Oscar’s Grind – The Positive Way Betting System

Oscar’s Grind The Positive Way Part 1

A special thanks to John Manfredi who pointed out my silly mistake about the rules of Oscar’s Grind – The Positive Way!

OSCAR’S GRIND (or Hoyle’s Press) is a Money Management system, a pen-and-paper accounting system. You need a pen and paper for this one but that is OK with most casinos. Some will only let you use their scorecards but that doesn’t matter, as long as it is a piece of paper…

It is easy to learn and to use and the goal for each session is to win exactly one unit (initial bet), like the MARTINGALE system. This can be achieved very quickly – one spin – or it may take ages (and, as usual, may ruin your Bankroll).

The way it works is like this:

#1: Whenever you LOSE, you bet the same bet again

#2: Whenever you WIN…

#2A: If your net loss for the session is less than your last bet, you lower the bet to one more than your loss. If you won7 at the last spin, but you are still down by 2 units for the session, your next bet will be 3 units – one more than you are
down.

#2B: In all other situations you raise your bet by one unit. This way, the net result for the session will, eventually, be exactly ONE positive unit / initial bet, and that result ends the session. (Whops! Forgot to say: …eventually, if there is no limit to your bankroll or at the table… sorry).

What you will notice, using this system, is that when a session has been going on for some spins (you are down) and you come into a Win-Lose – Win-Lose…- sequence, the only thing happening is that you increase the bets in a dangerous way, risking more and more.

To win one single starting bet…

Let’s try it…
(Casino Baden, Austria, June 26th, 1996, 2:57 pm)

Betting RED
Columns:
Rec Spin: Recorded spin number
Bet: Amount of units bet on RED
Win: Winning number
R = Red
B = Black
Result: Positive or negative result of the bet
STot: Running total for the session
GdTot: Grand total after each session
Rec
Spin Bet Win Rslt STot GdTot
—————————–
1 1 26B -1 -1 Bet 1. Lose. Same bet
2 1 30R +1 0 Bet 1. Win. 0 down = bet 1
3 1 4B -1 -1 Bet 1. Lose. Same bet
4 1 4B -1 -2 Bet 1. Lose. Same bet
5 1 16R +1 -1 Bet 1. Win. 1 down = raise 1
6 2 8B -2 -3 Bet 2. Lose. Same bet
7 2 19R +2 -1 Bet 2. Win. 1 down = bet 2
8 2 18R +2 +1 + 1 Bet 2. Win. Goal = +1!
9 1 10B -1 -1 Bet 1. Lose. Same bat
10 1 26B -1 -2 Bet 1. Lose. Same bet
11 1 0 -1 -3 Bet 1. Lose. Same bet
12 1 32R +1 -2 Bet 1. Win. 2 down = raise 1
13 2 23R +2 0 Bet 2. Win. 0 down = bet 1
14 1 9R +1 +1 +2 Bet 1. Win. Goal = +1!
15 1 14R +1 +1 +3 Bet 1. Win. Goal = +1!
16 1 12R +1 +1 +4 Bet 1. Win. Goal = +1!
17 1 20B -1 -1 Bet 1. Lose. Same bet
18 1 26B -1 -2 Bet 1. Lose. Same bet
19 1 7R +1 -1 Bet 1. Win. 1 down = raise 1
20 2 23R +2 +1 +5 Bet 2. Win. Goal = +1!

Looking good! And this goes on… at spin 150 our Grand Bankroll is +22 units!

Oscar’s Grind The Positive Way Part 2

Another session starts… But hey! What’s happening? 14 spins later we’re down 17 for the session and must bet another five… OK, we can afford it… Lost! Now, wait!

After 40 spins more we’re down another 169 (186 down for the session) and are supposed to bet 19 units… Our Grand Bankroll is down 164 units (incl. the bet). Sorry to say, before the night ends we have been down 1383 units, plus another 68 units bet and walk away at closing time with a total loss of 1042 (-1064 for the session and the last bet was 93 units)!

Click for the complete day (2nd browser)

But how could this happen? When having a streak of some losses, some wins, some losses, etc., you will find that the bet is steadily increasing and so, when the losses are dominant, you have to make high bets thus risking losing much and quickly.

That is exactly what happened; have a look at the last 50 spins in the file (above). We actually work our way up from -1383 units to -695, but while doing so we have increased the bets from 68 to 93! And so; in the last six spins – four losses, one win, and another loss – we again lose and this time 369 units, an average of 61.5 per spin!

Now, the goal of this system is to win one unit per session. We have lost 1064 in one session, so there is a need for some 1000 uninterrupted winning sessions here…

What about Black? If the bets are all on Black, we must win because Red lost!

Yes, we won. We had 62 winning sessions before the last one, which ended at -15 after 45 spins when the table closed. To sum up; we lost 1064 on Red and 15 on Black while we won 22 on Red and 62 on Black – giving the net result of minus 995 units…

Also, you can argue that the above way is a “positive progression” (you raise your bet on a win) and that a “negative progression” might be better. Well, you are right, actually.