BetSelection.cc

Thank you KFB!!

Any baccarat player needs to find the spots where his/her bets are EV+ as the idea to restrict the negative expectancy by utilizing some kind of progressions or balancement factors are completely wrong both theoretically and practically.
I could be the best disciplined person in the world but a EV- bet remains a EV- bet.
We can't do anything about that mathematically, yet we can do a lot statistically.

Along any BP finite succession, whatever considered, some spots are EV+ at the Banker side and some spots are EV+ at Player side.
This way of thinking totally contrasts with the common concept that every bet is EV- no matter what.

At baccarat, 91.4% of the outcomes are simply following a coin flip probability, just 8.6% of the results are Banker oriented.
Those coin flip situations mainly rely upon the key card distribution, they are not perfect independent spots, yet one side is payed 1:1 and the other one 0.95:1.

Thus a slight dependent coin flip probability tends to provide many "limited" random walks (as key cards are limited both in number and distribution) where a given event is more likely than the counterpart.
Just on 91.6% of the results, of course.

The remaining 8.6% of the outcomes hugely favor Banker side, providing a neutral card distribution, meaning that third cards must belong to a "random" world where each rank is equally probable.

Really?

No fkng way.

A baccarat shoe is formed by a sure asymmetrical rank card distribution, we can't estimate precisely which cards will help a side or not, but we can get a clearer picture whenever we'll consider many kind of  back to back probabilities as the asymmetrical features will dilute more and more up to the point where a reversed strenght will take place.
Even though it could happen to disregard the fact that one side is math advantaged over the other one.

Tomorrow about the B single-double attack.

as. 

Congrats AsymBacGuy on your 1000 post above. 

This is a good thread /subtopic and I like the analogy with the outcomes profile in craps. I think you will agree there are many similarities when comparing craps to bac. A couple huge differences too(as u point out one above re: dependence)

I look forward to  your next post in the series.

Thanks KFB! :-)

Yep, besides the dependency factor, I totally agree that craps and baccarat tend to work by similarities.

When a craps shooter bet the pass line he/she has 2:1 odds to win as there are 6 ways to form a winning seven and 2 ways to form an eleven (8 winning ways); a sudden loss comes from rolling a deuce (1 way), a three (2 ways) and a twelve (1 way) totaling 4 ways to lose. 2:1.
The casino's ploy to reduce a sure math edge for the don't pass bettor derives from transforming a losing twelve for the pass bettor to a push.

After this very first roll not producing a sudden win or loss, the pass line bettor is underdog to win as in relationship of the number established his/her odds to win are 5:6 (six or eight), 4:6 (five and nine) and 3:6 (four and ten).

Thus basically there are two distinct asymmetrical probabilities to get outcomes on either pass or don't pass sides: a sudden win getting 2:1 (pass line) and 3:8 odds (don't pass line); after that the don't pass line is hugely favorite to win at various degrees.

In essence, the above mentioned multilayered betting scheme relies upon the difficulty to first roll sevens and elevens in series greater than 4 per each consecutive shooter.
Of course it could happen that such 7s/11s will be mixed with number repeaters, anyway it's very very very very unlikely to get four consecutive players winning 16 rolls in a row without showing at least one or a couple of immediate 7/11 wins.

At baccarat from one part math propositions are more intricated to grasp, from the other one there are additional factors that might orient our bet selection.

We know that "sudden win or loss" are determined more likely by the fall of strongest key cards (8s and 9s) on the initial two initial cards of a given side, then the side getting the higher two initial card point is hugely favorite to win the hand.

Of course such probabilities are symmetrical (thus undetectable) but the finiteness of the shoe and the key card liveness or shortage along with simple statistical features will help us to define how much such factors are going to produce valuable deviations from the expected line.
As there's no way a perfect key card balancement is going to act along any shoe dealt (even though many not key card situations can produce strong deviated spots), we can infer that most part of random walks are not going to form back to back outcomes totally insensitive to the previous card distribution.

Simply put, the vast majority of shoes dealt are surely affected by a kind of finite dependency deviating from the expected values.

Tomorrow practical examples about that.

as. 

THis is a quite long post, please read carefully not reaching quick conclusions.

Let's talk about a specific bac method derived from an old craps interesting system very few people know about.

Craps system

The system works against the probability that four consecutive craps players will make 4 or more passes each (pass=wins on the pass line bet).
Whenever each player reaches the four pass level, we are not interested anymore on what happens next about this shooter, we'll wait the next shooter. 

Thus we'll place our bets only on the don't pass line.
When such thing will happen we'll lose our entire bankroll.

The betting multilayered progression is:

$10, $20, $40, $80

$20, $40, $80, $160

$30, $60, $120, $240

$40, $80, $160, $320

Total bankroll at risk = $1500

Anytime we lose a bet we'll step forward the next progressive amount, when we win a bet at any level we'll go back to the first original progressive line ($10, $20, etc)

To lose the entire bankroll we need a 16-consecutive losing sequence, and this thing surely will happen but at a very very low degree of probability.
In any case, even when this nasty thing happens, we could be in the positive field as it's likely we have accumulated many wins on the more likely positive situations.

Comments

You can notice that wins made on a given level will cancel just the previous same level losing bets.
For example, after getting 6 losing hands in a row followed by a win ($80 bet on second level), we are still behind $130 that in a way or another must be recovered by the first level progression.

Actually only the first level progression will make us pure winners, subsequent levels diminish the deficit just by small loss percentages.
Per each level we're proportionally win $10, or recover from the overall losing situation respectively $20 (second level), $30 (third level) and $40 (final level).

It's a long waiting process as it could take several rolls to produce either a single win or a single loss. Not mentioning that placing progressive don't pass bets will arise other players hostility.
Who gives a fk about other players, but prolonging too much our betting frequency is a bigger issue.
Moreover, it's quite difficult to accept the idea that after a $450 loss (two full progressions that went wrong) the system dictates to wager just $30 (first step of the third progression level).

Believe it or not, the probability such system will bring us in the positive side are quite interesting, even though we know that sooner or later s.hit will happen. (but even in this scenario we could be winners).

Finally it's obvious to state that craps is just made by endless independent random successions.
Therefore, odds to lose our entire bankroll are nearly 1 : 65.536. 

Modeling this system to baccarat

Good news are that baccarat isn't an independent and random game, moreover is a finite card game.
Bad news are that each bet isn't following precise probability percentages, as a strong dynamic probability could affect the outcomes in either a positive or a negative way.
And of course the irregular asymmetrical BP probability and the constant asymmetrical payment will make a huge role along the way.

Nonetheless, I see a common important trait between our strategies and this craps method inventor: when considering gambling games, after a cutoff point is surpassed and incorporated into a finite field, we shouldn't be interested anymore to register the results.

In addition, notice the important parameter assumed by the craps expert: he or she didn't want to challenge a single player getting a 16-passes streak in some way, he preferred to split his/her strategy by spreading it on consecutive different limited random sources.
In a nutshell, the probability a single craps shooter will get a 16-pass streak is higher than the probability that four distinct consecutive shooters will get 4 passes each.
Scientifically speaking this craps method inventor indirectly doubted about the place selection and probability after events tools confirming or not the perfect randomness of the results.

Back to baccarat.

We have to choose the procedures to transfer at baccarat those craps ideas.

First, we should define any single craps shooter as a first B or P appearance.
Any new shooter won't act as long as a new BP shift come out (an exception is about the very first B or P result).

Therefore we need a 5 same streak apperance happening on either side to lose our first level progression. (First hand is just a non-bet signal to classify a new player) 
Say the first hand is B. Now we'll play against a B streak of 5+, stopping if a 5-streak happened.
The same about P. And so on.

In a word, we're challenging every shoe dealt to produce back to back 5+ streaks happening consecutively and we need four consecutive 5+ B/P streaks to lose our entire bankroll.
Notice that at craps each sevening-out shooter will make a end of his/her winning streak, now at baccarat we'd classify as a new shooter the next BP shift.

Even though we're classifying mere BP results (and you well know there are greater better random walk lines to wager into) the probability to get four or more 5+ B or P consecutive streaks is almost not existent.
Now we know that the losing bankroll probability won't happen at humanly considered ranges. 

But wait.

In order to get an edge, we need that first level progression will get more wins than expected. In poorer word that streaks are cumulatively not reaching the 5+ degree level.
Not mentioning that every B result is burdened by a 5% vig.

If a simple B/P consecutive winning streak pattern should be affected by a lack of proper randomness and/or affected by the bac rules, is any distinct back to back B or P succession following more detectable patterns?

A thing we'll consider on the next post.

as. 

Comparing our live shoes dataset with either pc simulated shoes and deeply shuffled manually shoes, we've seen that the former category differs from the latter by two specular probabilities:

- the probability to get long streaks (it was demonstrated to be greater at live shoes)

- the probability to get long "chopping" patterns (it was demonstrated to be lower at live shoes)

That doesn't mean that live shoes tend to produce more streaks than singles, just that our significance statistical tools informed us that after some cutoff points were surpassed, live shoes need a lesser amount of hands to form, say, an 8 streak or conversely a greater amount of hands to produce an 8 chopping pattern.

Given the relative mediocrity of our live shoes sample compared to the endless pc simulated and self manual shuffled shoes samples, we were interested to find whether such peculiarity would be present in every live casino shoe registration.
And we were impressed to get an affirmative answer. (Even more when other scholars have found the same feature).

In essence, many live shoes are affected by a bias acting at various degrees and we think the reason belongs to the difficulty to shuffle key cards in a proper randomly fashion.

Of course not every live shoe is shuffled badly and there's always the probability that a biased shoe will produce seemingly "random" results.

Since live shoes tend to produce a proportional lesser amount of long chopping lines and a greater amount of long streaks than expected, we might set up a betting plan that doesn't involve the short chopping situations and the streaks that surpass a given lenght.
Now we are playing at a restricted field, from one part getting rid of many short single sequences and from the other one by considering streaks after x and up to y.

Nonetheless, only a derived AB plan could further restrict the variance as it gets rid of many unpolarized situations enhancing the uncertainty.

as.

Definitely true what you have posted Al, but in the process of getting an edge we must discard some shoes from the play as no section or no portion of some single shoes will get the room and/or the possibility to get valuable card combinations to bet into.

For example, when almost every 8 and 9 had shown and no longer available, next outcomes will be affected by a huge degree of volatility, say a huge degree of randomness.

No 8 or 9 available = more hands will involve the use of six cards, the highest degree of randomness.
And it's not a coincidence that ties are well more likely when hands got to use six cards.

It could happen that very talented players might get the best of it by ascertaining valuably those rare deviated shoes, we prefer to bet toward the remaining more predominant part of shoes where an event A is a long term favorite over the counterpart B.
After vig, of course.

as.

Let's compare baccarat with two casino games that have demonstrated to get players an edge.

First game is black jack.
How the hell bj was considered a beatable game?
By running millions of pc shoes to test whether high card and aces concentration (theory) really goes to player's advantage by a hi/lo card counting.
The theory was verified by practice. Bj is a math beatable game by card counting (providing a valuable penetration, etc).

Second game is craps.
Some shooters after having practiced for long at home think to be "dice controllers", meaning that they can throw the dice unrandomly thus producing profitable situations. For example, lowering the "sevens" rate or enhancing the 6 appearance on either cubes. That is to transform a random model into a wanted unrandom model.
To test the possible "unrandom" profitability such players would run thousands of throws, that means to study the limiting values of relative frequency that must deviate from common math  expectancy applied to random outcomes.
If after a given amount of trials (of course the greater the better) the "sevens" percentage was lower than expected and/or the "6" appearance was greater than expected, those players might think to get an edge at different degrees (this not necessarily capable to invert the house edge in their favor) and now we talk about "statistical significance" (again restricted within certain levels).
Now theory can't be 100% ascertained by practice for two reasons: first, there's always a tiny probability to have registered unrandom results by coincidence; secondly, the dice throws sample is way more restricted than bj numbers.

Nonetheless, those dice controllers can't give a lesser damn about millions of throws proving or not their confidence to beat craps. They just collect the money won or accept the losses, assigning the possible temporary failure to a umproper technique due to several disparate causes.

Imo baccarat stays in the middle of those two extremes.

From one part certain very rare math distributions will favor B or P, but we know this feature isn't exploitable.
Yet, itlr key cards will affect the real outcomes not in the way studied so far (one side should be mathematically more likely than the other one) but in term of gaps probability intervening between two different situations not belonging to B and P.

From the other part, we must challenge the "baccarat model" to always provide perfect randomly situations regardless of when we decide to bet, a thing scientifically proven to be wrong at least in the live shoes dealt sample that any human can collect.
Now it's the dealer or the SM to really make the desired unrandom world we want to get.

In fact it's virtually impossible that at an 8-deck shoe a human or a physical shuffle machine will be able to arrange key cards proportionally for the entire lenght of the shoe, our datasets strongly state otherwise.

Again the probability after events tool will get us the decisive factor to beat baccarat.
Without any doubt.

Tomorrow we'll see why.

as.

Btw, I highly suggest you to read this book:

Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts by Annie Duke


as.