WELCOME

Welcome to KungFuBacs' section.
A little personal gaming history, theories, and beliefs to follow.

I've played Baccarat since the early 2000s (2003 or so) and this is my only game. I've played full time for approximately four years. I play mostly in USA and have well over 100 casinos within an approximate 10Min to 3hour drive near a four-state junction in the Midwest.  Most of my casinos are Indian casinos. Many only have one (or two) Bac tables and some have zero.  I strive to play 1800 hands per week (Play not necessarily wager). I mostly play during the day and weekdays and by design avoid late Friday nights and Saturday night.

Primary Wagering Mode: Positive Progression with an emphasis on compounding with precise efficiency to >= my goal.

Below are a few topics that came to mind from my personal list of gambling theories, opinions, proverbs related to gambling...etc (not in any particular order), that I find worthy of further discussion.

I find all of these topics important for one trying to develop an overall gameplan for utilization on a daily basis. I'm still striving to improve my gameplan, so addendum ideas/ strategies are welcomed.

•   Focus on managing Variance including and not limited to: Bet selection, Bet size to buyin to bankroll ratios. For the most part a successful casino investor(player) its all about Money management, patience, and discipline, AND LIMITING LOSING STREAKS/SESSIONS. They happen to all.

•   Most importantly design the above gameplan to match ones personal and specific monetary objective. This trumps everything.

•   Be unafraid to win

•   Accept losing shoes and sessions. They are inevitable. Don't dwell on them and don't strive to "make up" or catch up in the next shoe(s) or session(s). We may have that opportunity in the next shoe or session. However, we can't always bulldoze our desires into that next shoe. Though one must always be in anticipatory mode for when that makeup shoe or session shows(and it will).

•   Successful gambling must be learned by doing. Most of us probably attended post-high school education for 2-12 years to learn theory and skill in our occupation. Yet I think most of us travelled our most accelerated learning curve in the first couple years of applying (doing) that occupation. Gambling is no different in my opinion.



•   If one wants to become an expert at something a most efficient path is to seek someone that has already developed that area of expertise through experience. It does not matter if that field of study is gambler, doctor, mechanic, engineer, or electrician. Most highly skilled and successful professionals are glad to assist a less-experienced comrade in their same field. That willingness to help is also a sign one is highly skilled and a professional. All things being equal seek knowledge from that old white-haired 75yo vs that 25yo.
Though we should always believe we can learn something from everybody. Sometimes that lesson may be what not to do.

•   Reading and studying Bac, running 000s, and 000000s of sims are all helpful and that's all good and fine. However, playing with real money on that real shoe that's in front of you right now is the best teacher of all.

•   Winning ITLR (in the long run) is all about limiting our losses on the really bad shoes.  MM, patience, and discipline ITSR are important allies.

•   Never feel a need to continuously chase a losing spot. Never completely depart a winning spot.

•   Variance is our nemesis. Variance can also be our best friend and crucial to our winning.

•   One should utilize ones whole buyin if we are willing to give the casino a chance at our whole buyin. IOW its disadvantageous to only use say 30-40% of ones buyin if ones stop loss is 100% of said buyin.

•   Im an advocate for managing our casino bankroll and buyin in a similar manner to managing a small business, one's stock and investments portfolio,...etc.

•   I view my buyin as Im playing my buyin against my buyin. In other words, I'm not playing my buyin against the casinos bankroll. Im trying to win >= my buyin  prior  to losing my buyin.

•   The casino investor(player) has many advantages over the casino. For the most part the casino is required to "match" our move. We get to choose when/where to place our wager along with size. Most importantly we get to make choices  after  an event or decision has occurred.

From the gamblers rules of etiquette:

Don't complain to others about losing sessions. 90% don't care and the remaining 10% are halfway glad you lost.


Continued Success To All,

Thank you for your participation here.  It is real and it is spot on.

I can personally vouch for the reality of this member, KungFuBac, as we regularly discuss countless aspects of the game and the casino in general. 

Stay safe and carry on.

Thanks,
Alrelax
Board Owner and Administrator

A very welcome, KFB!!!

The contribute of yours is much appreciated.

as.

Welcome aboard.

I've read many of your previous postings and am looking forward to more in the future.

AD

Hi KFB!
Very interesting points as always from your part!

About MM.

People thinking that baccarat is a sole MM game is completely wrong, imo.
If we have found an advantage, best way we'll exploit it is by flat betting as we significantly reduce the variance.

The 'limiting losing variance' cannot be profitably accomplished other than by flat betting as we can't precisely know how things will develop on this shoe or on next shoes.

A kind of MM approach is by not betting at all at some (many) situations, unless strong 'comp' related situations must be applied.

as.

 


   
 

Thanks alrelax, ADulay, Asymbacguy , et al for the pos wishes.

asymbacguy:
"If we have found an advantage, best way we'll exploit it is by flat betting as we significantly reduce the variance."

     My thinking is that if one has an advantage (verified not just the V swaying) greater than the house edge we want as much money as possible on said advantage as often as possible(as many compounds as possible).

When you say "flat betting" to reduce the Variance I would agree.

 However, re: flat betting with a verified advantage I would be more in agreement if your term flat betting means increasing as a function of our buyin or bankroll. Meaning as the buyin/bankroll increased so does the "flat bet" increase.

If your term "flat betting" means always keeping the bet size the same regardless of buyin increasing  or decreasing, then I would be in less agreement.

For example:
Lets say if one starts with a $2000 buyin and $50 wager size (.025) and one wins +400. So now buyin is 2400. I would prefer the wager size to also increase to $60(.025) vs remaining at the original flat bet size of $50. Still a flat bet though now a function of buyin.

The $60 is still a flat bet(meaning it doesn't change within the shoe), yet it has upward potential "or growth" and compounding into our buyin/bankroll, (Especially if one has a verified advantage greater than house edge). Most players do in my opinion although most players may not perceive it(their advantage) when Variance is swaying (-) against their bet selection. Thus they go on tilt or abandon their methodology when it was really just a little blip.

To my thinking we want growth (or compounding) of our advantage vibrating through our bet, through our buyin, and through our bankroll. This compounding can be applied "bet-to-bet" or "bet-to-buyin" (as mentioned above), as it is still growing. Which is a good thing.


Continued success,

Hi KFB!

I agree with your conclusions, somewhat conforming with Kelly criterion.

I've mentioned 'flat betting' just as a general way to approach things as, sadly, many keep thinking that the game(s) could be beaten by progressive plans.

Besides the subtle bet/buy-in - bankroll math implications I'm not fully aware of, the main problem is that baccarat is a extremely volatile game. Sometimes our edge cannot show up for 5-6 or more shoes and we know it's way difficult to manage negative fluctuations even if we confide in a long term positive result.

For what I've grasped from your precious writings I guess you start to think to raise (minimally) your standard bet after a positive period of some lenght.
Say you're crossing an unfortunate long negative sequence just after you've raised your standard bet.
I'm asking: do you stay at that level or reverting back to an inferior step?
Or maybe by diluting more the betting frequency when in 'doubt'?

My question arises as our edge is pretty volatile and coming out only when shoes are moderately or severely 'unrandomly' shuffled. Yet we have to bet something for different reasons at many EV- spots, mostly as we have no hints to realize the level of possible unrandomness acting at that shoe.

Thanks for your answers.

as.

Hi Asymbacguy

Several good thoughts and as always appreciate your fine posts.

re: Your thoughts/question below:

" ...For what I've grasped from your precious writings I guess you start to think to raise (minimally) your standard bet after a positive period of some length.
Say you're crossing an unfortunate long negative sequence just after you've raised your standard bet.
I'm asking: do you stay at that level or reverting back to an inferior step?
Or maybe by diluting more the betting frequency when in 'doubt'? ,,,"

I made the reference to the Kelly Criterion to give an example in my response to your original post re: flat betting.
I was simply stating that I would be in more agreement with one utilizing a Flat Bet if one adjusted said Flat Bet higher as a function of bankroll growth (Meaning as buyin/bankroll increased so should the bet size similar to a kelly criterion %).
I typically do not wager a flat bet / not an advocate for a non-adjusting static flat bet.

re: Kelly Criterion(KC). I feel Kelly Criterion is a very important metric/ helpful for us to consider. However, IMO the difficulty arises as we don't always know our precise advantage. Furthermore, as you correctly stated above : We could sometimes go as long as 5-6 shoes without our advantage shining through.

So "IF" my goal was to play as many hands as possible on one buyin or bankroll with hopes of doubling buyin or bankroll as well as equally having a goal of not busting said buyin-bankroll, --and--

"IF" I was extremely risk averse to losing my buyin (I am not) , then I would utilize some metric of the Kelly Criterion or whatever my verified advantage (though I would be more aligned with half kelly or maybe half my advantage). Coupled with a constant adjustment of the bet size (up and down) as the bankroll went up/down.

Your specific question: "Say you're crossing an unfortunate long negative sequence just after you've raised your standard bet.
I'm asking: do you stay at that level or reverting back to an inferior step?"

If crossing and unfortunate long negative sequence I would reduce back toward my original KC increment though I would not go below this initial increment (even if the bankroll dipped below my initial level). My reasoning is I don't wan t to require more wins to win back my losing wagers. Reminder too, if we are wagering Kelly Criterion or similar we are basing that on the premise we have an advantage. Therefore we shouldn't be too overly concerned with drawdowns if flat betting.

I realize Im getting a little off topic.
    *Side Note: The issue I have with a Kelly Criterion bet metric and implementing after every decision(W or L), is that our smallest adjustment is $5. So lets say we think our KC criterion or "advantage" is (.012 ) which is approximately the casinos written-in edge. Then to adjust $5 after every decision we would need a base unit of approx $415 (415/5=.012). Ideally (and just my opinion), one would want their buyin to approximate $35000 (35000/415= ~~.012).

Not a bad method if ones objective is to play a very long time on one buyin. Though one would also need a very long time to double their buyin(and it may never happen).


Continued Success,

Hi KFB and thanks for your prompt and detailed answer!

Yep, I agree.
After all 'unfortunate' situations should be slight less likely than 'good' events to show up when playing with an advantage of some kind.
Otherwise it would be too easy to beat the game...

Take care!

as.

Hi KFB,
        Nice to see a board of yours. As you told about yourself, it is apparent that you are a real player and not some kind of paper tiger. I faced so many members on forums who have never played actually but wrote hundreds of posts here. They looked everywhere to find a winning idea. They discuss or rather fight with seasoned and experienced players too. We all learn things here. When I started my journey on forums, I was as naive as any newbie could be but I always dared to innovate with improving knowwledge. I got lucky to have good programmers around and they helped me come out of fallacious thinkings by providing me trackers. I did learn basic excel programming and can make basic trackers myself and with the help of a bit of manual inputs, I can track long haul sessions.
  More later........

I think if you have developed a bac method which can turn a negative -1.2 expectation in bac to a positive expectation of about  1.5 % or 2%, or can generate a 1.5 to 2 unit win per shoe over a very large sample size, then I would use a simple conservative          % of bankroll method to bet....such as start  betting 2 % of a $ 1,000 bankroll which is   
$ 20 and just keep betting 2% as your bankroll grows........after about 50 or more shoes your will be betting $150 to $ 200  a hand

And eventually you will be betting $ 500 to $ 1000 a hand,,,,assuming you don't get banned because the casino will assume you are cheating.......this of course is similar to compound interest which a bank offers, the money grows very, very fast after a large amount of shoes have been played.... unfortunately, of course the problem is developing the methodology which gives you the advantage....and good luck doing that.

Nothing changes the advantage of casino but still winning is possible in the long run with a clear and unambiguous way to play. Regarding compounding of money is concern, that is of course doable. No casino will win you if you earn modestly and your meagre income, even regular will not make them lose big, while other players will keep losing their 100% bankroll, your winning 1-2% of your total stake will hardly impact them. There are plenty of casinos to chose from. These days, I play online live dealers where bet range is insanely from 5 to 75k. If you do not bet too huge, u will be unnoticed.

Thx Albalaha for the welcome. Also good to see you posting again. I've read most of your posts and continue to learn from you.

Alb:
"..As you told about yourself, it is apparent that you are a real player and not some kind of paper tiger. ..."
    You are correct. I play hundreds of hands per week. Its really interesting to look/listen at  other players on the table. Mainly observing the regulars that seem to consistently win more often or more $ than they lose. I also note the ones that seem to consistently lose more often than they win.
I learn from both parties.

"We all learn things here. When I started my journey on forums, I was as naive as any newbie could be but I always dared to innovate with improving knowledge."

    Well stated and I agree 100%. I try to learn something new as often as possible re: all things related to Bac. Sometimes I catch a nugget from veterans and sometimes from newbies.

welcome back albalaha

Continued Success,

Hi 8OR9

I like your statement:
"...I think if you have developed a bac method which can turn a negative -1.2 expectation in bac to a positive expectation of about  1.5 % or 2%, or can generate a 1.5 to 2 unit win per shoe over a very large sample size, then I would use a simple conservative          % of bankroll method to bet..."

     Personally, I think it's doable (i.e., an advantage approaching 1.2%), though difficult. I like your addendum sentence "or can generate a 1.5 to 2-unit win per shoe" as this latter is likely even more doable vs the former.
I think one would agree: We often win "first" in many of our shoes yet finish that same shoe trailing.

*As I side thought. I also feel strongly it is almost impossible to beat a game consistently when said game has a written-in edge >3.0%. Nor should we try if one has access to a lower H.E. game.

**Furthermore, and in the opinion of Kungfubac:
Even if we don't have an advantage greater than H.E. and let's say our skillset only reduces a H.E. from 1.2% to let's say 0.60% (approx. 1/2 of written-in edge). For us to then choose to challenge another even-chance game (all other variables the same) with a 3.0% H.E. means one's skillset must be 5x greater.
Obviously doesn't guarantee us to be long-term winners. Though it helps and I need all the help I can get.