit by just $5 each time. Huge opportunity lost!

One day....I am actually going to follow through with this "Press 4/10's all the way" strategy....One day.

[heavy]

Sigh. First hit goes from $10 to a Q. Second from $25 to $50 and lock up $25. Third from $50 to $100 and lock up another $75. Fourth from $100 to $200 and lock up $100. You now have $200 in the rack and $200 on the 10. And that doesn't even BEGIN to address the hard ten with a first hit parlay.

The meek shall inherit the earth. The aggressive will buy it from them with rose colored chips.

[Ahigh]

This is 35,000 samples of randomly generated data with the passline and no odds as a frame of reference for this strategy.

The numbers noted represent the various press schedules. They all stop pressing at $1000 max because that's the max where I go, no other reason.

@buy_press_schedule7 = ( 5, 15, 40, 120, 360, 1080, 3240 );
@buy_press_schedule6 = ( 5, 15, 25, 75, 225, 675, 2025 );
@buy_press_schedule5 = ( 5, 15, 30, 80, 260, 750, 2000 );
@buy_press_schedule4 = ( 5, 10, 25, 60, 160, 460, 1350 );
@buy_press_schedule3 = ( 5, 10, 20, 55, 160, 420, 1200 );
@buy_press_schedule2 = ( 5, 10, 25, 50, 75, 100, 150, 250, 500 );
@buy_press_schedule1 = ( 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 40, 80, 100, 150, 250, 300, 350, 400, 450, 500 );



Here's another one with an easier to digest sample of 1000 random rolls along with histograms (by 35,000 they're pretty flat).



This shows that for random data you can absolutely kick them in the nuts if you can handle those wicked downward slops for hundreds if not thousands of rolls. You certainly need at least a G worth of balls to get going on this strat.

[Ahigh]

As you might expect, the house always wins with enough events.

Here's a 100,000 sample chart showing that even with the pledge to stick with it, the house always wins.

But the fact that this strat can last tens of thousands of rolls is pretty interesting.

One way to file it is that it's sort of a reverse martingale on the full press schedule. You're basically asking the house to chase it's losses with you. You are acting as if you are trying your hardest to get rid of your money by refusing to accept a win.

This brings about a bigger win with fewer events. Combine that with a low combined house edge (EG: 10x pay at less than 4% edge) from the buy with full pressure at 4% (1.67% max edge per payment) or less, and voila, opportunity to punch the house in the nuts appears.

If you have a roll to put the edge in your favor, you're talking about a serious threat to the house. Especially at a place like Caesars where they have a $50,000 max bet.

[Ahigh]

I'm done with the MP204 analysis, but I'm moving on to my own strategies to try to match up with my own personal rolls.

So I'm floating this back up, and we'll see how far the 4 and 10 goes as far as a betting strategies.

The reason that I'm honing in on this is because I think shaving the edge is WAY easier than improving your roll in terms of just "DO THE WORK AND GET IT DONE." You will always have risk in being unable to roll well, but if you change to a lower edge strategy, no matter if it's random data or a good shooter, you are going to be better off paying a smaller edge with each stack of chips the dealer hands you. No question.

[Ahigh]

I may do some more looking at higher edge strategies later, but I want to exhaust my tests on the lowest edge strategies first.

I'm going to focus in more on looking at edge per roll as a method of picking the best possible strategy independent of who is shooting the dice. I know it's fun to build on the foundation of a good shooter, but I just want to make a house that could even survive very random unpredictable things happening from the best shooter in the world because as I have witnessed, all the good shooters have bad days!

[Ahigh]

Just as a real-quick follow-up, this 4/10 bets beat the MP204 in the long run in every condition given enough pressure and a firm enough press schedule. Both for higher SRR's as well as for random data. This shouldn't be a surprise because the edge is lower on the 4 and 10. The downside is just that the shape of the charts is not built for weenies as it slides down a constant slope and rockets up a steep elevator. It's almost like a don't strategy because you get paid all at once.

[Mad Professor]

Hi Ahigh,

That's an interesting observation.

We were talking about bankroll-drawdowns the other day as they relate to the MP-$204, and I think your deepest one was something like -$4000 if I'm not mistaken.

Can you draw any comparisons between that amount and the deepest drawdown that your Press 4/10 strategy experiences.

Thanks,

MP

[Ahigh]

Absolutely. I spent a lot of time on the software yesterday just fixing bugs and adding in the set transform code. Everything is working good right now, and I even installed some revision control software on my synology diskstation server so that I can handle how big the code is getting.

I did plot out a couple charts on the 100,000 events side of things so you could see the difference in the edges. I am just waiting to clean up some more things.

As far as the differences, the deepest drawdown I believe is less and the average win is more. The main thing that is different is just the shape (sawtooth versus snaking). The sawtooth waveform of the 4/10 is the price you pay for winning more in the long run.