Many do not, few do.  IMO, it takes a good 20 years of playing.  I do not see how a recently introduced player to the game of baccarat can truly appreciate the volatility, the production and the true definitive nature of the paths this game will produce. 

There are 5 true aspects of the game that will govern how well or how bad you do.  I am leaving out all of the personal and outside things that may govern/control/influence you.  So, there are really the 5 areas as I outline here:

1)  Your bankroll or buy-in;
2)  Discipline and patience;
3)  Time;
4)  Your wager and wager beliefs;
5)  Exit strategy adhering to Money Management.

If you came on to this board searching for a system, meaning a mechanical system of set wagers that will prevail and you will profit, sorry--there is none.  If you really think there is such a thing, just Google 'systems baccarat gambling', etc., and send some cash and buy some, follow them and then please come back after several months and honestly report to us.  Now onward.


You can either play 1 shoe or 3 shoes and you can either put yourself in the short game or long game, etc.  The short game is the one I play which is the 'per session', whereas-the ones I played last week-last month or last year, I know nothing about and forget all wins or losses.  Or, you can most certainly play the long game of 50 or 100 or 250 shoes, 3 months or 6 months or 1 year, etc., and so on.  Either way, set a goal which is your exit strategy if you win or lose.  I am totally against a loss limit per session as I believe it is clearer and more advantageous to most all players to risk without fear or worry what is sitting in front of them for their ammunition.  I don't believe in bankrolls with shares per sessions.  All everyone I every known that had bankrolls and building and building on them, at one point was convinced they could break the casino and lost it all.  I know in my heart, the per session and per buy-in is the best way to go overall.  As far as wins and losses building, they really mean nothing except undo pressure and false conceptions of power, prior losing or winning that is.

Discipline and patience.  I have talked and written about these within my Blogs and on the board.  There is enough info here for those of you that, truly want to learn a base here.  If you play every hand or nearly every hand, shoe after shoe after shoe, you will not come out a winner many times.  If you do win it will only be the false fuel, that will be your downfall to an exhausted buy-in, bank roll or gambling funds, whatever you label your money with you or in reserve. 

Time.  Is your enemy in a casino.  Learn it and be conscious of it.  Don't always think there is the magical shoe from haven coming for you.  Play what is there and play it well and if you do win, if you apply my 1/3rd, 1/3rd, 1/3rd, you cannot ever give back all the winning, never.

Your wager and you wager beliefs.  Anything and everything can work.  However, as I stated about mechanical systems above stands true and to the tallest order ever.  But nothing can repeatedly hold up, it is utterly impossible.

Exit strategy adhering to money management.  I stated about and it is easier than anything on the internet or what most believe.  My 1/3rd, 1/3rd, 1/3rd. You cannot say, one more shoe and one more shoe.  You will give it all back and then start on your buy-in, etc.  If you can only remember the old school proverbial saying, "It is not 'if' it will happen, it is 'when' it will happen".

We all have a different outlook.  Some of us risk $300.00 to double it and walk away happier than a pig rolling around in poo-poo, religiously each and every time.  Yet others, will risk thousands or tens of thousands for the other end of the rainbow, 'life changing payoffs'.  While, many of us are in-between those two as well. 

There are 3 basic challenges that will block you and if you are smart enough, have guts enough, risk enough, be lucky enough, so on and so forth--you can 'at times' get around them:

1)  Length of time you play a session;
2)  Your buy-in or Bank Roll;
3)  Game mathematics.

I don't really need to say anything more about #'s 1 and 2. 

The last one, game mathematics', most of us do not know anything about and those that do, it generally will not predict or give them a mechanical method to wager and win with repetitiveness to prove it a 'system', therefore all the authors do is either exaggerate, lie, believe in false hoods, win and then lose the winnings and their own funds chasing what they won on their system, or loser's trying to reclaim their funds by marketing a false system that works haphazardly. 

All you really have to understand about 'house edge' is, it is real and there.  Period.  Forget the numbers and forget the statistics of it.  If you can only remember that the casino is absolutely guaranteed a payoff which amounts to a fixed percentage of your money going across their tables, then you are on the right track.  Seriously, that is all you need to know.  You cannot control it except with time, the time you are there gambling, that is all.  It doesn't not mean you will go broke if you play 100 hands at XYZ $ wager or anything of the like.  It means, the casino will eventually take all your buy-in, your bank roll, your funds, won or not.  It does not matter and the harder your head and the less experience you have, the more you will lose and the harder you will fall. 

People say all the time, "Gambling is extremely dangerous".  No it is not.  It is the players that are dangerous.  Gambling is no different than sky diving, scuba diving, auto or motorcycle racing, street vending in rough neighborhoods, etc., etc.  No different!  The difference is the players, the people.  People get that win money or a chance to win it, and they go crazy--they lose all good thoughts, skill and regime that gives them a shot and a decent chance at it.  I see it all the time and to me it is viable and tangible, to most it is not and it is only story or fairy tale.  I said it, I laid it out and it is 100% reality.

I read a technical book on gambling a long time ago.  There was lots and lots of numbers, figures and statistics in it.  Probably all true.  Actually probability spot-on.  So what?  Seriously, what do numbers have to do with the casino hold, the house advantage, the winners and the losers of the casino, etc., etc.?  Can the results of those tell you when and if a 14 Player or Banker streak will come out or a shoe that is 80% chop-chop or doubles and so on?  No.  It can not.  The casino's numbers are derived from months and months and years of business.  The same with statistics of the game, derived from tens of thousands of shoes, hundreds of thousands and millions of shoes, nothing to do with the little amount that will be produced when you actually play.  Those 3 or 5 or 10 or 20 shoes cannot be represented of the statistical numbers of the winners or losers or any subject matter, none.

So, back to the book.  I remember years later now and all the time in the middle.  Here it goes, I will attempt to explain it clearly and quickly.  Picture a large wheel, the size of a roulette wheel--only much larger.  Now hang that vertical from the ceiling.  It is hanging behind you as you play baccarat in any and all casinos, lowered each time you play--right behind you.  The wheel is your funds of your buy-in.  Forget your bank roll unless you play each time with your entire bankroll, but make the wheel anything you want, in my case it is always my buy-in.  On the top and directly across from that, on the bottom are the words, Win-Lose.  One on top and one the bottom.  On the sides are the words, Neutral-Rough.  One on each side.  The more you play, the harder you push, the faster the wheel will turn.  At one edge of the wheel there is a razor blade so sharp and it will never go dull.  The faster and harder you play the faster the wheel spins and makes contact with the razor.  The slower and more methodical you play, the slower the wheel spins.   

The operation of the razor against the wheel cannot be changed, it is the exact same as aging, making love, racing an auto, scuba diving, etc., etc.  You will crash, run out of fuel, run out of air, run out of time or just plain energy, and so on.  You will never ever play and follow the house edge of the + or - right at 1.0% as the stats say with baccarat.  And as far as breaking even due to variance, that is not really a function you can follow because you can not wager the amount of hands you will need for that to finish in reality due to the mathematical principals of the game to actually surface in statistical form. 

In finishing this up I will add the following.  Players doom themselves by their extremely uncontrollable impulsive nature of greed and fear.  Both, not one.  That is the problem IMO.  Then the players play rational styles and win and that only contributes to their upcoming demise because they play so hard and so aggressive they kill their chances to win.  And why is this?  Go back to my wheel explanation and all those casino house numbers and other actual and real statistics are hooked up to that razor scrapping away at the wheel hanging behind you.  Yes they are, no you cannot stop them, the wheel will turn and turn.

So when I say 'X,Y or Z' or you hear that proverbial saying, what does it mean.  Well to me it means, can I get 'X' before I lose 'Y' or will Z happen.

In closing I will give my summation of the actual downfall.  With baccarat, players concentrate way too much on attempting to do the impossible with the prediction of the future and forget to react to the past as only dangerous thoughts.  Then they either wager only on specific outcomes or believe that others cannot appear, either way, it all blows up in their face because the shoe will produce both events.  Then when you apply the actual mathematics and statistics to the game, (hence the score board, the pen, the paper is encouraged and provided so conveniently for you to utilize) it really doesn't matter and cannot help you with accuracy because the shoe will not produce wins that is consistent with your confidence level based upon that hard math of statistics you employed and you will lose every dollar of your buy-in and/or bank roll.

A good discussion last night among several regular casino players of baccarat. 

We all agreed on the following:

Less than 50% of the time your wager will be correct on the Player or the Banker.

Also, more than 50% of the time your wager will be wrong on the Player or the Banker.

What you are up against is yourself and your decisions and how your deal with the outcome of them, not easy to keep it all in order all the time, at the B&M table in a live casino.