My mind functions different. I can't sit there and play every hand according to something somebody said, I read, I was told would win. I have played the game for so many years at so many properties, I have tuned myself to the shoe and learned that wagering for what the shoe will somehow produce, will prevail countess times over wagering on my own set protocol of wagers from my own beliefs.
Most people see '$ Signs', balances, bank rolls, money, debt, payments, dream of riches rolling in, etc.
I do not. I see the game---I get lost in it most times. Sure I will occasional have a thought on money, lost or won, if I didn't admit that—I would be outright lying. However, for the most part of the game—I do not see $$$ or any of the things most are solely playing the game for, or to recognize those $$$ related things. I am actually walking down the path in the valleys of my own gambling plateaus and trying to be conscious and aware of each and every step. That is actually my guidance while I play.
I try to climb inside the shoe to feel—touch and breathe what is happening and what is going to happen.
Am I magical—special—wizard status—one of a kind? Nope. Not at all. I merely am a different frame-of-mind person and I have been at the baccarat table so much in the past—I don't have to ask myself what might happen or literally and physically be amazed, in awe and say those, "Wow's"---that are so often leaked out of the player's mouths during most shoes.
What is important to me at the table in live play? A half dozen things are:
1) Pattern Recognition
2) My own decision making tree
3) Statistical fluctuations
4) Clustering and Sectioning
5) Hindsight Bias
6) Infinite Awareness (close to; "Infinite Monkey Theorem")
Those are what fuels my fire and allows me to excel more than I fail. Naturally there are starting, stopping, adherence, pounce on it, ease up on it and other levels of gusto for each of the six areas that seem to govern me and my decisions while playing.