Winning and losing is a constant asymmetrical process made of multiple endless micro variations of the system

Despite of knowing that some rare bets will be slight EV+, in the remaining cases and considering a fair number of shoes dealt, there's no way to get 'a lot' of more W hands than L hands and neither to get a kind of 'balanced' W/L scenarios unless the 'time' factor will be inserted in our plan.
Obviously the issue is true even at the opposite way, that is we'll never get a lot of L hands than W hands (providing the same fair amount of shoes dealt).

Therefore itlr W=L, but more often than not micro variations make W>L and L>W just temporarily.

Anybody here knows how's easy to be ahead after few hands played and how is difficult to be ahead after 3, 4 or more shoes played.
The HE has almost no impact on such probabilities, actually casinos rely a lot more on the players   inaptitude to realize when the bac coin is unlikely 'biased' toward HHHHH than HTHHT patterns (just to utilize the above example).

The idea to try to reverse a L sequence into a W one is very hard to exploit and is always subjected to a high level of variance.
After all it's the strategy employed by the most part of bac players trying to get the best of it around any corner of the shoe.

See u later

as.

Ok, thanks Al for your answer (I particularly like this passage: "but if it comes you embrace it and hug the perfect whatever")

as. 

Thanks KFB!

Finite/ Order

I find the concepts of the two words in bold very important for how we should view the overall outcomes. Its good for us to understand the finiteness(I call it approaching limits) of outcomes. Just as importantly the order( If an outcome occurs First), yet the total outcomes may still be near even. The order of events are very important.

I agree.

The 'order of events' is why we could beat this game as it's the principle of pure randomnness put at stake.

Besides of the minimal HE, casinos collect huge sums of money by relying upon the probability that players cannot win at random successions, meaning that everything is always possible by undetectable levels.

But the more we're restricting the field of operations greater will be the probability to get various random walks following a 'more probable' limited world.
The HTHHT vs HHHHH 'battle' coming out first is just an example and here we're talking about a perfect independent and random proposition.

That's why a very limited amount of wagers might greatly help us to define the issue as the 'order of events' must follow more probable lines.

In fact the average card distribution makes more probable some order of events, especially whether we're considering multiple results lines.
It's like the baccarat coin is somewhat biased, anyway not conceding us but a slight edge that must be grasped by statistical issues.

So if after 3000 hands played we haven't crossed a single 10 consecutive losing streak, we could be either on a fluke or be up on something.
After 10.000 of played hands, the same scenario could be named either a miracle or a sort of HG.

as.

Thx Al, please elaborate this concept

5). Do not fight the perfect, which will squash most of all your chances to win the larger sums of money.

Thanks in advance

as.

Guessing and playing the probabilities

IMO at baccarat there's nothing to guess or hope for, just making ourselves in the best position to grasp the probability spots where a so called 'independent' and finite world should produce more likely situations acting at various levels of probability.

Obviously in some way such statement must negate the perfect 'independence' of the outcomes, yet we've seen that even at coin flip successions where itlr A=B, some A patterns are more probable to come out first than some B patterns.

An easy corollary of that is that B 'slower' patterns sooner or later MUST come out clustered in order to catch up their 'temporary' more normal deficit.
We do not know the precise situations when this thing will happen but we do know that it will surely happen.

A good rule of thumb not to be ever forgotten is that the more we're trying to 'guess' or 'hope for' greater is the probability that our money will fall into casino's pockets, as no matter how smart we're or sophisticated is our plan, every single bet is still math EV-.
So we need a quite strong 'probability' plan capable to lower, erase or invert the constant unfair payement we're facing at every bet we'll place.

In poorer words, educated 'probability' possibly working at our favor cannot be increased by a simple MM plan as it must be measured first by a strict FB approach.
And this FB edge comes out by over selecting the bettable spots that must overpass the 'normal' and the more likely negative levels of variance.

It's the same opposite assumption taken by casinos that would get 'miserable' profits by only exploiting their 1.25% or so math edge, instead constantly focused to let winning players to get the invariable losing streaks they're entitled to suffer if they're hopelessly guessing hands around any corner.

That's why a minimum profitable effect (MPE) applied to some events will put the casinos to hope for very unlikely clustered scenarios before getting our money.
If we've measured that MPE events > anything else, we're playing with a robust edge.

as.

Thanks for the contribute 8OR9!!!

Vegas, among other things, is specialized to test the humanhood ignorance, so I'm not surprised to watch at people wagering at three zeroes wheels.
Compared to them, black jack players betting at 6:5 instead of 3:2 look as 'geniuses'.

Also many Vegas baccarat tables raised their HE by offering 'Tiger' tables (a B hand winning by a 6 point is payed half the bet), so getting a 0.40% more edge on Banker winning bets.
A strong inversion after Dragon F-7 tables were introduced some years ago (lowering the B edge to almost 1%).
It's true that Tiger side bets are beatable via card counting, yet people continue to think that at those Tiger tables Banker is still the best bet to make, whereas it isn't by a 0.22% math worse edge.

Then try to estimate how's the 'fee' compared to the buy-in at incoming WSOP tournaments where best poker players are supposed to get the 'suckers' money: Before fee of course.
 
as. 

I had to cancel my last post as it was too confusing.

Obviously HTHHT (and every other heterogeneous patterns) will tend to come out first than HHHHH as any T result will make the HHHHH (and every other superior homogeneous pattern) to restart the process, even though itlr HTHHT=HHHHH that is patterns having a 0 sum.

We have seen that by betting the very first and second spot of any shoe towards singles or doubles  and arranging them in clusters could be the basis to set up a plan.
It's not important the actual 'lenght' of 1/2 vs 3+s or the lenght of the 'isolated' 3 streaks,  we should only be focused about the minimum 'clustering' effect that is 1.

Then any cluster of more probable events (1/2) coming out 'first' will be in turn and more often than not, followed by another cluster of the same class. (And again the value to look for is 1).
Deeper is the process of registering such events distribution and greater will be our probability of success.

Just in case and as a form of additional (but needing a very large bankroll) tool, we might adopt the progressive 7-cycle betting where per every sequence 93 out of the possible 128 patterns are winning and just 35 of them are losers.

Summary.

For simplicity let's continue to take care just of the first and second 'events' coming out per every shoe dealt.
Any single or double is a W and any 3 streak is a L.
Itlr W=L (actually and assuming singles as neutral at both sides, there's a very slight propensity to get more doubles than 3 streaks, so W>L...before vig of course) but things change in terms of distribution.

Since we need three Ws to 'balance' one L, we'll just wagering one time at WW vs WL and LW vs LL situations.

Anyway even those WW and LW situations will be distributed by clusters coming out first, so WW(L..)WW and LW/LW or LW(W)LW events are arranged by following their propensity.

It's true that this kind of 'cluster plan' won't exploit properly long W successions, but at the same time 'bad' very unlikely but possible situations as WLLLLLWLLWLLL (just three singles/doubles and ten 3 streaks distributed by this exact combination) will make a minor damage, that is 6 consecutive two-step losses instead of a cumulative -27 unit loss).
If we would adopt the 'second level' clustering effect, there are just 4 consecutive two-step losses (WLLx and the second WLL).

Remember that the average number of 3(+) streaks is 9.5 and of course even if such streaks are concentrated at the very first and second patterns of each shoe, many permutations won't make sensible damages.

Many might think that such approach will just dilute the problem not solving it. They are right, from a strict mathematical point of view, sooner or later very unlikely sequences will come out to destroy this plan, but it takes several thousands and thousands of shoes dealt to cross this unfortunate situation. (It could happen tomorrow, the like a 28-30 B hand streak may come out)
 
Sadly we have more important reasons to face as the Global Warming Effect is giving us very few years ahead.
We have hit by chance the 78% N2, 21% O2 and 0.04% CO2 atmosphere 'jackpot', but we did everything and continue to do everything to waste it.
 
as.

You have to judge decisions on a process, rather than an immediate outcome as a general rule, bar a few clear advantaged events occasionally that will present themselves from time to time.

Don't get me wrong, you can't totally ignore or push aside clear results/outcomes within a section of the shoe, that are so blatantly positive or negative that can be to your advantage, just use it to improve or change courses of action to your benefit.


+1

as.

KFB:

IMO this is key: Individual random events are, by definition, unpredictable, but if the probability distribution is known, the frequency of different outcomes over repeated events (or "trials") is predictable[

Or my preferred way of saying that last sentence:
"but if the probability distribution is known, the frequency of different outcomes over repeated events (or "trials") is SLIGHTLY MORE predictable VS RANDOMLY GUESSING[ "

Excellent.

Then if some 'complex' events display an EV+ attitude even better...

as.

Dear friend, what I've written is the pure truth.

I'm deadly sure I'm playing with an advantage over the house, yet many times your suggestions helped me by transforming a 'normal' negative short term variance into positive or neutral situations.

as.

In a famous experiment (Confessions of a Coin Flipper and Would-be Instructor) C. Konold found out (contrary to the 'expert' common belief, including him) that after a fair number of coin flip trials the HTHHT sequence will invariably come out first vs the HHHHH succession, despite both patterns have the exact (theorical) same probability to appear.
His purpose was to emphasize one of the many Gambler's Fallacies affecting our brain, that is our 'overalternating' way of consider binary random outcomes.

Thus if you find someone willing to face your 1:1 bets where you'd bet that HTHHT sequence will come out FIRST than the HHHHH sequence, you'll get the sure EV+ side.

Obviously itlr every 5-hand coin flip pattern will come out with the same values (but by different frequency), otherwise gambling games wouldn't exist.
Moreover we won't find a game where all intermediate "no win/no lose" patterns will get us a neutral situation before getting a W (HTHHT coming out first) or a L (HHHHH showing up first).

Anyway, it's natural to think that if the HTHHT sequence will come out FIRST than the HHHHH sequence, many other heterogeneous patterns will follow the same propensity.

More importantly is the fact that along the way the HHHHH sequence getting the same 1/32 other pattern's probability to appear must 'catch up' in some way this 'deficit'. And of course it can do that just by coming out 'clustered', that is by a W/L ratio greater than 1/32.
This calls into question, albeit by an 'opposite' way of thinking,  the 'probability in decline' feature already discussed here.

it's just a matter of 'time', huh?


as.

Coin flip curiosities

Coin flip successions are unbeatable? Sure.

Does any coin flip pattern of the same lenght and different HT distribution have the same probability to appear by a 'time' factor? Nope.
That is some patterns are more likely to come FIRST than others, then obviously itlr all patterns of the same lenght will equal.

See you later.

as.

Glen, it's a very good post filled of ideas I've implemented in our play.
I don't recall the times when while waiting to place a dubious bet, your suggestions came to my help and believe me or not, I was more right than wrong (even by not betting at all, of course).
I even named them as 'Al spots'. Maybe I'll make some comments on that at my section.

But my basic approach remains strictly 'probability' based as I have to rely upon something that was demonstrated to be reliable beyond any doubt even though the short term variance could be a harsh obstacle to overtake.

So I continue to think that setting up a plan about your ideas is a very complicated task needing a lot of experience, I mean years and years of real play with an 'educated' mind. 

Even Giz replies are interesting, particularly when he wrote:

It's one thing to see a trend or a pattern. It's another to know if it is in a coincidental phase of working temporaraly or not. Knowing is everything.

BTW, I do not think randomness is beatable but the fact that he keeps making references about roulette ECs 'as a whole' where numbers are not perfect equally distributed (besides R/B numbers) on the wheel could be food for thought.

Anyway good thread.

as.

Why coin flip successions (EV=0) are unbeatable but baccarat EV- successions could be beatable?

There are several answers to this question, the main one relies upon the asymmetrical probability acting at every hand dealt as besides N9/N9, N8/N8, S7/S7 and S6/S6 points, every other hand will be hugely favorite to eventually win from the start. And this is due to the asymmetrical card distribution working per every shoe offered.

That's a quite of difference with a coin flip succession where the winning probability is always and endlessly symmetrical.

One could argue that we never know which side will be hugely favorite to win after two initial cards are dealt, but this is a completely wrong assumption as 'complex' patterns will help us to define the issue.

In poor words, most bac spots provide a kind of 0 sum (unbeatable spots), others are slightly shifted toward a precise outcome where math doesn't get any sensible role (for obvious reasons as itlr EV is mathematically negative).

Simplyfing, baccarat is just a matter of EV+ card distribution spots variance and where attempts to 'control' the vast part of EV- situations are worthless.
The clustering effect taken in its various forms is just one factor to take care of; there are other issues, some of them brilliantly discussed here by Alrelax and KFB in their posts.

I've chosen the simple P singles / P streaks problem just because is a kind of 'math' less disadvantaged' proposition where a sort of 'sky's the limit' (but unnecessary) plan will get the best of it.

Remember that casinos want you to guess the fkng unguessable whereas professionals like to 'guess' what is slight more entitled to win, at the cost of waiting and waiting and waiting.

So let's act as black jack card counters do with the paramount difference that at baccarat there is no need to bet a dime at the vast majority of EV- spots coming around (at black jack 88-83% of all hands dealt are EV-). At the same time giving a role to the actual card distribution.

Next samples are taken randomly from live shoes collected at various LV premises:

1- S,S,S,R,R,R,R,R,S,R,S,R,S,S,S,R,R,R,R,S,S,S,S,R,R

(+ + + - - - -) (- - + - + + +) (- - - - + + +) - -

W, W, L(-1)

2- S,R,R,R,R,R,S,R,R,S,S,R,S,R,S,S,S,S,R

(+ - - - - + -) (+ - + + + + -)

W, W.

3- R,S,S,S,R,R,R,R,R,R,R,S,S,R,R,S,S,R.

(- + + - - + -) - + -

W, -1 at the final uncompleted 7-event sequence

4- R,S,S,R,R,R,R,S,S,R,R,S,S,S,S,R,R,S,S.

(- + + - - + -) (- + + + - - +)

W, W.

5- S,S,R,S,S,R,R,R,R,S,R,R,S,S,R,R,R,R

(+ + - + + - -) - - + - -

W and a -3 uncompleted L cycle.

6- R,S,S,R,S,R,R,R,R,R,S,S,R,R,R,S,R,S

(- + + - + - -) + - - - +

W and a -1 uncompleted cycle

7- S,R,S,S,R,R,S,R,S,S,S,S,R,R,S,R,S

(+ - + + - - -) (+ + + - - - +)

W, W.

8- S,S,R,S,R,S,S,R,R,R,S,R,R,R,R,S,S,R,S,R,R,S

(+ + - + - + +) (- - - - + - +) - -

W, -3 L.

9- S,S,S,S,S,S,R,R,S,R,R,S,S,S,R,R,R,R

(+ + + + + + -) (- - - + + - -)

W, -3 L

10- R,S,S,R,R,S,S,R,S,S,S,S,S,R,S,S,S,R,S,R

(- + + - - + -) (+ + + + + - +) + - + -

W, W.

11- R,R,R,S,R,S,S,R,S,R,R,S,S,R,R,R,S

(- - + + - + -) - + - -

L -1 and another uncompleted L -2

12- S,S,S,S,S,R,S,R,S,S,R,R,S,R,R,R,S,S

(+ + + + + - +) (- + + - - - -) +

W, W.

13- R,R,S,R,R,R,S,S,R,R,R,R,S,S,R.

(- - - - + - -) + -

L -5 and an uncompleted 0 situation.

14- S,R,S,S,S,R,S,R,R,S,S,R,R,R,S,S,R,S,S

(+ - + + + - +) (- - + - - + -) + +

W, L -3. (To get things at the worst scenario, we'll ignore the uncompleted ++ sequence)

15- S,S,S,R,R,R,R,S,R,R,R,R,S,R,R.

(+ + + - - - -) - -

A W and an uncompleted -2 L

16- S,R,S,S,S,R,S,S,R,S,R,R,R,S,S,R,S,R,S

(+ - + + + - +) (+ - + - - + -) + - +

W, W

17- R,S,R,R,S,S,R,S,R,S,S,S,R,R,R,S,S,S,S,S,S,R

(- + - - + - +) (- + + + - - +) + + + + -

L -1, W (and an uncompleted W sequence)

18- R,R,R,R,S,S,R,R,R,S,R,S,R,S,S,S,R,R,R,S

(- - + - - - +) - + + - -

L -3 and an uncompleted W sequence

19- S,R,R,R,R,S,S,S,S,S,R,R,R,S,R,S,S,R

(+ - - + + + +) - - - + + -

A W and an uncompleted -2 L sequence

20- S,R,R,S,S,S,S,R,R,R,R,S,S,S,S,S,S,S,S,S,R

(+ - - + + + -) (- + + + + + +) + + -

W AND W (and an uncompleted W sequence).

Despite that such randomly taken 20-shoe sample overall formed 696 B hands and 746 P hands (ties ignored), the P single vs P streak plan got no problems to endure the possible negative variance.
No matter how were the permutations. 

Again, if the less likely world keep happening, it will clustered shaped and after having surpassed the 1 cutoff value, we're not interested to chase a more likely propensity unless it comes out once.
Since we're stopping the betting at less likely situations coming out clustered but prolonging the more probable counterpart until it'll lose (or getting a kind of +1 ratio), we know to play with a kind of long term advantage.

It's quite easy to falsify this hypothesis: setting up the same plan by wagering the opposite: P streaks  vs P singles.

as. 

Quotere: clusters

--I also find that after catching a couple wins from said cluster it is beneficial to not keep looking for the same exact cluster or "grouping" (in that shoe). The initial concept is still valid in the residual of that shoe. However, the residual of that shoe now possess one less of the Previously Caught Cluster.

This is an excellent consideration ignored by the vast majority of bac players, one of the main reasons why they keep losing.

For example, it's very important that the 7-event cycle would start with a W or, at worst by a L followed by a W, yet those situations will be more likely whether the previous WL register applied to any of the 128 possible permutations have shown a kind of unbalancement toward Lx or LL.
The same about every other 'intermediate' WL 7-cycle succession that obviously can't show for long the same features.

We ought to remember that itlr P singles > P streaks, yet volatility will easily make many shoes to produce many P streaks at any point of our 7-event cycle.
So now the problem shouldn't be solved by chasing the mere number of P clustered singles but also by studying their 'shape' that more often than not continuously changes in its 'density'.

Moreover even a 'clustered' clustering effect is always in order, of course needing some shoes to be dealt: Now a FB approach will make the best of it without using any progression.

See u later

as.