Hi AsymBacGuy


"A large percentage of casinos' profits come from bad players attitude loving to bet huge as losers and being more prudent when winning."


I agree 100%. This is a phenomenon that I perceive is just  a part of the human psyche.  IMO it has much to do with how we are bombarded with "fear" from an early age and throughout life.
Plus, coupled with our emotions tied to money, and this can allow fear to really affect our decisions.

I see fear being utilized everyday in our lives.

e.g., Roadside assistance insurance for your roadside assistance plan,..etc.

e.g., Insurance for the possibility that our new electronic device may not last x # of years.
IMO that's what the manufacturers 2-year warranty is for. Unless its an expensive item we shouldnt have much fear about all the whatifs.

     I recently bought an extension for a lightbulb socket(basically an extension that screws into the light bulb recepticle and drops down 3"). The cost was $6.95. I immediately started receiving offers that for just $2.95 (43% of the actual cost of the gadget), I could insure that extension for two years (of course this 2.95 policy would only start after the manufacturers 2-year warranty had ended).  FEAR.
I declined.lol. I have NO FEAR, just like at the Bac table,lol..
If my $7 gadget malfunctions in 23mo Ill just toss it and go spend another $7.

Our whole society tries to "FEAR" us into a life of fear.

Same as at the Bac table. Its my opinion we fear losing too much in comparison with our emotions for accepting a big Win.

Cheers, kfb

I clearly see larger losses than win amounts, both in the per hand and per session.  It is physically evident.

When the highest majority of players do win, the problem is, they are on an all out mission with visions of redeeming themselves and regaining any lost funds, current and/or past.

As well, most players do not, or they simply get too wound up to implement proper MMM with adherence  to their levels and plateaus which would govern their wagers and time played, etc.  The smart way allowing yourself an advantage to hold and govern win money the proper way.

New important concepts are coming soon, imo of course.

as.

Casinos' advantage

First, forget the idea that casinos earn a lot of money by taking advantage of their math edge.
No one casino will accumulate huge profits at bac tables by getting a fkng 1.25% average edge, they profit a lot more than that.
Stup.id side bets? Maybe.
Improper players' money wagering? Sure as hell.

Consider that a fair coin flip succession isn't beatable by definition, we shouldn't give a flying fk if eventually we are supposed to break even.

In any fair proposition the wealthiest side will get the underdog side sooner or later.
Are we richer than casinos? No way. And even if we do are, maximum betting limits pose a real threat on such proposition. For us not for them.
Let's figure out if our bets are taxed somewhat.

Casinos perspective

Without no exception (besides when bac personnel are keen bac players too) anytime you join a table you are considered as a mere perfect stu.pi.d id.i.ot person willing to lose money. A lot of money indeed.
Most of the times they are right and whenever you are not they start to grumble.

They wish you 'good luck' when they intend to say "dude, you have no chance to win".

They are right. The most you play the more you'll lose as math edge is constantly working for them.
But there's a stronger accelerating process working for them either: raising our bets for whatever reason.
This is not about a linear relationship of the money percentage they'll entitled to win mathematically, they know we can't sustain the variance being asymmetrically placed along the way.

Heaven happens: we'll win less than the expected fair return;

Hell happens: we'll go broke.

So this fact should lure us to think what the fk we're doing when joining a bac table:

-are we really exploiting a kind of edge or we are there to just gamble?

Baccarat expectations

Mathematically speaking (so without any shadow of doubt) any possible advantage is best exploited by a strict fkng flat betting strategy and I do not stall the post to prove this by math formulas.

Remember that the best friend of gamblers is variance and the worst enemy of pros is variance.

Same issue to look for but for very different reasons.

Actually this is a strong asymmetrical proposition to look for as gamblers look for just one side of things going their way whereas pros look for two different way of things developing.
Up to a point.

Again, wisest way to ascertain that we're taking the best of things is by adopting a same betting amount, best if we're betting the maximum limit that gives us no room to be outrageously wrong or
outrageously right.

I mean that there's no way to quit a bac table as winners if we didn't catch more W spots than L spots.
People trying to convince you that a lower amount of W hands than L hands will get 'em a profit anyway are fooling you by a 1 billion accuracy.
This thing could really happen just at very short term successions, that is when the natural variance hadn't the room to show up.

Any session MUST be a winning session

This is the most important point to look for, imo.

Whereas at bj we could easily lose several sessions in a row despite a possible carefully assessed math advantage, at baccarat this thing doesn't exist at all.

Actually and providing a fair amount of shoes dealt, an acute player won't lose a dime for each session played. I mean by flat betting, of course.
If he/she is behind, it's because he/she played very bad. Cards are not the culprit of such 'misfortune'.

Profitable opportunities do not come around the corner but they'll come.
We'll see this topic in a couple of days.

as.

Besides math considerations (virtually for us but practictally for most players, every bet is EV-), it's more likely to NOT guess possible detectable patterns than to guess what the shoe is producing.

I mean that an 'anti pattern' strategy is more likely to come out than a 'profitable patterns' approach.
After all the game is offered just for this fact (and not by casinos exploiting a miserable 1.25% or so HE).

Notice that for 'anti pattern' strategy I do not mean to bet against long streaks or homogeneous situations, just hands that in the most bac players' minds cannot constitute a sensible option.

The reason is because players try to get hints from 'human' detectable patterns and not by following probability issues. That is by simply 'hoping' to get this and not that.

Conversely, people hoping to get something homogeneous to stop (after losing more than one hand) are making a way harsher mistake as they hope to win 1 very often risking more than 1.

Remember the old basic 'rule': an alternate WL or LW succession is slight less likely than any WW or LL sequence coming up along the way in short distance.
Again, BP chopping lines don't belong to this category as the B/P proposition isn't symmetrical for many reasons.

Sayed in another way, short betting ranges make more probable to get clusters of some kind than an alternate WL or LW line.

Therefore hoping to constantly getting Ws (human patterns) is a sure recipe for disaster.

When more and more hands are dealt, we must be prepared to lose (that is to encounter an inevitable losing sequence) that we can challenge by not betting at all (very difficult) or by just betting the 'losing' end of the things (easier to do).

Summary

- at baccarat the least likely scenario to face is a moderate-long series of WL or LW scenarios

- Outliners (strong positive or negative sd tails) constitute the best spots to bet at.

- after 3-4 shoes dealt and providing to bet 3/4 or more hands dealt, the average probability a player will be ahead is pretty slim.

- after 3-4 shoes dealt and providing to bet 3/4 or more hands dealt, the average probability a player will be ahead by taking advantage of the W and L natural tails is about 50%.

- after 3-4 shoes dealt and providing to bet 1/2 or less of hands dealt, the average edge a player will get by taking advantage of the W and L natural tails is about 12-15%.

-after 3-4 shoes dealt and providing to bet 1/10 of the hands dealt, the average edge a player will get by taking advantage of the W and L natural tails is....sky's the limit.

-after 3-4 shoes dealt and providing to bet 1/20 of the hands dealt, the average probability a player will be ahead by taking advantage of the W and L natural tails is...reaching Pluto.

The general assumption is that most of the times fluctuations should stay on the widest part of the bell curve, providing the production would be really random.
Since it's not, we have reasons to think that tails (outliners) are more likely and thicker than expected and this it's one of the many advantages we have while playing baccarat.

Obviously this is just math unsound rattlesnakeshi.t, in the meantime we collect money before they could find we're right.

as.

Subsuccessions

There's no shadow of doubt that a player capable to win at the original sequence should win at every other subsuccession derived from the primitive either.

Example are derived roads displayed on the screen.
And those derived successions are built by a hand by hand format (providing a fair number of initial hands).

But we could build other subsuccessions by utilizing a preordered 'place selection'. Those are subs ignoring some hands, actually hands falling in specific positions.
In this way we'll get a new sequence formed by an inferior amount of decisions that could come in handy by several factors.
A topic we've already seen in my pages.

Simplest subs to build are the 'alternate road' and the 'two-paced road'. For convenience now we'll consider those subs starting from the very first hand. Ties are ignored.

a) alternate road (AR) is made by registering hands #1, #3, #5, #7, #9 etc up to the end of the shoe.

b) two-paced road (TPR) is made by registering hands #1, #4, #7, #10, #13, #16, #19, etc up the end of the shoe.

On average and assuming 75 resolved decisions, AR will consist of 37-38 hands and TPR about 25 or so hands.

As sayed before, we won't get magic beatable patterns on those new roads (and neither worse patterns to look for), for that matter if the original sequence is really random produced every other subs will be random altogether (and vice versa).

The important consequences are an inferior number of playable spots and the possibile 'confirmation' (technically it's a wrong term) that our winning strategy working at original sequence (OS) must work at those roads too.

Thus if we think to get EV+ spots at OS, we'll get them even at AR and TPR. With the advantage of betting with a lesser frequency (along with other features).

A relative drawback of those new roads plan is that it's quite difficult to jump from table to table, an inconvenience easily avoidable by playing at some Bac Theaters (good speed, yet maximum limits relatively low there).

Since trend following strategies or other amenities like that can't work itlr, we know for sure that by ignoring the OS we won't miss anything valuable or exploitable in the long term.
The question is whether such new roads will make us more focused about the flow of the game. I'd think about an affirmative answer.

Next week more on that.

as. 

Beyond any reasonable doubt, if we've found ways to beat the original succession, any subsuccession derived from it will be beatable too.

If you think to find out whether your strategy or method should work, do not waste time to test innumerable shoes, just test it at some simple subsuccessions derived from the OS. Itlr the EV+ will be proportionally spread along each succession, giving a flying damn about the variance.

In fact every baccarat shoe is affected by a moderate/huge level of 'unbalancing strenght' acting at several degrees and more often than not, not related to the mere B/P results, let alone about the B/P hands gap.

Think the game about ranges and not about single hands very often confusing the entire picture.

More importantly, think about the consecutive times you'll be right or wrong, that is the  probability to get positive or negative streaks depending on which side you will wager at.

Per each shoe dealt, probability to be right or wrong doesn't relate to the precise number of winning or losing spots we had experienced in the past, otherwise the game would be astoundingly beatable.
For example, two losses in a row doesn't necessarily mean we have to stop the betting, actually many times this is the best way to go.

At the same token, the idea to restart or prolong the betting after one real or fictional win is out of order as the actual shoe could easily provide singled 'subjective' W spots intervaled by multiple L counterparts that has nothing to share with 'humanly' detectable patterns (or long term findings for that matter). Besides the intrinsec general difficulty to place chopping WL or LW results for long.

'Disorder' goes toward the house

If it's quite unlikely to get many players ahead after a tiny amount of shoes dealt (providing such players like to adopt a kind of mere 'following the shoe' strategy), it means that a sort of 'disorder' distribution is more likely to come out so eventually privileging the house.

After all, casinos fear only univocal distributions coming for long and loving the remaining more likely part.

In some sense and without complicated issues to look for, itlr the 'disorder' will overcome the 'order', actually it's the best tool why casinos will get players' money (besides the now unimportant HE).

At the end, we can conclude that baccarat is a game of huge (but controllable) disorder having some peaks of 'order' that of course could become at handy when properly taken.

Yet pros make they constant winnings by betting about a kind of more likely 'disorder' whereas recreational players must hope to get an 'order' of things coming out for quite long.

See you tomorrow.

as.

Baccarat is 99% skill and 1% luck

You already know this as it's one of my signatures.

Actually and by far baccarat is the best casino's game where 'skills' will get the player a sure indeniable edge over the house.
I mean a strong constant edge and not some fkng bighorn.sh.it coming out from counting cards (actual bj rules) or from trying to spot biased wheels (actual roulettes) or other topics raised by acute players in years.

In our scheme we concede around a 1% of 'luck' overwhelming the remaining 99% skills impact.

This statement collides strongly with the common worldwide assumption that baccarat is a game of pure luck.
Additionally we should know that even a proposition of 50% skill and 50% luck applied to a EV- game isn't beatable itlr.

How to develop a fair amount of skills in order to beat baccarat itlr

1) Taking advantage of baccarat flaws

There are two kind of baccarat flaws:

a) intrinsic flaws;

b) actual flaws.

Intrinsic flaws are related to the asymmetrical nature of the game and this asymmetry revolves around two distinct issues: B>P and the obvious asymmetrical card ranks distribution.
Since only unintelligent people could think that the former B>P factor could resolve the issue, we should assign a way stronger value at the latter factor, that is the asymmetrical card ranks distribution.
So and just to give an example, when in doubt go for a kind of 'unbalancement' card distribution and not only toward a potential but whimsical and light B math advantage.
Best bac players and all pros will equally like to wager both B and P sides, so selectively privileging card distribution (thus giving a sh.i.t about math).
Of course baccarat streaks are inferior in lenght than at perfect 50/50 independent propositions, a thing that must be always taken into account (up to a point). 

Actual flaws are related to the almost virtual impossibility to deal shoes perfect randomly shuffled.
Remember that math expected values can work just on perfect random productions, otherwise they are somewhat biased at either direction and at different paces.
So the idea that every bet we'll make is always EV- or involving the same EV value is completely wrong. Actually it will be either 'more EV-' or 'way lesser EV-' up to the point that the EV- transforms into a EV+ bet.
For example, a natural point falling at Banker side is EV- for Banker bettors as it gets a 50% probability to appear but a 0.95:1 payment.
So we have more reasons to find out the spots where a natural should fall at Player side than at Banker side. And the same is about standing points not involving a third card rule.

2) Betting frequency

Mathematically at every EV- game, the probability to be ahead by coincidence (chance) is inversely related to the number of bets placed. So less bets we place greater will be the probability to be ahead of something.
Obviously without a verified edge capable to erase and invert the HE, the diluted frequency of our betting placements won't make any sensible advantage for us. We'll lose our money just at a lower speed.

But the important corollary of a 'low betting frequency' is to have more room to estimate the actual card distribution once we had 'discarded' many worthless results along the way.

For example, the 'naturals' apparition is best assessed by 'ranges' and by its average math probability to appear and not by mere 'short term' considerations. Always in relationship of the actual shoe outcomes.

It's kind of getting advantage of things by hoping to get more results than we could before betting, now an opposite philosophy of trying to win in very short terms (at least whether considered in a common way).

3) Amount wagered

If you'd think to play baccarat with an advantage it means you can beat the house by flat betting and not by adopting progressive strategic plans.
We may concede some multilayered slight and slow progressive amounts capable to get rid of the vig, that's it.
But conversely of what many think about, baccarat is not a MM game by any means.

In order to exploit an edge the best strategy to adopt is by flat betting the maximum limit allowed at that table as variance cannot put asymmetrical unwanted situations at different bet amounts.

Variance cannot be controlled by betting amounts, for the house being wealthier than us (due to max betting limits allowed).

4) Baccarat is a game of ranges, that is about how much key cards are concentrated or diluted to mathematically provide some more likely results, so forming more likely patterns.

A topic we'll see in a couple of days.

as.

BTW, some brilliant new inputs are coming out at this site and thanks to Alrelax.

Stay tuned.

as. 

Great read /thx ASB

"Baccarat is 99% skill and 1% luck"
     I agree with the premise we win with skill vs luck. However, sometimes I need a little more
than 1% luck to get the W,   . Meaning sometimes I finish a session and avoid a loss or only get a small win and realize "I was very lucky" and did not deserve the "tie". However, I gladly accept the favor. Baccarat mimics life in many ways.

"4) Baccarat is a game of ranges, that is about how much key cards are concentrated or diluted to mathematically provide some more likely results, so forming more likely patterns."

     Yes indeed my friend. I concur.

Im looking forward to your next installment in this fine thread.



Continued Success

Thanks KFB!!!
It's nice to see we have many common ideas about bac.

4) Baccarat is a game of ranges, that is about how much key cards are concentrated or diluted to mathematically provide some more likely results, so forming more likely patterns.

In probability theory and statistics basically there are three kind of probability:
a) classical, b) frequentist and c) subjective.

Subjective probability here is not of interest.

Classical probability is based on the assumption that possible events are symmetrical in their appearance, for example a dice has six possible symmetrical outcomes so the probability to toss a 5 in one attempt is 1/6 = 16.66%

Frequentist probability is based upon long observations (the longer the better) of events where either we do not know anything about the real probability of their occurrence or because we suspect 'flaws' about the classical probability values whether applicable in the field of interest.

At gambling games we can't argue about classical probability values, providing each event is independent from the previous one and the source of results is random.
In this instance we're talking about a perfect symmetry/symmetry, that is an unbeatable proposition.
(Obviously black jack constitutes an exception and in fact is beatable mathematically)

At baccarat things are much more confused even if long term values converge more and more into the old 50.68%/49.32% B/P proposition dictated by the classical probability.

Why I use the term 'confused'?
Because at bac we can't extract other 'more complex' probabilities (patterns) than B/P by simply multiplicating single probabilities in various ways (the basic operation to get many events probability by the classical point of view). For each shoe being a world apart, having its card distribution and its asymmetrical features mentioned above.
Not mentioning an almost sure unrandom card distribution happening at every shoe dealt.

Actually every baccarat shoe is a single huge 'dynamic' asymmetrical model affecting the patterns way more than what classical probability dictates, mainly as 99.9% of what may happen or not wasn't investigated by a proper procedure (fortunately totally unknown by math pundits of our a$$).

It's obvious that when taking into account long series of shoes the 'mixing of apples with oranges' factor will apply but it's altogether obvious that only a strict frequentist point of view could help us to define the boundaries of the game possibilities.
So only long term observations made at real shoes dealt (best whether coming from a univocal source) might help us to assess whether our method is really good or to be just a fluke. And in that effort the flat betting scheme is by far the best random walk to realize it. 

We could think the strong asymmetrical nature of the game (that, again, has nothing to share with the B/P ratio) as a finite succession having its peaks (strong asymmetry) and periods of relatively low deviations (false symmetry) both converging into 'more likely' or 'less likely' ranges.
Alrelax name them as 'sections'.

Naturally 'peaks' and 'flat' situations are the by product of the actual card distribution. More precisely they are in direct relationship of the key cards concentration/dilution parameter, a process completely dependent as once key cards are removed (or conversely live) in the deck patterns will be affected in some way.
Vulgarly speaking, we can't hope to get a pattern to stop when it's in the 'peak' mood but we can safely assume that a kind of 'flat' situation will happen for quite long.
In some sense, whenever we bet toward a peak raising we're simply gambling (maybe with a good cause) and whenever we bet toward more likely 'flat' patterns we're exploiting the game.

It's clear that forcing a steady state (peak or flat) to change is a strong mistake, instead we should be focused about how many times a'peak' or 'flat' state is going to change into the reversed situation after having collected a quite large of datasets. And obviously we can just estimate such processes by 'ranges'.   

5) Baccarat is a game of numbers

We can't beat baccarat by math, yet we can beat it by numbers.
A contradiction in terms isn't it?

Maybe, but as long as we were and are more right than wrong after years of playing, either we're the luckiest persons in the world or we're up on something.

Numbers can't lie, number successions can't lie either.

We'll see this decisive topic next week.

as.

Thanks ABG for above post. Very good.

One part Im not clear on what you mean.


You say : "...Naturally 'peaks' and 'flat' situations are the by product of the actual card distribution. More precisely they are in direct relationship of the key cards concentration/dilution parameter, a process completely dependent as once key cards are removed (or conversely live) in the deck patterns will be affected in some way..."
Vulgarly speaking, we can't hope to get a pattern to stop when it's in the 'peak' mood but we can safely assume that a kind of 'flat' situation will happen for quite long...."

re: the blue sentence.
Are you speaking about the area of shoe where (Specific Cards Removed) --ratio to-- (Total Cards Remaining) makes a sudden and often short-duration change??? Often it seems to be about ~~40%--50% penetration into the shoe.
(An example would be where let's say a greater than expected number of 8/9s have already been removed and then suddenly in two consecutive hands six more 8/9s get removed. Thus, immediately making the shoe significantly low on 8/9s  vs Total Remaining Cards).

OR

Are you speaking about something totally different?

Thanks,

Hi KFB!!

IMO most patterns follow an average number of more likely math situations that dynamically change over the course of the actual shoe. Notice I'm not talking about REAL outcomes, just about math occurences.
So, yes, your point is well taken, imo.

Just to make a conclusive and simplified statement, shoes exhibiting strong key card concentrations (so forming long key card dilutions at the remaining segments) are by far the best shoes to play at. This has nothing to share with the appearance of long streaks or long univocal patterns just about 'peaks' and 'flat' situations.

(Actually there are evidences that strong 'balanced' key card distributions will make the player a huge favor, but since those opportunities are not coming out by a decent frequency we simply ignore them).

as.

5) Baccarat is a game of numbers

At gambling games when you provide numbers you look smarter, especially if numbers derive from complicated math formulas where 99.9% of common people won't know a bit about.

On the other end, without numbers we can't estimate whether our method may get a decent chance to win itlr, but for obvious reasons 'the long run' is shorter than the infinite field where math formulas apply.

Simplyfing the subject, either a given method/approach works or it doesn't and we do not need millions of shoes tested to verify this.
And imo the only way to ascertain this is to assess if our method will get more wins than losses that in another way means that wins and losses are restricted within 'ranges' getting lower sd values than expected.

Say we have two possible events A and B (having a nearly 50/50 probability to appear) spreading into finite distinct successions of 75 or so propositions.
We do not know which A or B side will get a constant or volatile edge over the other one, but given the kind of 'coin flip' premise we may infer that A and B patterns will be distributed by a kind of binomial probability that constitutes our 'control group'.
Such control group is opposed to our method oriented to somewhat negating such unbeatable binomial probability (moreover knowing the game is burdened by a constant EV-).

At the end, the more our method 'numbers' deviates from a kind of binomial probability 'numbers', greater will be the probability to think that our method is really successful.

Baccarat literature is based too much (or only) about classical probability not caring a bit about the frequentist approach.
This last one is the only tool we have at our disposal to evaluate 'complex' patterns distribution by 'ranges' (so numbers), patterns that are made first by the actual card distribution and then by math instrinsic features.
 
Putting things into another perspective, single B or P hands (let alone mere Banker advantaged situations) do not mean nothing to us as it's the whole shoe picture that matters.

In fact complex patterns need a way greater amount of hands to get univocal results standing for long as they must fight against a strong asymmetrical production happening for the entire shoe and/or math features belonging to an average key card distribution (a finite and dependent process!)

In a word, complex patterns tend to exhibit manageable and detectable values capable to easily erase and invert to our favor the HE.

And of course complex patterns move around measurable numbers moving around strong limited ranges, the real thing we should be happy to know.

But what's a 'complex' pattern?
 
as.

You wrote:

"Putting things into another perspective, single B or P hands (let alone mere Banker advantaged situations) do not mean nothing to us as it's the whole shoe picture that matters."

AND ALSO:


"And of course complex patterns move around measurable numbers moving around strong limited ranges, the real thing we should be happy to know."

IMO (and strictly my opinion) the first quoted paragraph here particularly whereupon you said the 'whole shoe', but the whole shoe is far too late once presented because it's over.  And as much as we all desire to believe or hope to believe, it doesn't carry over into subsequent shoes.  Our luck might, our energy might, our win streak might, our losing streak might, our clear frame of mind might etc., etc., but not the reality of a Shoe's actual real presentment does not.  Therefore, as I started out saying, I have to throw out there SECTIONS and the ability to condense the 'whole shoe' all the way down to thirds or fourths.  That way you have a chance to wager with it, against it or for whatever it is to return to, etc.

And in the second paragraph, your "complex patterns move around" statement is correct and can be 'caught' within the thirds or fourths (Sections) of a shoe, once again.