Funny how times have changed! I have said it before and I will say it once again. Baccarat (at least in real B&M casinos) has changed in the past 10 years or so. I say it is because of the huge influence of the internet and easily accessed (and believed) gaming information by system publishers, self-published books, and everything else along those lines with gambling and of course baccarat.
Do not get me wrong. We used to lose before the AI and the evolution of the Internet as I mentioned. But we used to clean out the dealers rack a heck of a lot more often than what takes place now. With the belief of the statistics, mathematical grinding surpasses positive progression with show presentments, etc., etc., and so on---there is a lot less players these days absolutely pouncing on and smacking the casino. They read, learn and strictly limit themselves to the 'CUT' and 'GRIND' and are lucky to escape the casino with breaking even or a few units, rather than the kinds of wins that were more regular before that would certainly be classified as a genuine 'rarity' now.
Last night I was at the casino. I sat down as one shoe was ending. The shuffle took place and after the dealer performed a mini-hand shuffle (as the players requested) after taking the cards from the automatic card shuffling machine, the game was on. A few 1's and 3's to start and a couple of 1's and 2's and around hand 18-20 or so, the following comes out.
BBBBBBBTBB-P-B-PPPPP-B-T-P-T-B-T-P-T-B-T-P-T-BB-P
So, it looked something like this after the initial 18 hands or so:
B-P-B-P-B-P-B-P-B-P-B
B P-T-T- T-T- T-T-B
B P
B P
B P
BT-B-B
A couple of the people playing did make a good amount of profit on just that section, but by far the majority lost their rear ends! They continual and without thought, wager for the 'CUT' convinced that the next hand has to 'CUT' to the opposite side for whatever reason. Then right about the time the ties began, most of them wager for the repeats. The ties just added confusion and fallacy to the entire 'attempting to figure out reasoning' of what the shoe is producing and why.