expert lotto 5 update - 100923

expert lotto 5 update - 100923

Postby stan » Thu Sep 23, 2010 10:29 pm

new application update is available now. pls click menu 'help - check for updates'

besides usual minor bug fixes and tweaks, you can find the following in this update:
- new ticket filter 'repeating numbers' - see it's description for more details
- complete documentation of all expert lotto 5 features. the help topics need some pretty-formatting and cross-linking but the text content is there already. pls let me know if you think that some topics need to be explained better or if you find any errors in the documentation.
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Re: expert lotto 5 update - 100923

Postby Jerzy » Fri Sep 24, 2010 6:36 am

Stan,

It would be useful if you could expand and clarify the information on Complex filters. In particular it would be good to see some examples of building not simple but complex filter hierarchy. And the difference between a complex and a group filter is not very clear to me.

We would like to know what can be achieved with complex filters that cannot be achieved with simple filters. I suppose there are many possibilities of using complex filters and probably some of them still need to be discovered.

I am trying to build a complex or group filter which would remove number combinations with 3 clusters of 2 numbers which in my game are drawn uncommonly. Such combinations are shown in the game panels: 1, 2 and 3 in the attached ticket slip scan.

Clusters of 2 are pairs of numbers which are geometrically connected on the game panel: they are surrounded by empty number boxes. In my 6/45 game 141 clusters of 2 are possible. Of course they can form or belong to much more number combinations.

To remove the combinations with 3 clusters o 2 numbers I created a Filter Group with the condition: Reject, Min to pass: 3, Max to pass: 3. The Filter group consists of 141 Match Numbers Filters, each of them for a different cluster of two numbers, but each of them has the condition: Accept, Match 2 numbers. Unfortunately, the filter removes more combinations than needed. It also removes clusters of 3 and clusters of 4, as shown on the game panels 7, 8 and 9, as though these clusters were build of several clusters of two.

Probably I should also include in my filter the numbers in empty boxes that surround each cluster of 2, with the condition: Accept, 0 to 0 numbers should pass. But the filter would be more complex to build, and right now I am not absolutely sure how to do it.
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Re: expert lotto 5 update - 100923

Postby Jerzy » Fri Sep 24, 2010 6:40 am

Stan,

I am sorry, the file that I tried to attach (a scan of game panels) is too big (more than 1 MB), so there is no attachement.
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Re: expert lotto 5 update - 100923

Postby stan » Fri Sep 24, 2010 9:20 pm

Jerzy wrote:We would like to know what can be achieved with complex filters that cannot be achieved with simple filters. I suppose there are many possibilities of using complex filters and probably some of them still need to be discovered.

basically, simple filters can do everything that a complex filter can. sequential filtering - first apply odd/even filter, then apply sum range filter, then apply match winning numbers filter etc represents AND boolean logic. the resulting tickets pass the first filter AND the second filter AND the third filter etc.
however if you need to find tickets that pass filter X OR filter Y then you must first apply filter X, save the results to a file, then revert the package, then apply filter Y and merge the two results together.
or if you need tickets that pass EITHER filter X OR filter Y then it's even more complicated and i can't even tell from the top of my head how to implement such logic using simple filters and package operations.

complex filters handle all of the above easily in a single step.

i'll expand the description of complex filters and i'll try to come up with some practical examples.
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Re: expert lotto 5 update - 100923

Postby MartinMan » Tue Sep 28, 2010 7:09 pm

Hello Stan,
I am not sure if this is a bug, or I am just not using the filter right.
Under Package\Reduce\Mutual Match, I am getting some strange behavior.
First I made a random Package(I tried several sizes).
I removed Duplicates.
Sort Ascending or Descending
I brought up the Mutual Match filter.
If the Package is sorted Ascending, then after the filter is run, only High number tickets are left.
If the Package is sorted Descending, then after the filter is run, only Low number tickets are left.
To get a mix of ticket numbers I had to scramble the tickets.
Also when Sorting the Package only a few tickets are left. 30 to 90 or so, on a 10,000 ticket Package.
After scrambling the tickets the number of tickets left goes up to almost 700 tickets. That was with my settings. The numbers varied, but consistently worked in that way.

Regards,
Martin
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Re: expert lotto 5 update - 100923

Postby stan » Tue Sep 28, 2010 8:03 pm

MartinMan wrote:Hello Stan,
I am not sure if this is a bug, or I am just not using the filter right.
Under Package\Reduce\Mutual Match, I am getting some strange behavior.
First I made a random Package(I tried several sizes).
I removed Duplicates.
Sort Ascending or Descending
I brought up the Mutual Match filter.
If the Package is sorted Ascending, then after the filter is run, only High number tickets are left.
If the Package is sorted Descending, then after the filter is run, only Low number tickets are left.
To get a mix of ticket numbers I had to scramble the tickets.
Also when Sorting the Package only a few tickets are left. 30 to 90 or so, on a 10,000 ticket Package.
After scrambling the tickets the number of tickets left goes up to almost 700 tickets. That was with my settings. The numbers varied, but consistently worked in that way.

it's not a bug. that is expected and desired behavior. please read mutual match filter description in application's help.
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Re: expert lotto 5 update - 100923

Postby MartinMan » Tue Sep 28, 2010 9:38 pm

Hello Stan,
I did read the Help file before I tried the filter.
I still don't see why I should get such different results with the same Package, same Settings, just different sorts.
The Help file says that each ticket is compared to each other.
So why do I get different results depending on an Ascending, Descending, or Shuffle sort?
To test it and get a smaller number of tickets to look at I used the Mega Millions.
It is 5 of 56 numbers. I don't use the bonus ball.
I randomly picked 10,000 numbers and removed Duplicates. That left 9,987 tickets.
I used settings of 2 numbers, Max 2 to test.
On an Ascending sort there were 5 tickets left, all high numbers 42,44,49,53,54 etc.
On a Descending sort there were 0 tickets left.
If I shuffled the tickets, there were 31 tickets left, and they were a mix of high and low numbers.
Is this because the numbers in each ticket are not being compared to each ticket, but only to the tickets below it?
Or is this behavior because of the settings I am using?

Regards,
Martin
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Re: expert lotto 5 update - 100923

Postby stan » Thu Sep 30, 2010 11:18 am

MartinMan wrote:Hello Stan,
I did read the Help file before I tried the filter.
I still don't see why I should get such different results with the same Package, same Settings, just different sorts.
The Help file says that each ticket is compared to each other.
So why do I get different results depending on an Ascending, Descending, or Shuffle sort?
To test it and get a smaller number of tickets to look at I used the Mega Millions.
It is 5 of 56 numbers. I don't use the bonus ball.
I randomly picked 10,000 numbers and removed Duplicates. That left 9,987 tickets.
I used settings of 2 numbers, Max 2 to test.

it's not 'max 2 to test'. such condition says that a ticket is accepted if there are at most two other tickets in the package that match the given ticket in exactly two numbers.

On an Ascending sort there were 5 tickets left, all high numbers 42,44,49,53,54 etc.
On a Descending sort there were 0 tickets left.
If I shuffled the tickets, there were 31 tickets left, and they were a mix of high and low numbers.

in either case this filter accepts most of the tickets at the bottom of the package. simply because there are not enough other tickets to compare them with. so if you sort the package in ascending order, you'll get tickets with high numbers (they're at the bottom of the package), descending sort moves tickets with low numbers to the bottom of the package so that's what you get after filter. when the order of tickets is random, you'll get random tickets from the bottom of the package again.
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Re: expert lotto 5 update - 100923

Postby MartinMan » Thu Sep 30, 2010 3:27 pm

Hello Stan,
Thank you for your explanation. But I probably didn't word my message right, because that is pretty much what I meant.
When I said I used 2 numbers and max 2 to test, I meant to test the filter on a larger number of tickets. Not that I thought max 2 setting was a test settings itself. Only a test of the filter on my lotto.

Your explanation is what I thought.
Doesn't that mean that each ticket is Not being tested with the whole Package?
Wouldn't each ticket need to be tested with the tickets above it as you move down the Package?
Isn't that why I end up with only tickets that pass the filter from the bottom of the Package?
I know that I would have to relax my filter settings, but I should get a better representation of tickets, or am I completely wrong?

I know that I was using a tight filter on a large group of tickets. But I wanted to see how the filter actually works.
When I add number to the Max setting, such as changing the 2 to 20, then I will get more ticket that pass the filter, but they are still skewed to the bottom of the Package.
So, no matter where I set my settings I would still get tickets skewed to the bottom of the Package, just not so obvious.
And according to your explanation, they should be. But is that right?
Maybe you designed this filter to work on very small amounts of tickets, 5 or so?
If that is so, then I apologize.
I am Not trying to pick on you, I just think this filter has very good potential for helping with limiting tickets, while still having a chance at a prize.
I won't bother you any more about this,

Regards,
Martin
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Re: expert lotto 5 update - 100923

Postby stan » Thu Sep 30, 2010 9:22 pm

MartinMan wrote:Hello Stan,
Thank you for your explanation. But I probably didn't word my message right, because that is pretty much what I meant.
When I said I used 2 numbers and max 2 to test, I meant to test the filter on a larger number of tickets. Not that I thought max 2 setting was a test settings itself. Only a test of the filter on my lotto.

Your explanation is what I thought.
Doesn't that mean that each ticket is Not being tested with the whole Package?

correct
Wouldn't each ticket need to be tested with the tickets above it as you move down the Package?

no. to get this behavior, save the package contents to a file and then use 'match file' filter.
Isn't that why I end up with only tickets that pass the filter from the bottom of the Package?

correct
I know that I would have to relax my filter settings, but I should get a better representation of tickets, or am I completely wrong?

I know that I was using a tight filter on a large group of tickets. But I wanted to see how the filter actually works.
When I add number to the Max setting, such as changing the 2 to 20, then I will get more ticket that pass the filter, but they are still skewed to the bottom of the Package.
So, no matter where I set my settings I would still get tickets skewed to the bottom of the Package, just not so obvious.
And according to your explanation, they should be. But is that right?

correct
Maybe you designed this filter to work on very small amounts of tickets, 5 or so?

not really, you can use it on larger amounts of tickets as well. it reduces the ticket count while maintaining the coverage (within limits). it's similar to 'best tickets' filter or to 'optimizer' in expert lotto 4.x

If that is so, then I apologize.
I am Not trying to pick on you, I just think this filter has very good potential for helping with limiting tickets, while still having a chance at a prize.
I won't bother you any more about this,

i have no problem when intelligent questions (as those above) are being asked
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Re: expert lotto 5 update - 100923

Postby MartinMan » Fri Oct 01, 2010 3:09 pm

Stan,
Thank you for your explanations. I hadn't thought about the Match File filter's behavior.
I have one last question.
What if you added another setting on the filter to set the number of tickets that the filter 'looks through' ?
It would still work in the same way, but the number of tickets that it checks would be set by us.
For example we could set the number to 20 and it would start at the top and use the other settings to look for tickets over the next 20 tickets. Then go back up and move down the Package in the same way, moving down one ticket each time and testing the next 20. When finished it could run, or we could, your Remove Duplicates routine to clean up the file.
It could have a setting for All, so it would work exactly as it does now.
Would that ruin the premise of your filter?
I think it would basically be a series of Match File filters, moved down one ticket at a time and running over the space of our settings, then merged and cleaned up.
And more work for you of course, just in case you didn't have enough already.
This isn't a formal request or anything, just thinking and wondering if it would have any use.
Sorry, that's two questions :)

Regards,
Martin
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Re: expert lotto 5 update - 100923

Postby stan » Fri Oct 01, 2010 5:37 pm

MartinMan wrote:Stan,
Thank you for your explanations. I hadn't thought about the Match File filter's behavior.
I have one last question.
What if you added another setting on the filter to set the number of tickets that the filter 'looks through' ?
It would still work in the same way, but the number of tickets that it checks would be set by us.
For example we could set the number to 20 and it would start at the top and use the other settings to look for tickets over the next 20 tickets. Then go back up and move down the Package in the same way, moving down one ticket each time and testing the next 20. When finished it could run, or we could, your Remove Duplicates routine to clean up the file.
It could have a setting for All, so it would work exactly as it does now.
Would that ruin the premise of your filter?

i think so. comparing each package ticket with the next N tickets in the package doesn't improve the odds in any way.

I think it would basically be a series of Match File filters, moved down one ticket at a time and running over the space of our settings, then merged and cleaned up.
And more work for you of course, just in case you didn't have enough already.
This isn't a formal request or anything, just thinking and wondering if it would have any use.

if you can come up with a solid strategy based on this kind of filtering, i can extend that filter. it's not that much work. but so far i don't see any advantage having such an option in that filter.
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Re: expert lotto 5 update - 100923

Postby MartinMan » Fri Oct 01, 2010 9:56 pm

Hello Stan,
OK, thanks for the reply.
I was afraid that would be true :)
I was hoping that it would spread the results out over the Package better and therefor give better coverage since each group of tickets, for the size picked, would almost be small contained filters in themselves.
No such luck I guess.

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Martin
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Re: expert lotto 5 update - 100923

Postby stan » Sun Oct 03, 2010 9:35 pm

MartinMan wrote:I was hoping that it would spread the results out over the Package better and therefor give better coverage since each group of tickets, for the size picked, would almost be small contained filters in themselves.

it might work for a smaller count of tickets. but when filtering a large package you'd still get multiple coverage of some combinations because the tickets wouldn't be compared with each other.

but feel free to file a formal request for such a filter here: http://expertlotto.com/issues/
when i don't have any high-priority issue on my todo list, i might look at it again.
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