About the same for me too.  The only diff I notice is that there are more non-Asians playing.  Early on I was just about the only non-Asian amongst dozens of tables.  A lot more non-Asians particularly outside the metro areas.

Also, I still am one of the few who use the card vertical.  My belief is that vertical users have basically been influenced by the many systems born by ECD and derivatives.

One problem with this.  In order to be successful the casino must also calculate the individual wagers to figure which will be the optimum profit.  Without that knowledge the result is irrelevant.

So reading the responses it seems that we all are basically on the same page - even Mike.  With some nuanced differences.

Quote from: alrelax on May 19, 2018, 03:35:14 PM
Part of what McVince was saying, no matter which way--is correct, IMO.  As well, I do not and have never seen or can never ever agree with the 95%-100%, no matter what he is attempting to quantify and designated as the repeating and always appearing event(s).

Agreed,  and until such time that data can be presented and documented this is nonsense and represents the scam aspect of BTC.

QuoteYou are pretty much correct, IMO, but I interpret the numbers as, a very high percent probably without definitive records of everything that does come around in bac presentments, around 65--70% of the time, but (BUT) a player does not know what grouping of 100 sessions those will be in.  Do you understand what I am attempting to say?

Take that partial list of my 'identifiable events' in bac I have found.  The will often come about.  Maybe out of the next 100 shoes or sessions, 15%, another 100 sessions 85%, another 100 sessions 40%, etc., etc. They are frequent at times, yet infrequent at times. 

I think I get what you're saying.  Said in another way: observing an existing condition (an identifiable event) and speculating with 65-70% accuracy that some other condition will follow.  Yes?  So maybe somewhere you have presented such events?  However it seems that due diligence could reveal the efficacy of such events.  It would be a simple matter to pick one condition and document the results to obtain % accuracy.  I think that is where McVince is coming from.  (sidebar: I ran a small test by hand of several hundreds of shoes from my database looking for two identifiable events to produce an outcome greater than 50%.  Nope. 50%)  So how come my guessses are greater than 50%?

Quote from: Gizmotron on May 19, 2018, 04:21:38 PM

Is guessing somehow bad? What if it can be measured and taught? I know I need to give an simple to understand example to actually qualify the question. So I will try.


So I watch for characteristics in trends. I specifically watch for 4 in a row trends. If I want to risk a first bet on a fifth in a row I need to know if there is a swarm of 4 in a rows occurring. If so, I'm going to get killed jumping into that mess. Now the bet itself is a guess. So how can I measure it? How can I explain it to someone that has never looked for it?


If I guess that a fifth occurrence of a trend will give me a win, and there has been no 5's that have occurred in the past 20 spins then I am making a huge leap kind of a guess. On the other hand if I have observed swarms of 5's, 6's. 7's etc... all occurring in the last 20 spins across all of my 12 sets of dozens or my 12 sets of 18's then I have a stronger chance of betting into a continuing trend. Now this is not a probability chance. This is a coincidental chance. It's not a statistical reason for making the guess. It's speculating on a guess.

So this is more like the page I work from.  I assume that your example of keying off the "swarms" is just one of many "swarm" possibilities you might key off of within 20 events?

QuoteSo now you see how it is possible to measure a guess based on a bet selection technique. But that is only explained to you so that you can be taken to the next level of learning in this teaching. The point is not to count on a conditional response to what you are currently seeing. The point is to teach you to see the result. Your focus must be on the result and the data stream that comes from the results of your guesses. You will get a stream of wins and losses measured as wLwwLwwLwwwLLLwww type lists. Now this next example happens too. You will have a stream of wL's that when a loss occurs it will always just be a single loss. That is a noticeable characteristic of random guessing too. I have just taught that guesses can  be both measured and taught. I have not taught all the characteristics I see in correlation to random characteristics combined with win/loss combinations that are there to exploit. But I hope I have made my point. wL lists can come in all kinds of consistent forms or patterns. If you use a same set of trend guidelines to make bet selections from you will be able to see if you are in a winning dominance or a losing dominance in your wL lists. All this win/loss stuff is quantifiable and teachable.  The win/loss list is real data. It can be used to quit while you are ahead.

It's not raining here but I liked this method of asking for questions and answers. It's discussion and not trashing of the other's point of views.

You've made your point.  Your perspective is not unfamiliar to me.  Correct me if I am wrong but simply put you are observing dominance.  And that dominance can come from a variety of combinations - "swarms" of similar repeat lengths, wlwlwl; otbl/tbl; etc.

I do object to your statement that it can be measured.  Again, it is a simple matter to choose a "swarm" and identify a result to ascertain a success %.  But teachable?  Okay.  I'll grant that .  But to guarantee a greater success than 50%?

Quote from: Mike on May 20, 2018, 06:55:41 AM
The statement I highlighted in red implies that there is causality, but there is always that "issue" of WHEN the expected event will occur.

The problem is that many system players merely observe that some event A is followed by event B, apparently invariably, but they just ASSUME that there is causality, they never actually test the assumption. To test the assumption, you need a "control" group. If event B also follows any OTHER event, C, D, .... Z, then there is no causality; if A is going to occur ANYWAY then it can't be that A is CAUSING B, can it? Unless you say that events C, D,.... Z also cause B, but that would be meaningless. The assumed connection is merely the result of selective attention and confirmation bias.

Quite correct, IMO.  He has stated it better than me.  None of us can show that our techniques are anything more than guessing.  Speculating if you will.  My definition is working off the bias or the dominance.  That's how I was introduced to the game (by ECD) some years ago.

We don't want to leave out soxfan

Quote from: soxfan on May 20, 2018, 12:14:37 AM
I wish that I could guess at a clip better than 50 percents but then with my style I can win well and regular winning just 16.666666666 percent of my placed wager, hey hey.

With enough bank and balls you don't need to win more than 50% BUT you'd better be good at picking those doubles which, I assume, comes from speculating on the bias.
[quote soxfan]It ain't rocket science, baby![/quote]

Thanks for all your responses!

Rainy day, I'm bored.  So I copied this conversation form the other forum.  McVince, a serious guy, IMO, and a member of BTC stated and I opined.  I thought maybe Mike and Glen might put their two cents in.

Mcvince said: ↑
I agree with you somewhat. In certain circumstances the past will dictate the future. I have found one thing that will occur 95% of the time and another 100% of the time in the shoe. It is similar to card counting. The issue is that I know it will come out but will it come out in the time that you want it to. The Pavlov's Dog scenario in this game is that it is a guessing game. Those who have played it enough and have invested a lot of time researching will tell you that it is the furthest of a guessing game.

Jimske responded:  These back and forths become a little tedious. Maybe it's just a matter of definition or not taking the time to make clear statements. But words mean something.

When you make such claims (95%, 100%) one can only assume that you are referring to a condition that exists in time (quantifiable) that will produce a specific result 95 times or 100 times out of 100 such occurrences, respectively. The only practical concern, as you allude to, is the wait time for such a condition to appear. (If we are waiting for Pluto to reach its apex in relation to the sun we will have to wait a lifetime so it matters little!) OTH, it's reasonable to assume that given enough data we can calculate the wait time for your unproven hypothesis. Similar to BJ you state? Depending on the rules and penetration we know that we will get approx. eight advantage occurrences per 100 hands - on average. Of course the outcome of such is nowhere close to 95 or 100%. In fact, the most we can expect is a 2% advantage.

(Yup, this is getting boring! It's so academic!) I can only assume that you are NOT claiming such advantage. Because if you were and said advantage was anywhere close to the 95, 100% Keith wouldn't be living in Mechanicsburg "selling" subscriptions! So I can only ask earnestly, "What the hell are you talking about?" Nobody knows.

The basic criteria as to whether these methods are guessing or not is very simple. Can it be quantified, measured, taught, etc. If it can't be measured then it is, using the vernacular, just guessing. I get that we are not talking about random choice and are using some structure to make decisions for 1) bet placements and 2) wager amounts. But without the ability to quantify that structure it is really just guessing.

So please tell me you have measured it and can show data that has a SD with a low risk of ruin that would be acceptable to most gamblers. After that it is just a matter of calculating bankroll requirements.

Thanks

Sorry Lugi - Not about you.  Just wanted to get off of Assym thread because it was going far afield.

I always get a kick out of these "secret" bet placements that cannot be shared.  You should have just told your friend that you won't share it because you don't want to look like the unintelligent he obviously is.

But I think you are on to something when you consider LIAR.  Does one bet placement have less LIAR than another?  I'll answer that.  Nope.  But that doesn't mean we cannot judge our betting style to conform with LIAR "tendencies."  If you're thinking that you kind of have to guess at these to recoup then you'd be correct.

Factoid:  % LIAR will ocurr on average approximately every 72 non-tie decisions IF using a fixed bet placement.

Personally, Lugi, I wouldn't bet against the dominant bias in the shoe. If the shoe was not consistent with my placement which means I'd be losing I would back off and try to slowly recoup some losses with conservative betting.  It's not so hard to recoup from small losses. But it's going to require good guessing and proper betting techniques as well as stuff that Lung mentioned.

Can we please once and for all agree that Mike is correct and that this is essentially a guessing game?  Sure, it's better to play sober okay?  We get that.

John didn't say this was the holy trail.  He gave a starting point, a benchmark.  He outlined the nemesis.  Where does it go from there?  Maybe this should be the discussion?

Don't like his idea?  Make your own thread.

Shouldn't there be a tab or we can just put likes? Anyway good one. Mike lol hi

Looks good Assym.  One reason, as you point out, is the common occurrences of 1's and 2's - representing 50% of decisions.  By my way of thinking it is good to have a benchmark, a starting plan.  That way there is structure, something that can be explained.  You recognize there needs to be adjustments, fictional bets, MM, whatever.

I won't persue this too much longer.  Maybe it's just a matter of semantics but to my way of thinking there's only three elements.

Historical data - whether we call them sleepers, patterns, trends; whether they are in the middle end or  . . . we need this to develop the next element which is  . . .

Identification - looking at historical data and speculating that some future outcome may happen; call it guessing, educated guessing, whatever but this certain condition(s) we see often and can say what that condition(s) is.

Prediction - because now we are making a bet that above certain historical data has been identified and we make a bet knowing that it will have a positive outcome.

Any other is just a feeling or, well, a guess.  Maybe some are better guessers than others.  Maybe it's not just a guess but an unexplicable "6th sense."

I think that people who gamble on a regular basis tend to be predisposed to compulsive and/or addictive behavior.  But for those who don't need or think they don't need GA there are mechanisms that one could use to prevent "tilting."  Without listing numerous obvious examples I'll just say develop specific , definite RULES.  Test your discipline by following those rules and don't make excuses.  If you can't follow your own rules you got a discipline problem.  Everyone slips - I slip on occasion.  Recognizing the slip can put you back on track.

Practice.  If you don't need the tote board then it's pretty easy to practice at home with a scorecard and any game that kicks out decisions.  Or use real shoes and figure a way to not see the next decision.

There are folks here who have at least intimated that they have predictive method(s) which give them a positive expectation.  Personally, I don't buy it but if that is the case then discipline is not an issue.  Just wait for the fly to land and swat it!  Card counting BJ is like that - almost.  Mistakes, fatigue, banning, preferential shuffle and table conditions make BJ a near impossible game to profit from.

People I know of have a "benchmark" of some sort.  A fixed mechanical way of playing from which they deviate based on particulars (trend, bias, pattern, etc.) occurring in the game.  Others will play a strict rule based process.  But either way the winning formula IMO, is betting and MM.  I think this is true even for those who "think" they can predict future outcome. 

Pick your method and practice so you know what when and how you're going to accomplish the objective.  Be consistent.

J

I studied and practiced Bacc nearly every evening for several years before ever laying a dollar down.  Reason is I knew nothing - just put together stats and listened to others teaching - mostly ECD stuff.  Got to hand it to ECD he really put out a lot of stuff. He gave a LOT of perspectives to the game.  The guys at BTC still use his stuff with a lot of adjustments AND do a lot of practice.  I'm not involved with them.  I got no doubt that there is some that win consistently doing what they're doing.

Prior to my recent 10 month "vacation." I had over 50% win rate for thousands of decisions.  But still practiced, studied and played various ways.  There's not one way to win.  A lot of it has to do with temperament, time available and economic considerations as well as personal objectives.

Reality?  Glen is right.  A long way of saying that just like in other aspects of life we need discipline, good management of time and money including alertness and last but not least a WELL THOUGHT OUT PLAN.  But plans need practice, right?

My best advice is to share what once was told me many years ago that I always ask myself every time I play, "Do you want to win or do you want to play a game?"  Can't do both.  After that know what every aspect of the plan is and develop a habit and mechanism to maintain.  Am I perfect at it?  Nope.

J

Quote from: Nickmsi on March 08, 2018, 12:53:50 PM
Hi BW, I am happy to explain 2 Spin Bet Selection further.

Basically what 2 spin bet selection can do is:

1.   Allows more streaks to be bet on
2.   Allows more precise entry point to start betting
3.   Allows longer streaks to be bet on

A SINGLE SPIN (or hand for baccarat fans) produces 2 results:

R
B

1.   You only have 2 streaks to bet on, either R or B.
2.   The biggest problem with single spin is that you don't know when to enter the     streak?  Does a streak of Red start with the first R, the second or third?
3.   The streaks usually last about 10-15 bets.

A 2 SPIN bet selection produces 4 results:

RR
BB
RB
BR

1.   You now have 4 Streaks to bet on.
2.   You start betting against the longest sleeping couplet.
3.   Streaks last for about 20-30 bets.

The easiest way to see what a 2 spin bet selection can do is to play around with the attached Excel sheet.  This sheet tracks the sleeping couplets and shows you what to bet on.

It also shows a graph of each 1,000 spins so you can see how stable a flat betting EC can be. Simply press F9 to see another 1,000 spin RNG result.

This is not a holy grail but it is one way to handle Random and Streaks.

Enjoy
Nick

This looks a lot like (or exactly like) "Pairs" by I forget who.  You can bet the sleeping pair OR the dominant pair OR the pair that looks llike it is catching up.

Looks like I came back just in time to say "adios" to Gizmo!

I been away.  Checked in from time to time but just got back home after a long cruse on my sailboat that started last June.  Left it in Florida.

But I been thinking about Bacc.  Played today for first time in months.  But I was thinking about this site and the main problem, IMO, is lack of focus and lack of sharing.  I'll take the last one first since it is a good segue in response.

This whole idea that people have winning knowledge that they won't share . . . .  Why bother even mentioning it?  Ego?  Vanity?  Gizmo, you're going to share it with your friends or relatives if you have any.  That's normal enough.  Maybe you just secretly want to sell it and are fishing for bites.  Can't blame people for wondering about your motivation.  What was your objective for being here for 12 years?  So god bless - keep winning and we'll see you around

So this segues to my first point about focus.  Everyone knows there is no mechanical, rule based betting and placement method that gives an acceptable win rate to make it worthwhile to play.  There is only methods or perspectives.  All which require some kind of MM, discipline, guessing whatever you want to call it. 

Lots of people have good ideas, approaches to the game.  Maybe those who do could have a separate thread and include anyone who wants to discourse about that particular approach.  You could even set up members only and do gotomeeting practice sessions.

The idea that everyone is afraid to share kind of sucks.

Are you guys ignoring COMMISSION?  I think you are.  So a break even shoe is a losing shoe!  I'm getting tire dof bringing this up.