To answer both questions, I am going to start with "Question #2 -How many on and offs collections is the standard before progressing?" first.

My basic principal in TBS is that I want to win double the amount of money I have on the table before I put more money out. The reason being is I want to have a profit at least equal to the amount of money I am risking before I start to use any of my future profits to put more money on the table.

With all the numbers covered you have $360 on the table. I don’t count the $10 come bet you have out because if you seven out that bet wins so it is not really at risk. So I would want to collect around $720 before I start progressing my bets. With $720 in my rails I have a profit of $360 that I can lock up since I am only going to use the money from future hits for my progression. I don’t take money from the rails (profit) to progress my bets.

A hit on the 4/10 pays $110, 5/9 pays $85 and 6/8 pays $70. That adds up to $265 or an approximate average of $90 per hit. Approximately 8 hits would yield around $720. If you are hitting a lot of inside numbers you may want to get 9 or 10 hits since 8 hits on the 6/8 would only add up to $560. I don’t worry about that too much. I tend to only wait for any 8 hits and then start progressing.

Now to answer the other question, "Which progression path would you choose and why?", I am going to give you the pros and cons of both and let you decide.

If you push the house you will have $690 on the table (6 line bets @$15 adds up to $90 with 24 green chips in odds for $600).
If you double dip with 50/50/60/60/50/50 on the 4/5/6/8/9/10 you will add $320 to the $360 putting $680 on the table.

Either way you will have approximately the same amount of money on the table. You will have doubled your initial amount at risk which is the way I like to do progressions with TBS. Also after 8 hits, each single hit will give me enough money to be able to cover my progression. I don’t need to take money from the rails to go to the next level.

Let’s see how this works under both scenarios. You collect 8 hits and then put out a $15 come bet to push the house.

A 4/10 pays $110, your $60 on the number comes down and the $15 come bet goes to the number. You put $75 in odds and a new $15 come bet leaving $80 to go into your rails.
A 5/9 pays $85, your $60 on the number come down and the $15 come bet goes to the number. You put $100 in odds and a new $15 come bet leaving $30 to go into your rails.
A 6/8 pays $70, your $60 on the number come down and the $15 come bet goes to the number. You put $125 in odds and a new $15 come bet requiring $10 to come out of your rails.
When you cover all 6 numbers it will give you an additional profit of $200 from the extra money you put in your rails. I take that as a bonus and don’t count it towards my next progression.
Let’s say I have all the numbers covered with $15 come bets and full odds. Call each hit a double hit. Each double hit pays $165. What do I need to go to the next progression?

I had $360 out there initially. That was covered by my first 8 single hits. I added an additional $330 when I went to $690 at risk. 2 double hits covers my additional $330 and 2 more gives me a profit of $330 which equals the additional money I put on the table. So after 4 double hits, I can now start doubling the money I have on the table again.

Here is what it looks like if I double dip with place bets.

A 4/10 pays $110, I put $50 out as a buy bet (I am not going to count the vig to keep it simple) leaving $60 to go into your rails.
A 5/9 pays $85, I put $50 out as a place bet leaving $35 to go into your rails.
A 6/8 pays $70, I put $60 out as a place bet leaving $10 to go into your rails.
When you cover all 6 numbers it will give you an additional profit of $210 from the extra money you put in your rails. I take that as a bonus and don’t count it towards my next progression.
Let’s say I have all the numbers covered with place bets. Call each hit a double hit. Each double hit pays $220/160/140/140/160/220 on the 4/5/6/7/8/9/10. That add up to $1040 or an average of $173 for each double hit. What do I need to go to the next progression?

I had $360 out there initially. That was covered by my first 8 single hits. I added an additional $320 when I went to $680 at risk. 2 double hits covers my additional $320 with an average profit of $26 and 2 more gives me a profit of $346 which equals the additional money I put on the table. So after 4 double hits, I can now start doubling the money I have on the table again.

Thus both scenarios amount to about the same thing in terms of amount at risk and profit in my rails.

If you do come bets you will be working with the lowest house advantage so that is the pro for using come bets. Furthermore, each double hit pays the same amount of money so your profits will be consistent. Also your next progression will be to a $30 come bet with 6/8/10 quarters in odds. It works out very nicely in terms of what you are collecting and putting in your rails. I leave it to you to see how it works for double hits on each of the numbers.

The con is that it does not work out so well for the next progression because it will not be very likely that you have all 6 numbers covered with $15 line bets when you want to go to $30 line bets. The problem there is that you then will have to take money out of your rails to put full odds on a bet with a $30 line bet that only has a $10 come bet coming down. Let me show you what I mean.

You have 8 hits at single bets of $10 with $50 in odds. You now switch to $15 come bets and get up on the 4/5/6/9. You then hit each of those numbers exactly 1 time for 4 double hits. With those 4 double hits you collected $660. That is enough to cover 6 numbers at $15 line bet with full odds. It is now time to go to the next progression of $30 come bets.

Let’s say you now throw a 6. You collect $165 and your $15 come bet with $125 in odds comes down for a total of $305. You put $250 in odds on the 6 and a new $30 come bet leaving $25 to go into the rails. Since you threw a number that had a $15 come bet with full odds you could cover the new bet with the money that came back.

But say you next throw an 8. You only have a $10 come bet with $50 in odds on that number. You collect $70 and your $10 come bet with $50 in odds comes down for a total of $130. You need an additional $120 for odds and $30 for the next come bet for a total of $150 coming out of your rails.

It gets even messier when you have 4 triple hits and it is time to go to the next progression. The next progression is $75 line bets. You don’t collect enough at $30 line bets to cover the new $75 line bets. Plus if you still have $10 and $15 come bets out there you will be very short for the odds and new $75 come bet.

Granted this problem does not arrive very often. Furthermore it is a good problem to have. But I ran into it enough as I got more skilled that I decided to start adding place bets for my future progressions. However I did want to switch back to come bets on really long rolls so I figured out how much I needed in place bets on each number so that I would have enough to cover my new come bet with full odds without going into my rails. It is pretty complicated but I worked it out and had no problem remembering it after practicing it in my head many times.

I leave it to you to decide which way you want to go.

Come bets have lowest HA. Place bets make future progressions simpler because you only have to increase the place bets.

Wow Skinny. This is a wonderful and well thought out response and I plan to print it out, absorb it and do some experimentation at home in practice.

-Regards,
Mr. PiP

That is great Mr. Pip,

Please be sure to post your conclusions and experience with your experiments. I am curious to see what you think.

Also, this got me thinking about how I arrived at TBS as written. I know some folks have modified some of its components to make it more suitable to their tolerance for risk. Of course, they keep the basic premise of TBS which is come betting. They will usually modify the number of hits before they go to more come bets or the number of hits before starting a progression to putting more money on the table. Some may start with less than full odds and then use a specific number of hits to increase to full odds. I like all of these different methods because they follow the basic ideas behind TBS.

1. Keep the HA low by using come bets.
2. Start with a maximum initial amount at risk (the most you will have on the table before you have any hits) based on a percentage of your 401G and your risk tolerance.
3. Don’t increase your amount at risk until you have made a net profit equal to or greater than your initial amount at risk.
4. Once you have earned the desired profit, only use the money from future wins to put more money on the table. Never take money from your rails to put more money on the table.

Now, back to how I arrived at TBS as written.

When I first started I would make a PL bet with full odds with 2 come bets and full odds. I would hold at 3 bets until I had 4 hits. 3 bets with full odds was my initial amount at risk. 2 hits would get my my initial amount at risk back and 2 more hits would give me a net profit equal to my initial amount at risk. After 4 hits I would continue come betting until I had the board covered, ie. all numbers had line bets with full odds. Of course if I did not get any more hits I would break even on this hand because 4 hits would equal the amount of money it would take to cover 6 numbers with line bets and full odds.

I used this method for awhile but I would get frustrated when I would get up on 3 numbers and then continue the roll hitting other numbers that I did not have. This happened most often when my first 3 numbers were outside numbers. So I decided to make additional come bets without any hits if my first 3 numbers were outside numbers. That seemed to work a bit better for me. It was very rare for me to get up on 4 or 5 numbers without getting a few hits. The more numbers I got on the more hits I seemed to get. I finally decided to not bother waiting for 4 hits to spread out to more numbers. The way I play it now is I just keep come betting to try to get up on all the numbers regardless of the number of hits I have. That way, every time I throw a repeater it is an "off and on". I can count on one hand the number of times I have gotten up on 6 numbers and seven out without any hits at all. I have a high tolerance for risk so it does not bother me to make my maximum initial amount at risk equal to 6 numbers with full odds. In fact, I am more annoyed if I miss an opportunity to make money because I was too conservative. HOWEVER, and this is a major tenet of TBS. Use only low HA bets in the beginning and put your money out on the table slowly by using come bets to protect you on short rolls.

While I don’t mind being on 6 numbers without any hits, I will not put more money on the table (even from future wins) until I have 8 hits. I need 4 hits to cover my initial amount at risk and I need 4 more to give me a net profit equal to my initial amount at risk. The only exception might be if 3 or 4 of my first 4 hits are on one specific number. In that case I might take my 5th hit and double dip that number because it seems to be repeating on this specific roll. But I will still wait to have 4 more hits before I start double dipping on any of the other numbers.

I did not think most of the folks in GTC would have a risk tolerance for 6 numbers with odds. So I wrote up TBS with holding at 3 numbers until getting 1 hit. After 1 hit, go to 4 numbers. After 2 hits, go to 5 numbers. After 3 hits, go to 6 numbers. This is a modification of my method wich keeps ones initial amount at risk equal to 3 numbers. Each hit will cover approximately 1.5 numbers. If you seven out with no hits you may lose your maximum of 3 numbers if you managed to get up on 3 numbers. If you seven out after 1 hit with 4 numbers in play you will lose about 2.5 numbers. If you seven out after 2 hits with 5 numbers in play you will lose about 2 numbers. If you seven out after 3 hits with 6 numbers in play you will lose about 1.5 numbers. Once you have a 4th hit you will have collected an amount equal to 6 numbers and you will not lose any money on this hand. Hits 5 thru 8 will yield a modest profit.

I wrote it up this way because I thought folks would find it more tolerable. But it is frustrating to get to 3 numbers, throw a bunch of numbers that you don’t have and then seven out. Or, to seven out after 1, 2 or 3 hits because you will still lose a bit of money but it will be less than if you had held at 3 numbers without any hits. So while it may be upsetting to seven out after 3 hits because you will still lose a bit of money, you have to remember, you may not have gotten those hits if you waited longer on 3 numbers before going to more numbers. You may have gotten those hits because you spread out earlier. There is no foolproof method. It depends on your risk tolerance and how well you shoot. I encourage each individual to carefully evaluate both of those elements of his game. Then make your own decisions about how to play TBS based on your conclusions concerning those 2 elements of your game.

But do this with your eyes wide open. In other words, don’t just consider that you had 1, 2 or 3 hits and did not make any money. Take into consideration what I said above. Would you still have gotten those hits if you held at 3 numbers? If not, then you lost less money by spreading out even though you still lost. TBS is an aggressive method of betting. But it has several safeguards built in to protect your bankroll.

I am not trying to make this complicated. But this is a tough game. It takes a lot of work, discipline and knowledge to make money at this game. I am trying to give folks as much information as possible so they can make their own decisions on what will work best for them.

Let me know if you find this helpful.

Skinny,

That is a marvelous explanation of the intent of TBS betting strategy!

Thanks,

NFF

Skinny your contributions to this board have been priceless. I truly appreciate the full explanation of TBS. I now use a modified version of TBS to reduce initial risk (meaning I wait for 3 hits to spread) but there is great logic to TBS the way you play it and Lord knows, I have had more than one session while I wait patiently on 3 numbers; 5, 6 and 10 for example and just hit the crap out of the 9. Because of that, I will now go to a 4th bet if I have thrown 3 box numbers without a hit but with reduced odds to keep my initial risk within my parameters.

When my 401g is large enough to allow it, I have no doubt that I will switch to TBS as you play it.

Again, thank you so much for sharing your betting method, the reasons for it, and the math behind all of the questions GTC’ers post.

I always love your posts Skinny. The math never lies.

Here are some preliminary results.
After various trials. I did get to cover cover the full board and see session 16 I was able to push house for a couple of rolls. Here are my results so far. (I also included my practice stats)

I seem to do better at lower odds and press by $10 with every hit and during sessions (16-23) I tried to spread with only 1 bet and TBS right away.

My practice stats for the last 900 rolls. (I reset it after the advance class)

Attached files