Notice that in this shoe succession the total  I/C results = -15 (before vig) but it's not rocket science to get an advantage at those sequences.

as.

At baccarat we've seen that the fear of missing something "good" is always inferior to the fear of getting rid of something "bad", so it's more important to shift losing situations than exploiting the entirety of profitable opportunities.

This problem, verified at an unimaginable number of real shoes dealt under different circumstances, has shown us that losing situations and short winning situations are both slight more detectable than long winning situations unless those W patterns reach relative values that the best course of action to take is riding them until they'll stop. Yet this last strategy sounds more as a gambling plan (so affected by huge variance) but anyway getting some merits.

Example #1 (1 and 2 vs 3/3+ streaks)

Arrange the cards whatever you like but 1/2 clustered patterns will show up at least two or more times per shoe, not to mention what happens at the infinite random walks we decide to consider.
More importantly is the fact that 1/2 isolated patterns long term distribution considered by back-to-back events will slight disregard the expected 3:1 ratio so making more probable 1/2 clustered patterns than isolated patterns showing up clustered for longer than two.

Nonetheless, we know that 1/2 sequences could last up to 22-25 or more patterns not crossing any 3/3+ streak.

But most of the times 1/2 patterns are coming out as clustered at least for 2 (under general probability values), 3 (exact general probability values) or longer (over general probability values).
Naturally the actual number of long 3/3+ streaks and/or the number of ties will affect the 1/2 clusters along with other actual card features.

Anyway, there's a virtual certainty that 1/2 clusters of any lenght will come out, especially after fictional losing situations.

Example #2 (doubles consecutiveness)

This is a more intricate situation as doubles are the most likely outcomes at baccarat.
I mean that consecutive doubles will make more probable the efficacy seen above of the 1/2 being clustered, yet a strong number of isolated doubles will come out along the way in the form of clusters (isolated double/isolated double).
Even here, isolated doubles followed by clustered doubles are taking a different probability line than what the general probability dictates.

Again and knowing that now we're taking care of just one of the possible three patterns of interest, it's the actual quality distribution to help us for taking the best course of action.

Just to give an example here some real shoes about the doubles I or C distribution (we discarded from the registration the first 20 hands dealt):

C-I-I-I-I-I

I-I-I-I-I-I

I-I-I-I-I

C-C-I-I-I-I-I

I-C-I

I-I-I-C-C-I

I-C-C-I-I

I-C-I-I-C

I-I-I-I-I-I

I-I-I-I-I

C-C-I-C

I-C-I-C

I-I-I-C

I-C-I

I-I-I

I-I-I-I-I

C-I-I-I-I-C-I

C-I-I-I-C-I

I-I-I-C-C

I-I-C

I-I-I-C-C

I-C-I

C-C-I-I-I-I-I-I

I-C-I-I-C

C-I-I-I

I-I-I

I-I-I-I

I-I-I-C

I

C-I-I-C

C-C-I-I-I

I-I-C-C-C

I-I-C-C-I-I-C

C-I-I-C

I-I-I-I-I-I

I-I-I-I

I-I-I-I-I-C-I

C-C-I-I-I

C-I-I-C-I-C-I-I

Even though C=-3 and I=+1, this brief sample should give the idea that the chaotic "unguessable" bac world is less undetectable than what most experts or people think of, naturally not taking outcomes as mere arithmetic sequences.

as. 

Obviously those long univocal situations putting casinos into a passive mood aren't coming out around the corner as the vast majority of patterns are difficult to be grasped; technically meaning that we'll have hard times to win more than two maybe three bets in a row at best, so winning situations diluted into a more likely losing ocean.

Capitalizing on those relatively rare univocal situations could be an option as well as setting up a strong defensive attitude oriented to "limit" the losing patterns impact.
And of course a mix of the two strategies that unfortunately players like to shift too frequently towards the first "easy" plan.

The mistake of "hoping" is always worse than the mistake of "estimating probabilities" because our bets must always fight vs the HE.

After all casinos will substantially lose when consecutive bets are placed on easy patterns or easy situations and the same is true for players keep wagering back to back difficult patterns and difficult situations not going to be resolved within short times.

While casinos can't prevent players to wager the univocal situations standing for long (so eliciting a consecutive positive wagering), players have the important option to discontinue the betting when difficult chaotic patterns show up and the latter situation is more probable to come out along the shoes dealt.

Not surprisingly casinos want us to bet every hand or almost every hand and not only for obvious math reasons but because they well know how whimsical (so uncontrollable) are distributed the bac results, especially when losing players try to get the money back by increasing their wagers.

There are many pattern examples showing that, see you later

as.

Considering things from the other side (casino) could probably help to determinate what would be the best course of action.

When casinos will (temporary) lose a lot of money?
When strong univocal deviations will happen within short times (basically long streaks or strong B/P predominances) or when some high payout side bets are coming out frequently.
Actually casinos are relatively worried about BP bets and not about the side bets as they know that it'll take a lot of more time to take back the money lost at BP bets than at side bets.

Obviously I'm talking about HS players action as casinos fear that winning players won't come back to lose at their premises.

The casinos advantages are hard to be challenged yet it's not so infrequent to read casinos experiencing one or even a couple of losing months per year.
That's a big difference with other gambling games where no losing months were accounted despite of getting a theorical lower HE (black jack).

More later

as.

Quote from: KungFuBac on April 06, 2026, 04:22:28 AMHi Asym and thx.
Can you elaborate a little more on the following:

"...Yet, "long" isolated W situations are way more probable to be intertwined by isolated Ls, so in essence the only real losing sequence is anything like as WLLWLL...

Notice that by falsifying the best randomness definition ever made in the history of probability field (RVM) and according to MvS studies, bac successions are affected by a kind of unrandomness (or instrinsic defects of a finite dependent bac card distributions) capable to get a full value of what is more likely to happen (W clusters and/or L isolated situations) as opposed to what could virtually happen at a 0.5068/0.4932 dynamically proposition...."

Thx in advance,

Hi KFB!
I'll try to make my point.

A shoe is formed by 416 cards making innumerable card combinations but in essence the vast majority of pattern successions belong to restrict classes where something must happen within limited terms.
Practically randomness is less "chaotic" than what could appear.

We don't want to be so precise in our guesses, just considering the game as "probability ranges" where something that happened may come out as clustered or as isolated, there are no other options.
Of course the word "clustered" means that the opposite pattern was absent for a given amount of time (minimum gap=1) and "isolated" means that both opposite patterns happened in two consecutive trials (that's not the number of hands because this depends on the probability of success we wanted to use).

Since we can build infinite random walks from the original irreplaceable BP sequence, sub successions will take the same shape and a correspondent relationship among them even if a same (negative) shoe will be dealt infinitely.
This fact is capable to overcome the permutations issue where strong negative back-to-back shoes will destroy every strategy in the world. Or, even worse, when strong positive consecutive shoes will give the players the illusion of having found out a valid system.

Once we implement the "quality" factor and not the "quantity" one, baccarat successions will get similar features so it's not about "how" but about "when".

Naturally since we can't exploit a math advantage in the strict sense, all this process belongs to "approximate" at best what is going to happen with what should (must) happen. And lesser situations we'll try to approximate better will be our control of the game.

Therefore W clusters and L isolated events must happen and generally speaking the most worrisome pattern is when an isolated W will be followed by a clustered L (WLL..WLL..)

In reality we've seen that our plan is a bit too oriented to avoid losses than trying to ride the winning streaks for the reason that we flat bet and we hate to get (temporary) losing sessions.
We're working on that.

as.

That's interesting, Al!

Since we're dealing with an astounding amount of uncertainty, the "frustration" part could bring us to be disjointed from what actually happens compared with what "should" happen and the last part belongs to "patience".

Patterns are there to be somewhat balanced, so the "right or wrong bettor" concept is related about how good or how bad a given strategy performs at the actual distribution.
Betting too many hands is the sure recipe for disaster as it tends to deny the "patience" impact so leading more to the frustration field where we are totally confused to know what to do.

It's reasonable to think that recreational players like to build a "sky's the limit" strategy by hoping that many univocal deviations will last for long and sometimes they succeed in their efforts. But not by long term values capable to erase and invert the HE, otherwise the game wouldn't exist.

After all is not the HE making players to lose a lot of money but the amount of "wrong" decisions aggravated by the standard bet increase right in the "frustration" fields that invariably happen along the way.
Conversely, most players are shy to wager (or possibly press the wagers) when things seem to be more oriented to go in their favor, a thing symmetrically shaped (before vig) with the frustration field where it seems we can't guess a single hand or a couple of hands for long periods.

Examples.

In the vast majority of the times S patterns are showing up as isolated or two clustered, obviously itlr S clustered patterns can come out up to 4 or 5 or more times in a row. And we don't want such rare situations to wipe out our previous profits albeit the fear of facing them is legitimate.
Obviously the most probable situation to encounter is S isolated events being clustered and technically this is one of the most reliable tool to rely upon especially after having faced S isolated events being intertwined by S clusters.
Notice that S clustered clusters (SS.../SS...) are not making any harm on us as we're not wanting to chase a more probable situation (S isolated events coming out as clustered) when things seem to dictate otherwise.

On the other end, A patterns are supposed to mathematically produce more A clusters (A-A-...) than A isolated events (A-S) and in the vast majority of the times A isolated patterns coming out in a row for "long" ranges come out when S isolated patterns show up as clustered. (SASASAS...)

Now if S events are naturally capable to get shorter than expected 1:3 situations, we know that A events being favored by a 3:1 probability to come out will get, sooner or later (patience factor), patterns longer than 3 and this constitutes a big edge over the house that cannot "control" infinite random walks producing exact A patterns 3 long for extended periods.

Same considerations could be made for other simpler pattern classifications and taken by other various angles.

Is this a new example of the innumerable forms of the gambler's fallacy?

No fkng way.

As long as cards aren't symmetrically distributed and results can be arranged into different random walks, the "uncertainty world" is not belonging to winning players.

as.

The above considerations might suggest what we name as "The right/wrong bettors strategy" knowing that baccarat is formed by an half part of frustration and an half part of patience. Obviously both factors being not perfectly balanced along any shoe we're destined to face.

More later.

as. 

Back to my original topic.

Giving a 0.75% probability to win and assigning W as a winning pattern and L as a losing pattern we'll get infinite W/L successions to take care of.
The least likely succession to face will be a perfect WWWLWWWLWWWL.. succession, meaning that a strong overalternating mood had taken place.

On the other end, since W is 0.75:1, a good rule of thumb is to wager toward getting W as clustered at least once (WW).
L side moves around the same concept, being more isolated (WLW) than clustered (WLL) but since the game is volatile and affected by just one hand whimsically going toward one side than another, we do not want to chase the "end" of any L cluster.

Yet, "long" isolated W situations are way more probable to be intertwined by isolated Ls, so in essence the only real losing sequence is anything like as WLLWLL...

Notice that by falsifying the best randomness definition ever made in the history of probability field (RVM) and according to MvS studies, bac successions are affected by a kind of unrandomness (or instrinsic defects of a finite dependent bac card distributions) capable to get a full value of what is more likely to happen (W clusters and/or L isolated situations) as opposed to what could virtually happen at a 0.5068/0.4932 dynamically proposition.

as.

Regular posters here (Alrelax, me, KFB, etc) are well aware that side bets are enormously favoring the house, yet we have learnt that if we expect that sh.i.t happens (strong unexpected negative deviations) in the same way sometimes "jackpots" happen now favoring players for the huge payment involved.

Rarer events tend to come out in clusters (shorter gaps than the expected probability ratio) or not showing up at all (or once) for long periods, another way to consider bac outcomes under the "asymmetrical" factor.

Paradoxically not everytime the HE is the primary tool to look for, maybe it would be better to take care of the possible payement and the relative volatility.
Paradoxically only the side bets are mathematically favoring the players by card counting techniques (mostly by not getting a practical substantial edge over the house).

I've already mentioned the team wagering the naturals 8/9 or 9/8 situation (payement 50:1), obviously starting to bet whenever the naturals/any other hand ratio (34.2%) of any shoe was very low, then adding the current number of 8s/9s live in the deck.
Since the betting usually started after half of the deck was dealt, we know that just one winning situation was able to get a profit no matter what. 

Another side bet particularly present nowadays is the Tiger bet, the situation where Banker wins by a 6 point.
Probability that such event will come out is 5.38%, so we'll expect on average one Tiger event out of nearly 20 hands dealt, so around four times at any 8-deck shoe.
HE at Tiger bet is very huge, 14.33% when B wins with two cards 6 (Small Tiger, payement 22:1) and 15.25% when B wins with three cards 6 (Big Tiger, payment 50:1), aggravated when a general Tiger bet cumulatively takes care of both situations (16.68%, payments are respectively 12:1 and 20:1).

Regardless of the actual shoe conditions (number of 6s, number of 8s/9s) itlr we'll expect a B 6 point distributions shifted towards the P side (B 12.8% and P 14%) and the same is about 7, 8 and 9 points not belonging to naturals (respectively 13.5% vs 14%, 4.2% vs 4.9% and again 4.2% vs 4.9%).
Therefore 6,7,8 and 9 points (no naturals) happening at P side are more likely to show up than 6,7,8,9 points (no naturals) at B side.
On the other end, many 6- 0 value card situations are symmetrically falling at B side so it's just an educated guess about how many same/superior points P side will get, the remaining situations (B6-P drawing) are favorite to win.       

About F-7 (payment 40:1) we know they are quite unlikely to happen, mostly coming out, on average, just once per every shoe played.

Then Dragon bonus being nearly 4 times more burdened by the HE at B side than at P side.

Ties should be never ever wagered, too tiny payed and too whimsically distributed.

I don't know about other side bets, maybe Alrelax could be of some help here.

0=0=0

In our opinion side bets should never be considered as the main way to collect profits (or to recoup a previous deficit) but sometimes they could be a viable tool to enlarge at most an actual positive session as back to back or short gapped side bets happenings MUST come out sooner or later.

as.

Quote from: KungFuBac on March 25, 2026, 04:56:37 AMI travel and play with two Bac dealers. I frequently ask them et al dealers: How do the most consistent winner(& losers) play?

     The consensus response is always something to the nature of : don't bet side wagers, money management, and press into an identifiable event. Always reset back to your base bet and do NOT ever chase with a martingale type betting regime.
Two of these dealers dealt in the high-limit rooms in vegas for nine years. They said some of the least-skilled players are also the largest-buyin players. Usually the largest buyins are from players that don't make their full time employment from the tables. Often business owners that can replenish the bankroll from other non-gaming sources.,...etc. So they can bet bonus bets, chase with a martingale,...etc.
     

Continued Success,

Thanks KFB for posting this!

More or less I got similar responses from a couple of floormen working at two different HS rooms.

Very HS players are there to gamble, period. And most of them are totally insensitive of the money lost for the reasons you wrote. 

Surprisingly both think that the game could be beatable by players patiently waiting for the "right" opportunities as infinite coin flip propositions must markedly go in one univocal way, the job is just to wait for such deviations.

About the side bets wagering, I will make a post later.

as.

Quote from: albertojonas on March 22, 2026, 10:43:51 PMMay you direct me into these posts please?

Suppose your trigger is a FRESH 3/3+ streak.
You want to classify the next pattern being either another 3/3+ streak (cluster) or anything else (that is a single or a double so making that 3/3+ streak as isolated).
Of course after a 3/3+ streak came out as clustered you don't want to go further so waiting until a new 3 streak shows up.
You register how many times a (1/2) or another 3 had shown up knowing that the expected ratio is 3:1.
Even though occasional deviations could be harsh in a way or another, there's a constant force acting toward a balanced ratio after a given deviation happened, especially after some clustered 3s and especially when the 3/3+ streak is at B side (making more probable short predominant patterns at B, so leaving few room to 3/3+ P streaks suddendly balancing the previous B same streak).

The same classification could be made for clusters of 2 vs superior clusters, clusters of 3 vs superior clusters and so on.

Normally here it's the back-to-back shoes registration that counts as single shoes may be affected by huge volatility and  no balancement.
 
as.

Quote from: alrelax on March 23, 2026, 02:04:57 AMYou wrote: "Probably those who constantly win have learned to think that the HE is the least problem to face, yet we don't know a single successful player confiding that his/her main profit comes out from wagering the side bets."

And you are absolutely correct.  But side bets do appear frequently, not rarely in the 5 Treasures game.  I have done and do well with wagering 3-4 sides at a time.  But the main source of winnings will always be the base B/P wager.

That's the answer I wanted to hear from you after reading your excellent post (#1501). 

oOoOo

Successful players consider any new session as a fresh one, forgetting what happened in the past, for the simple reason that we can't know precisely how the cards are shuffled. Actually we could even consider the scenario that the same or almost the same shoe will distributed again, an heaven if we have won and we keep taking the same strategy but a bad nightmare whether we have seriously lost and continuing to apply a preordered/adapting plan not fitting the previous shoe(s).

Winning is not "hoping for", winning is a complex process dictating what's more likely to happen at the spot we decide to wager (or to fictionally guess).
Fictional right guesses are not wasted opportunities and at the other end fictional wrong guesses are good spots to save our money as we'll expect more negative ROI situations than positive ROI situations.
Moreover the vast part of W/L results are distributed by a clustered fashion so negating a long overalternating scheme.

There are infinite situations to look for, especially if we take into account several sub random walks applied to the original BP sequence.

Suppose we are taking care of the 1/2 vs 3s ranges.
Obviously the 1/2 ranges cannot be zero at any of derived roads (meaning we won't get all 3s streaks along all the shoe at one line, let alone at different random walks) and it's 100% certain that very soon a 1/2 range will come out clustered at one or, more probable, more than one derived road.
On the other end it's particularly likely that at a given derived road, a long 1/2 pattern will stand for long.
If the general probability ratio of 1/2 vs 3 is 3:1 and knowing that the production is asymmetrically shaped, we may infer that most of the times a 3 value will shift to 4 (or more), especially whether one or two 1/2 ranges have formed an exact 3 gap.

3s streaks are moving by the same propensity, so more likely coming out as isolated than clustered, especially by the "clustered" isolated/isolated fashion.
 
Even though some colliding events come out quite often (meaning that opposite BP bets are making favourable opportunities at one side or the another one(s) ), we know that the vast majority of shoes will make more probable fair long 1/2 ranges so making our guess a kind of no brainer shot.

as.

Yep.
 
It's 1 billion % certain that itlr any progression in the world can't overcome a negative edge, otherwise the claimer would be hired by MIT or by NASA and getting payed millions of bucks without betting (so risking) any dime at bac tables.

The only way to verify a possible advantage at a negative edge proposition is to show a strategy capable to provide an ascending profits line by flat betting and the only way to do that is by theorizing a possible unrandomness of the production and/or to demonstrate that card distributions are affected by "limits" shifting at some points the results by values overcoming the HE.

If a given flat betting strategy sucks, the same strategy applied by any kind of progression sucks even more.

as.

Definitely baccarat is a game of skills, the few who have found out why this game could constantly be beaten know very well this.

Probably those who constantly win have learned to think that the HE is the least problem to face, yet we don't know a single successful player confiding that his/her main profit comes out from wagering the side bets.

Successful players know that a strict mechanical betting applied to every production have zero chance to overcome the HE.

Successful players know that patterns, being positive or negative, could last for "very long" but negative patterns are asymmetrically more harmful than positive ones (for the HE).

Successful players know that the occasional ultra positive patterns will be soon replaced by undetectable patterns that again could last for long.

Successful players know that "less is more", meaning that the probability to be right is inversely proportional to the number of bets placed on the felt.

More later

as. 

Quote from: albertojonas on March 18, 2026, 11:14:39 PMCan you direct me to any information on these investigations, beside the books written on Marigny adaptations?

Unfortunately not, such tests were run several years ago at real roulette spins , I've tried to look for some links but without finding them.
Basically the trigger was set up at 3,5 sigma and even at 4 sigma then looking for a minimal correction under the MdG guidelines but no significant differences emerged than by using a random selection.

Anyway my posts abound of Marigny concepts as "isolated", "clustered" and the best of his philosophy that is the flat betting scheme suggested in his main book.
After all baccarat can't be compared with the roulette symmetrical productions, maybe here some of his ideas whether properly adapted might work.

as.