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[Jimske]

Once in awhile I find stuff that is helpful for me on this site but not often.  But today I was thinking about virtual losses so I decided I would try a way to use virtual losses since I generally don't use them.  I thought the following idea may be helpful.  This is not profound or anything and actually quite simple but. . . whatever.  I did manage to do pretty well.  Here's what you do.  I keep my card vertical but you can keep it horizontal and it's the same thing.  Might be easier to see vertical. 

Just wait a few hands and pick whichever side is actually dominant.  The more dominant the better but doesn't matter so much.  Just wait for the dominant side to miss at least 2 hands and then bet that same side not to miss the next 4IAR which means that the weak side will not go more than 5IAR.  I choose that because 5 IAR (or more) is a fairly infrequent occurrence.  If the shoe tends to have a dearth of 2's then you may want to wait for 3 "misses."

Get it?  Pretty simple but it's not a flat bet scenario.  You got to use some kind of Neg Prog and that's up to you.  It could be conservative or aggressive AND you of course can back off anytime you want.  It's still a guess and still gambling.

So my shoe started pp BB pp at which time I chose Player as dominant and didn't bet until Player missed two "holes."  The shoe continued:

B p BBB pp B p B pppp BB pppp BB pppp BB ppp BB ppp B p BB pppp BB pp BBBB p BB p B p B p B p B

Okay so nice pattern if you follow it OR good Player shoe just betting straight down on Player with a NP (never a bad idea in and of itself).  Hindsight is wonderful.  One guy won good money on this shoe early and just left.  The rest of the players didn't win much at all - maybe broke even.  Anyway I was just trying to see a simple way to use virtual losses and wanted to see them in a different light.  That is no waiting for a preferred bet placement to lose but simply calling a virtual loss when one side didn't win.

Looks like a decent way to grind out some units without making a lot of bets.

J

[gr8player]

Hello, Jimske; nice job on that posted shoe.  I played it out as well, and finished up with a +7 using my preferred bet placement strategy.  After winning 2-out-of-my first 3 bets, I needed only flat bets (even though I do utilize my Gr8Player's Progression, I never had the need to leave "1-ville", or base, so only flat bets were necessary) the entire shoe.

I feel compelled to add that this shoe was one were I didn't need to await any virtual losses, because my plays were prevalent from the get-go.  My virtual loss strategy is designed to get me through the more-difficult periods; this shoe, fortunately, posed no such problem.

Lastly, Jimske, while your example of virtual loss usage is not quite the way I see it or use it, I do like your incorporation of same.  Nice job.

As I stated in my prior posts, any virtual loss strategy is better...much better, in fact...than none at all.  "None at all" leaves one as a "sitting duck" at the shoe (or portion thereof) where your "nemesis" appears as dominant.  The virtual loss strategy and the no-bet option that accompanies it is a very vital part of my arsenal; the patient and disciplined player can and will reap the rewards of such play.

(Sidenote:  I'm off to the Borgata Wed thru Fri, I'll catch up with you guys on Sat.)  Stay well.

[Jimske]

Hello, Jimske; nice job on that posted shoe.  I played it out as well, and finished up with a +7 using my preferred bet placement strategy.  After winning 2-out-of-my first 3 bets, I needed only flat bets (even though I do utilize my Gr8Player's Progression, I never had the need to leave "1-ville", or base, so only flat bets were necessary) the entire shoe.

I feel compelled to add that this shoe was one were I didn't need to await any virtual losses, because my plays were prevalent from the get-go.  My virtual loss strategy is designed to get me through the more-difficult periods; this shoe, fortunately, posed no such problem.

Lastly, Jimske, while your example of virtual loss usage is not quite the way I see it or use it, I do like your incorporation of same.  Nice job.

As I stated in my prior posts, any virtual loss strategy is better...much better, in fact...than none at all.  "None at all" leaves one as a "sitting duck" at the shoe (or portion thereof) where your "nemesis" appears as dominant.  The virtual loss strategy and the no-bet option that accompanies it is a very vital part of my arsenal; the patient and disciplined player can and will reap the rewards of such play.

(Sidenote:  I'm off to the Borgata Wed thru Fri, I'll catch up with you guys on Sat.)  Stay well.

The point of my post is to give some kind of basic clear structure for those who want to use virtual losses.  So it's virtual losses made simple.  Because one needs a specific mechanical bet placement to determine when the virtual losses kick in and since no real explanation of a bet placement is explained it may be difficult for some to figure how to use virtual losses.  This example then let's the shoe itself determine the virtual losses.  In this simple if one were to use 2 "misses" on P flat bet would yield +7; if used both sides would yield +3.  But I don't see this as a flat bet method.  On the B side looking for 2 misses we would lose 6 IAR.  ON the P side only lose 1 IAR.  If you combine the two sides then a prog would lose only 1 IAR the whole shoe so a simple Negative prog would do quite well.

I chose 2 misses because there are, on average, about 9 2 IAR in a shoe so that can give a decent number of potential bets in a shoe.  Shoes with a dearth of 2's will be big losers of course.

I think Rolex explained some of his column stuff here where one could then implement virtual losses using a column approach.  But otherwise you just got to plug it into your favorite placement.

J

[Jimske]

In which case, what you look for could be defined, you could define many "what to look for triggers".  Then apply conditional statements, such as if this happens (you lose), then you do this (fold yer arms). 

What you end up with is repeatable and predictable behavior, er some might call it MECHANICAL[smiley]cps/noway.gif[/smiley]
Of course you could share with all your friends, what it is you look for, but never have and never will, I can only speculate why [smiley]toto/d200712191811061584.gif[/smiley]

I bring this up not because Gr8 is obligated to share but since he posted his preferred bet placement:

I played it out as well, and finished up with a +7 using my preferred bet placement strategy.  After winning 2-out-of-my first 3 bets, I needed only flat bets (even though I do utilize my Gr8Player's Progression, I never had the need to leave "1-ville", or base, so only flat bets were necessary) the entire shoe.

Mechanical?   How can it not be?

[ezmark]

I understand the concept of V-Loses. I reckon it similar to the depreciation of an asset to your income but with opposite affect.

V-losses may lower your  V-game income and increase how you feel about yourself,  were as,  depreciation may lower your reported income and increase how you feel about yourself.       In either case, you can't really put your hands on it. 

The question for me is V-losses value. 

I can only see V-losses having value if I know, in the beginning,  how may losses there will be in a game.

V-Losses that's great    -vs-    V-wins oh shucks ,    I try to have this puzzle solved before arriving at the casino,  for me it's less stressful.

[AsymBacGuy]

The importance of structure aside.  Absolutely no guarantees but one cannot deny statistics and that certain conditions are, in fact, rare and/or ocurr less than others.  The problem as I see it lies in the betting structure.  Progressive vs. flat.

Take flat first.  Let's use asymbac idea of actually being able to ascertain a specific condition.  So we are making the assumption that waiting on this condition is akin to virtual losses (betting). This condition must have such a high positive advantage that would allow making one flat bet a practical endeavor even if it only appeared once every, say 150 decisions.  To be practically profitable that advantage would have to be pretty high to make it worthwhile to overcome the variance problem even with a steep unit size.  How much?  I don't know.  Maybe greater than 55%.  Enter $ per hour as the final decider.

Progressive betting then poses the same problem with or without using virtual losses.  We need to win more of the small bets to overcome the occasional big bets which we lose when the variance kicks in or table max kicks in.  If we can eliminate table max (virtually or not) then it's just a matter of having enough bankroll (and stomach) to wait out a win.  Of course we must overcome the nemesis of commission.

So the whole idea of virtual losses is only effective if we have a true advantage.  Otherwise we end up back at the 50-50 game.

Does than mean that virtual losses have no place?  No, because we are gambling.  Either we are actually gambling on a theory that the game is NOT 50-50 or that we will be able to extend our luck through statistical limitations.  Many believe the former is true and if it is then using virtual losses to extend our progression will have a true advantage.  If not then one may still go a long time before getting burned.

That's a perfect summary about the virtual losses topic, imo.

At roulette there's no point to get a sort of advantage by applying a virtual losses philosophy.
Any spin is totally independent from the previous and next one without any doubt.
More importantly and obviously, statistical long term roulette data won't show any significant difference from the expected outcomes any 50/50 game will produce.

Conversely baccarat is an infinite game produced by finite single games each having shifted mathematical results. We don't know when and how much such shifting factor will take place or not, but we surely know it will. Soon or later.
The same happens about the 50.68/49.32 BP ratio that will be easily disregarded on very short terms, yet it will slowly reach this mathematical fraction with 100% accuracy. Even better is assessing HOW such discrepancies will take place in more complex pattern forms, a thing that undeniably will tend to lower the variance.   

Of course in the short run casinos will suffer from the "lucky" players getting the best of it by low term variance. We know very well that in the long term the 99.9% of bac players will be sure losers and not by a mere 1.24% degree on the capital invested on the game (assuming only BP bets).

We should act on the same terms any casino will be happy to have us as customers, now on an opposite side of thought.
That is trying to "lose" on the short terms and ending up as winners on long term.

And one of the best thing we can do to accomplish such result is to let some virtual losses go without any actual betting, expecially if long term statistical data will confirm that the next more SLIGHT likely outcome after some losing spots will be a winning hand. And it takes some time those possible profitable spots will showing up. Many shoes won't offer any betting opportunity.

As RW acutely posted, we don't want to get multiple and easy winning spots, instead we want to preserve our bankroll at most because the rule is to lose it as we cannot expect too much from a game which returns us 0.9894 and 0.9876 for every BP placed bet.

Finally, the game is mathematically unbeatable, right?

Well.
Let's set up a long term table where the players seated are gr8player, soxfan, HBS, ezmark, noregret, Jimskie, me and, why not, Rolex Watch and some others.

I'm 100% sure that we won't be very welcome by any casino.

as.
 

 





 

[NoRegret]

That's a perfect summary about the virtual losses topic, imo.

Let's set up a long term table where the players seated are gr8player, soxfan, HBS, ezmark, noregret, Jimskie, me and, why not, Rolex Watch and some others.

I'm 100% sure that we won't be very welcome by any casino.

as.
   

While I have had some eye in the sky put me in the spotlight at several casinos during my incredible runs, I don't think a seat should be reserved for me next to all the greats mentioned above.  I can't say without any doubts that I will come ahead in the LONG RUN but my approach is definitely slightly better than most people.  As far as I know, all 7 or so of the casinos that I go to have their doors wide open to welcome me. 

[AsymBacGuy]

While I have had some eye in the sky put me in the spotlight at several casinos during my incredible runs, I don't think a seat should be reserved for me next to all the greats mentioned above.  I can't say without any doubts that I will come ahead in the LONG RUN but my approach is definitely slightly better than most people.  As far as I know, all 7 or so of the casinos that I go to have their doors wide open to welcome me.

As long as you have a similar approach to mine you cannot lose, even itlr  :-)

And yeah, casinos are very happy to get our action as the game cannot be mathematically beaten.

Unfortunately for them, some bac spots are very vulnerable as not every hand will be "randomly" placed.

At least this is what optimistic players want to believe. Expecially after having noticed that by some magical reasons their bets are more right than wrong. Slighty, of course. We do not want to believe in miracles.

as.


   

[Missmusibat]

Virtual losses doesn't really mean anything, except giving the player who is doing it a psychological satisfaction that their way of playing is premium than the chinese who bet every hand. Given that we are all gambling that psychological satisfaction can be the wall between winning that session and losing it.

Waiting for a trigger to happen (which is in essence the virtual loss is all about, it's a trigger to place your bet) is an idea that is as flawed as asking the sun to rise from the west. I am not a math person, but whatever people say, I strongly believe that unless you put money on the table and put money on the lost bets, virtual loss is nothing.

As a concept, it is very similar to someone taking few hands from yesterday to decide what to bet on the first hand for today.

[Missmusibat]

Thinking of it, does anyone here can say with confidence that I will see a minimum of at least 5 bankers in a shoe? Can anyone limit the worst that can happen to a Banker or a player outcome in a shoe?

[AsymBacGuy]

Thinking of it, does anyone here can say with confidence that I will see a minimum of at least 5 bankers in a shoe? Can anyone limit the worst that can happen to a Banker or a player outcome in a shoe?

Assuming 70 BP decisions per shoe, we need a 7.87 sr deviation not to get at least 5 B hands in any single shoe.  (something similar to the happening of a 62 streak appearance)


Of course it could happen but I tend to discard such possibility. :-)

 
as. 

[Missmusibat]

I seriously (SERIOUSLY) think the OP meant a 5 streak banker, not a total of less than 5 banker hands in a shoe!?  However, I could be wrong and maybe he did mean that.

Sorry, i didn't mean streak. I meant number of bankers (absolute).

[AsymBacGuy]

Waiting for a trigger to happen (which is in essence the virtual loss is all about, it's a trigger to place your bet) is an idea that is as flawed as asking the sun to rise from the west. I am not a math person, but whatever people say, I strongly believe that unless you put money on the table and put money on the lost bets, virtual loss is nothing.

That's true. As long as we won't get an economical outcome from our play, talking about no bet situations it's a sort of gambling nonsense.

In reality, baccarat provides some features other gambling games don't have.
For example once the cards are ready to be dealt, we know for sure that that shoe will form a definite 70 hands pattern nobody can alter.
Differently to bj, we could bet all, many, some, few or zero hands, entering the shoe whenever we want.
So it might be interesting to evaluate what's happening without spending one cent. Expecially knowing that the game is restricted in many ways by more strenght than in other gambling areas.
Even though it may sound useless, we know that per every certain amount of shoes we'll get a B side almost composed by streaks and very few singles, a thing that on the opposite P side will happen at a far lower degree (for obvious reasons).
Another example is registering the shoes when at least three B streaks will come out in six betting attempts. We are pretty sure this scenario will present within a fair definite percentage of the total shoes, expecially (that's very important) when considering consecutive shoes.
No guarantees to get that, still this statistical finding could put us in a better position than perfect independent games dictate.
And there are many many more patterns to look for. And imo, more complex is the expected event and more delayed is its apperance and higher will be the probability to encounter such situation.
Again according to my data, more complex and more likely is a given pattern and lower will be the variance. 

This perspective supported by statistical data is "forced" to utilize the apperance of virtual losses (VL) as well as the presentation of virtual winnings (VW).

Besides a possible edge on rare situations, we know that to be ahead of the game we either must let go some losses without betting and/or to wait the presentation of some winnings distribution to start the betting, because no one MM can control the "frequent" outcomes.

Imo one of the best thing we can do playing baccarat is not to hope to get immediate more likely outcomes, instead to patiently wait that those events will cross some "unexpected" lines and the more we select some unordinary dispositions the better will tend to be our future results.

Not forgetting that baccarat is an asymmetrical game so the upcoming results will be asymmetrical placed even if at a rapid glance sometimes they appear equally distributed.
That means that some rare, unlikely, silly, obnoxious events we've chosen to label as "negative" ones could easily come out in clusters.
It's our duty to not fall into this trap.

as.






 



 





 



 

[Jimske]

You know, I actualy sat down late last night and re-read the whole thread here.  First I tried to correlate what a few were saying or trying to say.  I gathered they were pretty much convinced that sitting down and watching, plotting and waiting for some magical moment(s) while (WHILE) losing their virtual wagers was giving them some sort of edge. 

Fast Forward.................Boom.  Hell, you are doing nothing different then we did years ago.  Before all the free hands, before all the heads down in the hands on the rails, before all the know-it-alls, before all the midi and Macau poop.  When the real baccarat was played, with the shoe travelling and the 14 players and 3 dealers at each table.   

We did the exact same thing(s) you are referring to.  We sat out, we watched, we took our bellies off the rail and stopped wagering when the shoe turn bad!!!  We did not sit there and play every single hand out of 80!  Almost all the players played about 1/2 or 3/4 the shoe with the best shoes.  We did not correlate virtual wagering and attempt to convert it into some kind of statistical power.

When the shoe was bad, we stopped.  When the shoe was strong or had anything to following or play against we were game.  WE played the game with conviction and belief but we did not grind and grind and grind and sit inevitably waiting for one or two wagers.  If (IF) that was going on, that was over at the mini bac tables on the main floor. 

There was lots of voodoo and lots of strange beliefs, I will admit.  But no one that I knew sat there and plotted their vitual losses into some kind of positive fake gain of nothing.  What you are insinuating with the virtual loses, we accomplished with taking a break, eating dinner, going to a show, going to get a massage, switching casinos, etc.  IN other words, we didn't sit there like stuck pigs.

The hits from BIIIIIIIIIG al (LOL) keep coming.  Thank you!  I was beginning to think that you may go away.  And I was just going to go and wash my car!  Look what I would have missed.

BTW, BIG al, in case you are wondering, I do see you have PM'd me a couple times.  But no I just laugh and don't read them.  Reason is I got no interest in having a personal back and forth with you.  I think our public relationship is just fine, thank you very much.

There is so much in this post hard to know where to start!  But I got to say I just LOVE the idea of only playing when the shoe is strong and when it is weak just go to a show to get your virtual losses out of the way!  Beautiful, you can't make this stuff up!

Ahhhhh, the good ole' days, huh, al?  When men were men and Bacc players were Bacc players!  You "been there done that" and you "did the exact same thing(s) you are referring to."  Folks here are just so playing catch up to your vast experience.  You never needed any "statistical" power!  When the shoe was bad you just stopped, went had a meal (on the house of course) and came back when the shoe was good!

There was lots of voodoo and lots of strange beliefs, I will admit.

Really, BIG al?  You don't say or . . . maybe you just did?

Things have really gone to hell haven't they BIG al?  All these "stuck pigs" with their "heads down."
You're such a  guy BIG al.  Such an inspiration.

Hey BIG al!  Don't you think you should list some more of your possessions so we can all have something more to aspire to than a wife, a baby, an Escalade and a few trips to Vegas?  What?  No house in the country or an apartment on the upper east side?  Don't let us down BIG al!

[Rolex-Watch]

When the shoe was bad, we stopped.  When the shoe was strong or had anything to following or play against we were game.  WE played the game with conviction and belief but we did not grind and grind and grind and sit inevitably waiting for one or two wagers.  If (IF) that was going on, that was over at the mini bac tables on the main floor. 

There was lots of voodoo and lots of strange beliefs, I will admit.  But no one that I knew sat there and plotted their vitual losses into some kind of positive fake gain of nothing.  What you are insinuating with the virtual loses, we accomplished with taking a break, eating dinner, going to a show, going to get a massage, switching casinos, etc.  IN other words, we didn't sit there like stuck pigs.

Jimski beat me to it.  What exactly is a bad shoe?  No such thing as a bad shoe, only the way you approached it, isn't hindsight wonderful?
A  lack of streaks could be bad for the parlaying supermen back in the day, yet a bonanza for the OLD player (not an ageism comment BTW).  Knowing when to come back, batter those streaks, that streaks were happening on some other table, in another joint and continued after you noticed em, golly jes, you fella's must have had  physic powers. 

Strange voodoo belief's!  Good to hear nothing's really changed, the good old reganomic days, when balls were big and little else mattered.  Now the former superhero's spend more time on gambling forums reminiscing than they actually do in a casino, the closest they can get to fulfilling their jollies without risking any real cash.

What you kinda skipped around, missed, failed to grasp, regarding "virtual losses", sure there is no real advantage, over any given hand, over a series of hands is highly contentious, yet there is also no disadvantage, I'll repeat that, no disadvantage.  That means, for the player staring at the score-board, or score cards, those trying to tune in to signals from part of their anatomy that rests against on the rail (whatever that is), it is all the same, equal.  But in fairness to those players blessed with godly physic skills that can sense when streaks are due, I suppose if a run continues to 8 from a prior 7, it doesn't really matter if the table high fives yet again.   Oh I long for the good old day's.  [smiley]skype/dance.gif[/smiley][smiley]skype/ninja.gif[/smiley][smiley]skype/dance.gif[/smiley]