Can we please once and for all agree that Mike is correct and that this is essentially a guessing game?  Sure, it's better to play sober okay?  We get that.

John didn't say this was the holy trail.  He gave a starting point, a benchmark.  He outlined the nemesis.  Where does it go from there?  Maybe this should be the discussion?

Don't like his idea?  Make your own thread.

Agreed that Baccarat is a game of randomness. Amidst these randomness, there are occasions of order and patterns. It is for the Victor's of the game to win on more hands then they lose if they can identify these times when there is order and patterns.

I think for the most part, everyone who has played the game has always been ahead or winning. Its at the end of the day or sessions that count; whether the person walks out a winner or a loser. The odds of 51.3% sounds like pittance on the occasions when there is order and patterns and one happens to be there and follow the 'shoe presentment' (a 'patented' terminology of alrelax 😎). I often watch with amusement when there is a long pattern of 'Banker' or a long period of chop-chop alternating banker-player and this one guy betting for randomness against the whole table. Until he was wiped out and he approached me and say he doesn't believe it. A mathematician perhaps? Told him if he follows the pattern he only loses the last bet when randomness sets in. Why stress?

Amidst randomness, there are always periods of order and patterns. Just as in life, there are periods, often, of order and peace. And periods of utter chaos. Just like a drive in the highway, there are periods of smooth driving and periods of 'immaculate congestions'.

As in life and in other businesses, there is only a thin line between success and failure. I really do believe each one of us have to identify our own demons and control it to win at the game. Discipline is a problem for many. Winning at a certain point in a play session above the 51.3% rate is not the problem. Maintaining the wins is the problem. So whether it is money management or discipline or whatever, we need to know ourselves and find solutions for it.

Apologies if I do not sound too scientific or mathematical in my attempt to present my ideas. After more then 15 years of gambling and much losses (which I will categorise as R&D 🙄☺️ and will recoup over the next 5 years), I do think that. Human emotions. Sigh

So to identify how one can overcome their weaknesses, my suggestion is to impose 'arbitrary ' rules that we 'must' follow. And if we cannot impose these rules on ourselves, then we should bring someone along to help impose these rules upon ourselves. For example, whatever our accumulated winnings, when we run into a change of patterns or put the other way, when randomness sets in, and we start losing our grip on the situation, the self imposed rule could be reduce bet size to half or 1/3 or 1/10 after the first loss following a series of wins. If you lose 2 out of 3 bets stop for the next 15 rounds. If you lose 3 out of 4 hands, go take a walk for an hour. If you lose back 30% of your winnings or 40%, close the session.

Winning is easy. When you start losing, the issue is how to control oneself because just a few rounds of losses can inflict damage not only on your bankroll but on your psychology as well. Most of us  may claim peace or pray for peace. Peace can be easily ruffled in such situations. 'Impose rules'

Well stated Lungyeh -Yin/Yang - the power is in the balance.

Quote from: Lungyeh on April 30, 2018, 01:11:52 AM
Apologies if I do not sound too scientific or mathematical in my attempt to present my ideas. After more then 15 years of gambling and much losses (which I will categorise as R&D 🙄☺️ and will recoup over the next 5 years), I do think that. Human emotions. Sigh

So to identify how one can overcome their weaknesses, my suggestion is to impose 'arbitrary ' rules that we 'must' follow. And if we cannot impose these rules on ourselves, then we should bring someone along to help impose these rules upon ourselves. For example, whatever our accumulated winnings, when we run into a change of patterns or put the other way, when randomness sets in, and we start losing our grip on the situation, the self imposed rule could be reduce bet size to half or 1/3 or 1/10 after the first loss following a series of wins. If you lose 2 out of 3 bets stop for the next 15 rounds. If you lose 3 out of 4 hands, go take a walk for an hour. If you lose back 30% of your winnings or 40%, close the session.

Winning is easy. When you start losing, the issue is how to control oneself because just a few rounds of losses can inflict damage not only on your bankroll but on your psychology as well. Most of us  may claim peace or pray for peace. Peace can be easily ruffled in such situations. 'Impose rules'

Lungyeh,  you and I have seen a lot at the baccarat tables although you have more successes than me, hehe. Shout out to you, Alrelax, and all the pros and the fellow players out there!!

Baccarat is not a one size fits all game. We must possess all the skills and tutaleges of the game  are as important, IMO.

Simply put, if one wins more than loses, that is called a success for me.

Cheers!!

I haven't caught up with everything posted in this thread.

Just popped in to say, ASM strategy raised my eyebrows when I read it a few days back.

Few years back, I got hit by single Banker, 4 players, which repeated 5 times, for a perfect 25 hand pattern, because I coldn't beleieve what I was seeing and started betting against it's continuance.

I've seen since a repeating single B, 4 P sequence repeat 4 times.  Also a repeating single Bank, 3 Players is very common, even saw that tonight and many times in the past, ditto Player dominated shoes, were each time the P hits, it just takes off.  Excuse me if I read the OP's first post wrong, I understood it as betting against the P for 2 bets, so felt compelled to respond. 

Just to finish, as my eyes are burning and in need some ZZzz's  It amuses me how so called experienced Baccarat players can scoff and dismiss methods of play that they don't nothing about, giving advice about what works and what won't without being informed, before they offer their solid opinion

I apply statistics and maths, call it 'expectation', that does not preclude anything freaky happening at the tables, which did occur early in 1 shoe, as the casino nearly but not quiet, produce a 256/1 shot twice in 1 bloody shoe consisting of just under 70 hands.    At which stage your MM, patience, discipline & experience should kick in as you become risk adversive.  I treat Baccarat like a series of binary outcomes; 1's and 0's, you can apply maths to binary.    Tonight played approx 15 shoes and lost 1, which I mention above, recouped and made money from the other 14.

I will endevour to catch up with the rest of this thread at a later date when I have more time on my hands.

Personally, Lugi, I wouldn't bet against the dominant bias in the shoe. If the shoe was not consistent with my placement which means I'd be losing I would back off and try to slowly recoup some losses with conservative betting.  It's not so hard to recoup from small losses. But it's going to require good guessing and proper betting techniques as well as stuff that Lung mentioned.

Quote from: Jimske on April 30, 2018, 02:10:25 PM
Personally, Lugi, I wouldn't bet against the dominant bias in the shoe. If the shoe was not consistent with my placement which means I'd be losing I would back off and try to slowly recoup some losses with conservative betting.  It's not so hard to recoup from small losses. But it's going to require good guessing and proper betting techniques as well as stuff that Lung mentioned.

That wasn't the case, I noticed B PPPP repeat 4 times, so that was already a repeating 20 hand pattern.  Was over taken by a rush of blood, thinking to myself, this can't possibly continue and it did for 5 more hands, meanwhile my bets got bigger, then I lost control as well as my bankroll, that was over a decade ago.

In regards to recouping small losses, I find myself and I guess others become more vulnerable the longer we have been at the tables as our self control is ebbed away.   

Quote from: Mike on April 29, 2018, 12:59:13 PM
In a negative expectation game like Baccarat you don't get paid fairly when you win, therefore in order to make up for this you must win more hands than probability dictates. However, this can't be done in an essentially random game like baccarat where you can't predict what's going to come out next with any reliability. You certainly can't get an edge by looking at patterns and what's just happened because all patterns are equally likely and past hands don't influence future hands. If follows from this this that there are no "opportunities" to be had. A genuine opportunity can only arise if the probabilities of an event change in your favor and represent "value" (meaning that the probability of a win overcomes the unfair payout).

Since baccarat is like a coin flip in might be easier to understand the principle in those terms. Suppose we agree to play a game of "flip the coin". We take it in turns to call and when I win you pay me $1, but when you win I only pay you 95 cents. Since the probability of either H or T is 0.5, you can surely see that eventually you are going to lose money, UNLESS you can find a way to win more often than 50% of the time (in order to overcome the unfair payout).

How much better than 50% does your probability of winning need to be? If the probability of winning is 50% then your expectation looks like this:

probability of winning * win amount - probability of losing * loss amount

which is 0.5*$0.95 - 0.5*$1 = -$1/40 or 2.5 cents loss per game on average.

Now suppose your probability of winning is not 0.5 but "x". Your probability of losing must therefore be "(1 - x)". With a little algebra you can work out what "x" must be in order to do better than break even.

x*$0.95 - (1 - x)*$1 > 0

$0.95*x - $1 + $1*x > 0

$1.95*x > $1

x > $1/$1.95

x > 20/39 = 0.513

So your probability of winning needs to be at least 51.3% in order to overcome the unfair payout.
Can this be achieved? Actually in coin flipping there is good evidence that the side which shows can be controlled to a certain extent by the flipping technique and the "initial conditions" (the side which is up before you flip), but for casino games it's not so easy.

Unless you can find a way to increase your winning percentage you're just gambling, in which case all I can say is : good luck!

That is a very simplistic way in which to view the game.   I haven't witnessed anybody play the game of Baccarat flat betting, fair to assume we all are aware a negative (or positive)  progression is required.

A 'smart' friend of mine gave me a bet selection (he asked me not to share) which makes mathematical sense, he tested against both Zumma data sets and it ended positive.  I sometimes utilize it when playing solo and am in a position of having to bet every hand (flat betting).  Doesn't seem to work when the shoes are what I would describe as rubbish, but I guess they are just those clusters bombs.

Anyhow, we should all appreciate testing is of limited value, even against a million shoes, other than to provide the player with a feel if you like, of average/expected "losses in a row"  (not withstanding anything can happen in games of independent trials).

We should also be aware that if we had a large enough data set, then no matter what we test, the result is going to be "egalite", in other words "equal".   I'm under no illusion that if ran my current mode of play against 2^70 (1,180,591,620,717,410,000,000 hands), the expected outcome should be 50/50.  Yet that doesn't tell the whole story, if my loss strings are averaging 4LIAR, with the odd 7, then discipline, composure and a risk adverse MM approach will pull you through, if you keep your head and appreciate what is happening is a freak occurrence and you should not expect to see the same for the rest of your session.

If you want to read about a proven edge, that ain't going to happen, not now, not ever, as it simply can not exist relating to betting B or P (excludes the side bets), TT's prove this conclusively.   

I will provide an outline on this public forum, shouldn't be too difficult to fathom the rest.  If a binary sequence has odds of 1/256 of occurring, what are the odds of that 1/256 sequence repeating in single shoe consisting of 70 hands (approx 9 instances of 1/256).  Pretty slim I would hazard a guess, yet have already run into a shoe were this happened 3 times within 70 hands, then you can play 20 shoes and never see a single repeat.

That doesn't tell the whole story.  Only a novice would risk 8 bets in order to win a single bet.   You need to be a bit savvy about it, there is no substitute than actually being the gaming table, experiencing the rough to smoothwall the rest. At the same time you don't want to be sitting at the table against shoes that present no bet opportunities, which my own testing has sometimes shown, or only bet once or twice for an entire shoe.  Yes, I occasionally test to determine worst case scenarios, so that I can anticipate LIARS, while appreciating if I ran it through a set of binary tables, the result would be 'egalite' all things being equal.  Which would be perfect in the real world, because anything that returns a 50% strike rate is ideal for a negative progression, alas it is the LIARS which are  bane of all systems

People need to focus more on controlling LAIRs, if a binary sequence has an mathematical expectation of occurring once per 2048 B/P decisions (once every 29 shoes).   Then what is the expectation of a 1/256 sequence repeating within 70 hands? (please don't go be a novice thinking, oh I'll just bet the opposite, your staking plan won't handle such type pf play). 

Acutely aware cards are just innate pieces plastic, have no memory, if you encounter the shoe from hell (already been there done that), then how many losing bets will such an freak event cost you?  Once you sort that out, then introduce more bet options, so you are not sitting on your hands for most of the game and make sure your staking plan is up to scratch, because mathematically there can never be an edge only expectation.

1) so it would seem that there will be occasions when the shoe results totally contradicts any proposed system outcomes. For example the illustrated 1 B followed by 4 P and repeated 5 times. I al a trend follower and would bet until the losing bet. Granted the random theorist or maybe a system follower recommending breaking the trend would end up losing this part of the shoe as would Asymbac I would presume. Had he played then.

2) But you see Asym's theory may be working for him most of the other times. And if such a situation unfolded before him, he could maybe had stayed off based on his experience.

3) To each his own. Asymbac is an experienced player and I am sure his systems have a basis for long term success. Just wondering what he has to say. This exceptional situation may be the few instances he would lose had he stuck by his system but more often then not, he would prevail?

4) of course if such a strong trend were to present itself and one was to bet to break the trend, one may not look good; to put it mildly

QuoteThat is a very simplistic way in which to view the game.   I haven't witnessed anybody play the game of Baccarat flat betting, fair to assume we all are aware a negative (or positive)  progression is required.

Yes, but this itself won't give you an edge, although it can keep you in the game long enough until you have a profit. The problem is those times when you never get a profit and end up chasing losses.

Asym,

Back on subject.  As you said in context, "Notice that more likely than not, an early P 3+ streak apperance will followed by many 3+ streaks than what the opposite situation will do.  Especially whether such 3+ streak is immediately followed by another identical 3+ streak. ",  I would have to put that and that into my own 'identifiable events' whereas--classically strong player side presentations in the beginning, tend to continue the gravitation of producing multiple player repeats (whatever the number is) as compared to Banker winning repeats.  In the beginning of the shoe is much more prevalent and noticeable to myself--and certainly has raised my eyebrows for quite some time.

I hope I expressed myself correctly. 

Too many cats get way too caught up in the very short term but most recreational player. Over time though, the expectation plays out and that's why the anti-streak is such a solid style of play, hey hey.

Thanks for the huge interest on this humble post.

Believe me, the stupi.d strategy presented here (and more are coming) will get the best of it itlr with 1 million accuracy.

Say you put in action a player betting toward P 1s and 2s in any order toward getting at least a two pattern sequence and such player is eager to get a profit no matter what, so progressively increasing the bet forever and ever.
Like a 1-2, 4-8, 16-32, 64-128, 256-512 betting plan....

To lose (that is to not cross at least a favorite situation in 5 consecutive attempts) we need to test a lot of shoes.

Sooner or later such unfavourable and very unlikely situation will happen, destroying our previous profits.

Good.

But remember that per every class of 3:1 single losing situation, a more likely proportional winning situation will happen along the way.

We are acting with probabilities on our side, despite what mathematics dictates.

Actually, the number of two P 1s-2s  clusters will overcome the number of opposite situations.

Utilizing a more sensibile approach set up in order to reduce variance, say that the number of 1-2 P clusters will overcome the number of P superior classes. It's a sure long term finding. 

In a word, we are betting that P 3+ streaks are more likely to come out quite dispersed or at least with a pace different from 1 to the rest (where the rest is every possible situation, that is any combination of 1s and 2s superior than one).

Notice that consecutive 3+ P patterns aren't going to produce us any harm as we are not starting any betting.

Generally speaking, we do not want to bet toward what it didn't happen so far, as 2 level must come out after a 1 and not after a zero.

The more the actual shoe tend to produce zero o 1 situations, higher will be the propensity to not bet a single dime.

Remember that surely the more likely happens in clusters, but at the same time sh.it happens in clusters and a single shoe is just a minuscule part of the whole picture.

as. 

Quote from: Jimske on April 28, 2018, 03:54:44 PM
Looks good Assym.  One reason, as you point out, is the common occurrences of 1's and 2's - representing 50% of decisions.  By my way of thinking it is good to have a benchmark, a starting plan.  That way there is structure, something that can be explained.  You recognize there needs to be adjustments, fictional bets, MM, whatever.

Nope, P 1s and 2s represent more than 75% of total decisions.
In a perfect simmetrical model, 1s and 2s on each side are 75% of the total outcomes.

as.