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[alrelax]

Baccarat is not true randomness as so many 'expert'— 'experienced' and/or respected writers, authors and players tend to say. Why? True, baccarat contains no consistent and regularly appearing sequences containing exhibited statistical randomness of any type, but does contain events that can be taken advantage of sporadically and/or frequently.

Baccarat is most certainly statistically random in a way because it contains no absolute recognizable and definable pattern and sequences that are the result of events.

But there are non-'absolute' patterns or trends that can be used to your advantage to coincide with a trigger schedule sometimes, key words are-sometimes and non absolute.  But realizing that there are still advantages and pathways to profiting.  How?  Because if you use sections, limiting the amount of hands you play, complete disorder is impossible 100% of the time. Therefore, by limiting your wagered hands and time played you get pathways for possibilities and probabilities to positive results for some of your bets. 

The great debate over the chances of something occurring by any type of event, count, series of presentments, etc., etc., is a subject that is always talked about but with little detail. I will state three definitive ones right here.  Events will produce themselves for several pathways. One is equaling out which is very common. Another common one is the cut. And the third one is the repeat. Those three events that are produced are common and present with regularity.  Learn them and use them to your advantage with positive progression wagers and you will profit with greater possibilities IMO.

Black Swan.  This is where the black swan enters the picture. What is the black swan? The black swan are  events of a major, unpredictable occurrences that come with a swift and widespread impact. Such events are often thought of as purely negative, but may just as likely be positive events. Get familiar with the Black Swan.

There most certainly are drawdowns within a players gambling session. When will a drawdown sit in and for how long and how much one cannot measure, define or expect on any kind of consistent or regular happening. For myself, you have to earmark your buy-in funds as risk capital and have it readily available for your drawdown ammunition. You have to have sufficient drawdown capital to get yourself to the pathways within the shoe that can allow you to profit nicely.

And that to me is why flat betting is almost a sure way to a losing session because of your inability to capitalize on the positive and recognizable hands and/or section that presents itself. And if you do by flat betting, you are lucky to recoup the losses you incurred to that point and if you do, your psych will control your decision making process to curtail itself when you get to that 'even' point. 

There is and always will be losing and winning streaks for all of us within the shoe. ('Streaks' do not refer to back to back repetitive Bs or Ps in a row).  How we each interpret those streaks are temporary and will play with your mind. Thus, affecting your decision making process.  Money, wins, losses, recoups, etc., will affect you, no matter what you want to believe. 

Ever how you choose to label those decisions at the table will affect your wagering but not the presentments and types of events coming out of the shoe. So, in actuality it does not matter what you believe. The only thing that genuinely does matter, is that you are able to wager on the winning events being produced by the shoe.

Back to Black Swans. I have seen them come and go. I have won a ton of money on them because of their forming, being presented and eventual re-appearances.

But after 4 decades of brick and mortar baccarat play, I never 100% found a tangible prediction upon when black swans will come or go. Only when events might occur with such things as, equalling out, cutting or repetitiveness due to events and reasons that lend themselves into the possibilities, that allow myself to wager with parlayed and positive win money on top of the unit I was using to get myself to such a beautiful section of the shoe.

Reality.  There are lots of dreams we all have at the table, but you must keep your dreams real and know how to handle them at the table. The larger and quicker wins or Black Swans will be in proportionately bigger sized wagers and of course with positive progressions.  You must employ different move up limits to place such bets and at the right time. I have and its paid off considerably.

You must be able to identify and use the situations for your favor when it projects itself, not after it is well established because more times than not, when it is clearly present it will be over a lot sooner than you would like. Think about it and realize it because that is reality at the table.

You have to understand that the winning and losing hand values come and go without rhyme or reason in any way whatsoever. No matter what statistical and mathematical reasoning is, they do not regularly and consistently apply to the winning and losing hands. Most will make the mistake of playing for such and such a number of hands because of a reason. However, the same reason you claim something won or continued will just as rocksolid cause the same type of hands to lose. Hence, the casinos allowance of any kind of scoring systems and note taking your little heart desires. 

Great sections can happen absolutely anytime of the shoe. Lots of one-way opinions on this, but it is 100% true anything at anytime can or may not happen at the baccarat table.  Remember that!

You must adhere to your level and plateau when playing except when you are in a winning event or a Black Swan and you have recognized it as well.

Do not play reckless. Playing reckless means you are attempting to wager for what you desire and need to win, instead of wagering with the presentments that are happening, especially when the events are repetitively being presented. Why do you lose in most situations of pattern/trend presentments? Because you did not believe in it. The shoe will produce what it is set to do—nothing to do with what your beliefs are.

Marathon sessions.  Extremely dangerous for most all of us. Be careful. Consciousness, focus and absolute devotion to the events are vital, but you must be able to have the ability to make the judgment needed hand after hand after hand, to make yourself a winner.

Ego.  Extremely dangerous, but on the other hand, the winning hands in a nice beautiful section, your ego might be a wonderful push to 'pounce on it', etc.  Just be real conscious of what you are subscribing to and what can hurt you with your continued wagers. In my opinion, most all wins are given right back to the casino because of one's ego. Over betting, ignoring drawdowns, not employing money management methods and allowing our upcoming future hands to ignore the risk of pending ruin, which is always there for each of us. You better remember that. 

Playing bigger to get even and profit when you are consistently losing or just barely surviving the session. I think it is the most dangerous. Sure it works at times, but unless you are within your initial buy-in realm with plenty of chances and with clear and advantaged reasons, I would steer clear of it. Meaning you are significantly increasing your wagers to get even because of losses you've incurred. Especially when you are drawn down a considerable amount of your buy-in money. This is where false or demanding expectations are adhered to rather than standard and lower possibilities and gathering up nice amounts of win money to use against the casino in sizable, powerful and larger than your normal risked unit with positive progression wagering.

Bearing the above in mind, you must understand gearing down in your session play. Not always easy. Winning, you want to continue and losing, you have to recoup before thinking about quitting. That is the way it goes most all of the time. But, and a huge BUT, it does not always work to your advantage like that. You better think about this and come to terms with it. Winning. When is enough actually enough? Guess that depends on your experience with losing, once you have won considerable amounts. 

To cut a lengthy and complex topic to a streamlined positiveness for a player would be to continually divide groups of win money into three allotments.  Each group would have an approximate 1/3rd allotment; 1) Locked up without any risk to be used.  2) Used with or without your original buy-in amount.  3) Back up wagering money and to be merged with #2, but only when your buy-in is put with #1. 

If you are losing without ever getting ahead in the session, you should most certainly adhere to your original buy-in without justification to draw additional funds and continue. Why? Because your emotional and frustration levels will almost always favor the casinos side rather than yours.  Period. 

Finally and what none of us likes or handles well.  Leaving with your buying lost. Yes, it is tough, extremely tough. But I know from experience the hardest thing I have to comply with, is leaving the casino stuck. Out of the countless times I lost a reasonable buy-in, re-buying in has only contributed to a further loss. The times I did rebuy-in could never account for the make up of the further lost funds I additionally risked, at least on any type of cumulative accounting that is.   
 

[KungFuBac]

Good read /thx alrelax. Several very important topics that we probably can't do justice by discussing as a group or within the same essay.

A couple important ones I will parse out below.

"...Because if you use sections, limiting the amount of hands you play, complete disorder is impossible 100% of the time. Therefore, by limiting your wagered hands and time played you get pathways for possibilities and probabilities to positive results for some of your bets.  ..."

    limiting the amount of hands you play
Personally, I don't think the game(or any game with a written-in H.E.) can be regularly defeated wagering every single hand. Even if we could there simply is no reason to battle that level of Variance. In other words, there are good, better, and best spots to place our wager. 

    complete disorder is impossible 100% of the time
This characteristic in Bac and other similar card games (where the marbles are not placed back into the jar), is why we can use concepts such as (Regression to the Mean and Approaching of Limits), as just a couple tools of many, that can help us.

Unlike dice games where every outcome always has at least a tiny potential to show on every single outcome into perpetuity.
When I'm at the Bac table I constantly ask myself what is Not-As-Probable to happen.
I find it helpful to think of the Less-Likely Outcome as a guide for when/where to wager on the More-Likely Outcome. This thought process along with What-Is-This-Shoe-Producing coupled with What-Does-The-Laws Of Probability suggest should happen seem to assist in achieving a higher hit rate.

As alrelax has mentioned 00s of times in other posts. We sometimes erroneously wager on what we desire instead of what is most probable based on the above criteria.

More later as I will parse out a couple more topics from the original post that I find helpful/very important.



Continued Success,