Hi KFB!

a) waiting that a moderate-strong unwanted deviation will come out then betting huge;
    Can you give a specific example of this (and how you would typically wager that spot. e.g., One bet , 2-step neg pro,...etc, or do you do a longer neg pro (say 5-step neg pro),...etc. or None of the above?  other?

Practically it's the RTM effect applicated to certain subsuccessions when same bet selections are utilized.
We know that random and independent productions won't give any exploitable room to get this effect working, in the sense that no matter the point of the subsuccession we consider as 'trigger', future results will be conformed to expected (unbeatable) values.
Fortunately at baccarat things are quite different.

Thus after a moderate-strong deviation of a less likely event (unwanted event) and while wagering toward a more likely event, our EV won't be always negative but moving within different ranges in relationship of how unrandom was the production.
Very rarely it may happen that the actual shoe is so 'unrandomly' shuffled that the 'more likely world' remains just as a potentiality.
But itlr (say in every term beside very short terms) the number of RTM spots will overcome the remaining situations.

Hence, fictionally waiting toward such strong-moderate less likely events deviations before betting more often than not will erase and invert the HE.

It's obvious that the betting amount reflects the actual strategy we wish to employ at the table.
I'll be more specific in my next post.

Yet if a 'moderate' deviation is a good trigger to risk our money at, we must know that sometimes 'moderate' could shift into 'strong' instead of going toward the searched RTM effect.

So our possible edge won't be 'proportionally' placed in relationship of how many bets we have won or lost (for real or fictionally) previously as the actual level of unrandomness will make a primary role about results.

as.

You are too kind with me, KFB! Thanks a lot!
I'm looking forward to hear from you more comments on that, thanks again.

Continuing the topic.

Nine.

Casinos get their (huge) baccarat profits by a very slow winning rate, step by step and the proof is that not infrequently many premises register one or a couple of losing months per year.
Math (HE) needs time to get its full power.

Similarly successful players collect the wins by the same slow rate, step by step.
Statistical procedures (but even math advantaged situations) need time to get their full power.

Time is paramount when gambling and it can't be restricted by human guesses or hopes.

Ten.

Systems tend to give the idea that they can win little by risking a lot, yet also casinos could risk a lot by potentially winning little.

Players duty is to get more symmetrical (or asymmetrically shifted to their side) the above assumption:

a) casinos confide about two different levels of 'certainty': HE (100% sure) and random productions (unsure).

b) players cannot do nothing about HE but they can be sure about the non random productions.

Everything eventually converges into the 'probability of success' (POS), that is the level of certainty to be winners itlr.

Casinos will have a 100% POS providing their productions are really random; since they are not, their POS can't be 100%.

Players know very well that itlr math related POS is 0 (so every system based on math is worthless), providing every production to be random.
Since this last parameter is not fulfilled, their POS varies with different levels of confidence.

Eleven.

Powerful 'systems' provide a very diluted betting scheme in relationship of actual outcomes as no matter the unrandomness of the production very few spots will get us a manageable and detectable edge over the house.
Actually the edge remains constant but the variance will be more 'controllable' thus privileging a lower bankroll employment.

The common denominator is the 'complexity' of considered patterns as there's no way to get 'more likely' complex events to be denied for long per every shoe dealt.

Maybe more likely complex events stay silent for one step or two, sometimes for three steps, then they invariably will come out.

Of course the texture of the actual shoe will help us to define the terms of intervention of such probability, sometimes 'enemy' patterns show up so rarely that the shoe is a 'sky's the limit' one.

A careful assessment of such different probabilities percentages constitute the basis of the 'progressive' betting made by a multilayered multilevel scheme.
We'll see tomorrow this topic.

as.

Setting up a system

In probability theory a well know concept is "The impossibility of a gambling system".

The principle of the impossibility of a gambling system is a concept in probability. It states that in a random sequence, the methodical selection of subsequences does not change the probability of specific elements. The first mathematical demonstration is attributed to Richard von Mises (who used the term collective rather than sequence).


Richard Von Mises is an old acquaintance on these pages, mainly as he postulated the strongest definition of randomness ever.

Here we want to consider in practical non academic terms whether a system is 'possible' at baccarat.

One.

It's intuitive to think that if no system works any other approach wouldn't. Providing sequences are random regardless of the method utilized.
In a nutshell, successful players of both categories rely upon 'non randomness' of the outcomes.

It's quite easy to see whether a system is good or destined to fail, it's more debatable to know if a 'no system' player will be ahead itlr.
Yet with no strict measuraments of the results (of course that must be replicable), we are talking about thin air.


Two.

Advantages of a possible system over other approaches

Poor emotional impact over the outcomes. If we have tested that a system will work itlr, no weird situations (e.g. see my post above) should affect the mechanical steps of the process, maybe by luring players to deviate from the procedure.


Disadvantages.

Above statement: Easier sayed than done.
Think about being in the strong negative field and to face patterns we don't bet and making huge winners the rest of the table.

After all, best players in the world are gamblers, maybe making educated guesses but remain gamblers.
That is it's best to win and being happy than winning in a kind of depressed mood.

Unfortunately it's less likely to be happy and winning than to be sad or in neutral mood and losing.

Three.

A system player is more adapted to the natural negative variance than any other player, mainly as he/she thinks the game as a long term succession not splitted into sessions, days or other very short term evaluations.
At the same token he/she generally considers in a more careful fashion the strong positive situations happening along the course of his/her action.


Four.

Technicality #1

A possible system works by a strict flat betting scheme.
If any shoe dealt would produce random successions the probability to win is 0.
Humans can't read randomness by any means, actually casinos hope their shoes to be randomly offered and somewhat hoping some shoes will produce strong deviations to be caught by players. So giving the perfect 'illusion' that the game could be beaten.

HE can only be beaten by a bet selection working at supposedly unrandom productions and not by progressions or human guesses, therefore most of our bets must be placed at EV+ spots otherwise we'll lose.

Five.

Technicality #2

Standard deviation values of our bets are the watchdog of randomness or possible unrandomness.

Say that after 10 sets of 1000 resolved (no ties) hands wagered our system had encountered a losing streak not greater than 8.
Expected probability teaches us that after 10.000 resolved hands wagered a greater than a 8 losing streak will come out on average nearly 19 times. But we got no one.

Is this a valuable finding to set up a system?
But more importantly, what are the best spots to risk our money at?

Six.

Technicality #3

Baccarat is not black jack where classes of cards orient the probability toward the house or the player so needing millions of simulations to know the 'estimated' (as many cards are burnt from the play) favourable or unfavourable math values.

Simplifying, a possible bac system capable to win after 10.000 resolved hands is a pretty good one.
If the system provides a strict flat betting scheme, the probability to be ahead by chance is very close to zero.

Seven.

Technicality #4

Collectives (result successions taken by infinite levels) getting sd values quite different to expected values applied to a random model and in consideration of the math probability of the possible outcomes are not real collectives. So unrandom shaped by definition. So fkng beatable.

Eight.

Technicality #5

Regardless of a bet selection capable to get the advantage of verified smaller sd values than expected, variance remains a strong enemy of every system or replicable approach, especially when adopting a flat betting scheme.

In order to reduce the variance's impact acute players tend to utilize three ploys:

a) waiting that a moderate-strong unwanted deviation will come out then betting huge;

b) progressively betting by a multilayered multistep scheme just on positive spots;

c) progressively betting by a multilayered multistep scheme after negative spots of any lenght came out (so a light negative spot constitutes the trigger).

Once we've verified our possible edge, the decision to take one of the three different approach is unimportant, maybe and providing a proper bankroll a mix of the three is best.

Remember that anytime we sit at a bac table we must adopt a kind of 'sky's the limit' approach, the only thing we can concede at casinos is their HE that counts nothing itlr.

as.

That's the 'beauty' of side bets: they do not come out often but rarely they show up so clustered that there's no shame to put a tiny bet on them.

as.

Thanks KFB!

How to lose the composure in 7 hands

Oh well, I thought to be immune to the worst scenarios but I can't believe about this sequence spread in two shoes. All hands were consecutive losses. 

Hand #1  Bet on Banker (2-10) 8, Player shows (A-J) K

Hand #2 Bet on Player (Q-5) 3, Banker (2-Q) 7

Hand #3 Bet on Player (J-J) 8  Banker (J-10) 9

Hand #4 Bet on Banker (A-A) 8  Player (9-2) K. Quite funny it's a sort of repetition of hand #1

Hand #5 Bet on Banker (3-2) 5 Player (4-10) 7

Hand #6 Bet on Player (Q-8) Banker (A-8)  Ok, a classical hand in the 'right' moment of the night 

Hand #7 Bet on Player (2-J) 6 Banker (6-K) 3

Bad sequence? Not necessarily, think about those three 200:1 spots...

as.

It's quite likely that whenever we sit at a bac table we find ourselves to gamble instead of carefully considering our opportunities.

Gambling = losing

Most of the times gambling means to ride a possible wave to last for long or forever or, worse, to get it to stop after a long negative sequence.

It's a proven fact that gambling rides in direct relationship of the betting rate, the more we gamble higher will be our 'gambling factor' leading us to a sure loss.

Unfortunately as humans we like to gamble way more whenever we're losing, not considering that every bet is a new bet.

More bets we're placing higher will be the probability to fall into the 'undetectable' world but this thing is true only whenever we're considering bets as single bets and not by 'ranges'.

It's like that sometimes we have to take the casino's hope, that is to bet the opposite side we have thought to wager or simply not to bet at all.

The only way casinos are losing serious money is whenever strong univocal situations happen (and it doesn't happen so often), thus the only way we players might win serious money is by wagering the opposite more likely counterpart or to bet the univocal situations up to a point. Or, better yet, not to bet at all.

Practically speaking the winning process is a delicate evaluation of winning or losing streaks, knowing thay we can afford to let them to reach some values without risking a dime.

as.

 I would be inclined to do a fractional addendum press% as a function of the original bet size not the most recent bet size as wannawins' example. In his example I would be more inclined to make the increase a f(x) of the $10 base unit( e.g.,($10 +5 +3,  ,, etc). Obviously it is easier with a larger starting-size wager (Plus I find it easier to do with a metric that uses a base bet easily divided by sixths (e.g., $60 or one could use $30, though most of my casinos are $50 min). The sixths provides options just in case we can put together a longer streak. Its difficult to put together a longer streak than six so I wouldn't be too overly concerned on what to do after the sixth press.
For example ($60,90,110,...etc) or (1+1/2+1/3 ,...etc) with my main point being to make each successive press a less-than-or-equal press % than the previous press %.

Excellent point, KFB!!

The mere W or L consecutiveness is just one aspect of the problem and it's not going to work itlr.

as. 

I'd think that there are times to get some situations to last and other times to play those events to stop. We'll see this important topic within a couple of days.

as.

Al, I've carefully read your post about randomness at bac, I'll present my opinions on the subject here.

Baccarat randomness

You sayed well: probability theory and randomness are very intricate fields, many times producing strong disagreements among statistics and math experts.

Here we are talking about a gambling game and, more importantly, about its possible beatability.
Whereas it's debatable a sure and firm definition of 'randomness', we are certain that a pure random EV- game can't be beaten.
I agree with you that 'reading randomness' is a foolish attempt to take the best of bac and having a 0 possibility of success.
But since I know some successful and consistent bac winners (including myself, you and probably a couple of other forums writers), I infer that the most likely (!) explanation is that the game is not so randomly distributed thus giving very few players the hints to beat it itlr.

In fact, if a player tells he/she's beating baccarat and at the same time stating that the baccarat production is 'random', well this person should be able to win even at single 0 roulettes where for sure the production is random.
Now I haven't known a single person capable to win at unbiased wheels but at baccarat such people exist.
Of course another possible reason is that roulette outcomes are totally independent and bac is a slight card dependent game, but again that confirms that some portions of the shoe are not random.

Uncertainty vs randomness

Casinos' profits prosper about a indeniable math edge and for the 'uncertainty' of the outcomes that has nothing to share with pure randomness.

For example, even at bj where math edges shift from the house to the players, the 'uncertain' world poses a serious treat about such math edge. As the 'randomness' condition may not be satisfied.
That happens as we just make an 'estimation' of the high cards-aces/low cards ratio; in poor words our expected profitable high cards portions could be confined right at the unplayable end of the shoe.
That is when a favourable math edge is verified, we need shoes to be shuffled by a fair level of randomness.

At baccarat the opposite is true. IMO.
Since we can't rely upon a math edge, we must 'hope' shoes are not perfect randomly shuffled and this thing can more likely happen at some portions of the shoe as almost all cards are used to be played.

The fact that we are 'uncertain' about the next hand(s) destiny doesn't necessarily mean hands are 'randomly' shuffled as the uncertain world can be measured whereas a random world can't besides the common 'imperfect' and general values not helping us in any way. (Obviously this last part of the statement implies a kind of perfect random shuffle for every shoe dealt)

How to detect a possible non randomness at baccarat

If some people win consistently at this game just two things must happen: a) bac productions are non random; b) baccarat successions produce flaws capable to erase and invert the negative math edge.
Since the scientific world has denied the latter possibility (at least at a significant level, see Jacobson studies about a perfect PC card counting technique made on BP hands), the only possible explanation is about non randomness whether properly exploited.

First, how to classify any events succession as 'really' random?

General probability theory doen's help much in this way for its intrinsic limits and foremost for a lack of deep studies made on the subject. Always oriented to get a kind of advantage by knowing certain cards concentration/dilution helping one side.

But, more importantly, is the succession we're facing really randomly produced?

Jaynes, Keller, Diaconis and others made important studies about this issue, yet the best definition of randomness I like is the RVM's one.
Simplifying, no matter which point of the succession you take, a random production will get the same limiting values of relative frequency at any different point considered.
And at baccarat this thing doesn't exist.

Say I'll ask you: what's the probability that a toss or several tosses of a specific dice will show a '6' face?
Obviously the 'theorical' best answer is 1/6, that is 16.666%.
Say that after 100 tosses the frequency of '6' is 20%. You could think that this is a natural effect of positive variance getting normal sd values (even quite deviated toward one side).
If after 1000 tosses the frequency still stands around 19% or 20% you might think that the dice is  biased or that the 'shooter' doesn't 'randomly' toss the dice in some way.
After 10.000 tosses you'll get a clearer picture of what the 'actual' probability is about the dice getting a '6' face.

But regarding the actual dice probability to show a '6' there are more important properties to look for other that the final occurence: for example what's the most likely number coming out after any number different than 6.
Or splitting the outcomes into odd and even categories, or classifying the average gaps between '6's.

At baccarat we might think that the production is somewhat biased, but in the same way a possible dice may be biased or unrandomly tossed under multiple statistical parameters (and most of the times is not), we need a proper amount of hands to exploit such flaws. Shoe per shoe.

as.

Remember that at baccarat you can choose the side to wager any amount you wish and anytime you wish.
And maximum limits are quite huge.

Moreover, bac players are considered as pure losers even while betting thousands.
At bj tables, people utilizing a $20-$80 betting spread seem to be a treat for the house. LOL.

as. 

If shoes will produce inconsistent patterns for long, that is featuring propensity values not surpassing some cutoff points, the game would be easily beatable by a simple MM procedure.

Unfortunately the number of shoes NOT featuring inconsistent patterns are a large minority, so we're somewhat forced to 'guess' when different levels of propensity will surpass or not such cutoff points.

Therefore to hope to win itlr P (P1 + P2 * P3, etc) must be cumulatively > R (random world). In other words if P=R we cannot have a single possibility to win itlr.

Obviously we can confide that the R is just a virtual entity to face, as cards cannot be properly and randomly shuffled per every shoe dealt.
So R is not a perfect R, then P must be larger than R at least at some portions of the shoe capable to erase a P=R effect.

Yes, even R will produce natural Ps, but in the long run those Ps are surely inferior to the number of Ps following an actual unrandom card distribution. And needless to say, right guesses made when R seems to overwhelm Ps are just symmetrically placed. That is unbeatable by definition.

That's why Alrelax stressed about the importance to adhere at most of what the actual shoe is presenting. That is not hoping to get infinite Ps, but to select the situations where P should be greater than R as it's a natural occurence at unrandom shoes.

Put things into a simplified way.

We think that a kind of P propensity will happen after a given event(s) happened.
Of course whether the production is really random, the number of right 'guesses' will be equal to the number of 'wrong' guesses. Unbeatable propositions as P=R.

Actually a bac shoe is oriented to form many P flows, even multiple low level Ps will produce a pattern. Easily beatable by a MM approach. 
Do not be fooled about the supposedly 'randomness' of the shoes, it's a fkng idiocy stated by mathematicians that like to mix different asymmetrical situations into a whole.

Baccarat is a game of clusters getting different levels of appearance.
Each level follows a general probability to happen that must be compared to the actual probability.

as. 

For sure to win itlr at baccarat we need to 'catch' the 'best' propensity coming out from the actual card distribution.
We do not need astounding propensity values to be ahead of the math negative edge, everything moves around tiny percentages that in the long run will add up.
Definitely whenever those great propensity levels come around we better take advantage of them. Yet they are not so likely to show up.

That's why statistics will help us to define the terms of intervention as huge propensity values are not coming around the corner.

A given card distribution eliciting a univocal propensity happening for the entire shoe is out of order, it's way way more probable to get several 'propensity' levels.

Card matchings forming B/P or r/b results act by several levels quite different than a 50/50 independent model.

Thus we may introduce the term of 'shoe multiple propensity levels', meaning that cards may or may not endorse the formation of some patterns.

So propensity P could be splitted into subclasses of P1, P2, P3 and so on.

Later.

as.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

I totally support KFB idea, maybe by choosing different locations besides Vegas.

as.

Random walk steps applied to a bac card distribution

In a random and symmetrical proposition (e.g. a coin flip succession), random walk steps are undetectable by definition. Several roulette studies (ignoring zero/es) confirmed that no matter after which trigger point we'll decide to bet (example after a 3 or greater sigma happening at one side), every next spin will be 50/50.
Obviously.

At baccarat things work in a similar way only apparently.

First, the propositon is asymmetrical by the rules (B>P);

Secondly, there's a more important asymmetrical factor regarding the actual card distribution, being finite and slight dependent;

Third, we have strong reasons to think that bac shoes are not perfect randomly shuffled.

Putting things into a semplified scheme:

- Coin flip successions: symmetrical + symmetrical = symmetrical

- Bac shoe successions: asymmetrical + asymmetrical + asymmetrical = asymmetrical

Itlr both propositions will approach more and more the math expected values (50% for coin flips and 50.68%/49.32% for BP hands) but surely by different random walk steps.

Nonetheless at baccarat there are some patterns more likely to roam around the 0 point, that is getting a lesser number of bell curve thick 'tails'.
Those that can be a 'heaven' or a 'hell'.

It could be surprising that three levels of asymmetry are roaming more probably around a 0 neutral point (providing the patterns to look for), but that's it.

A possible explanation is that whereas a math asymmetry (B>P) works as a costant, the remaining two factors tend to overwhelm (or conversely to endorse) the first propensity.
In practical terms everything stands as a more likely 'clustered' probability working at different steps.

Naturally such steps are whimsically placed along shoes, anyway 'heaven' and 'hell' will get more detectable spots than an unbeatable random and independent symmetrical proposition. For their more likelihood to go toward left or right up to cutoff points and always considering a 0 'target'.

More on that next week.

as.

BTW I was not only referring to jackpot type shoes.  But, your mind cannot easily adapt to wagering for chops, 1s-2s-3s, cuts after ties and/naturals, etc., etc., if you are into strong clumping, streaks and side bets/bonuses and so on and vice versa.

Spot on!

That's why, imo, many times we shouldn't bet at all especially when losing so a possible philosophy to adopt may be:

"If I'm betting here I'm more likely to lose more than partially recovering the loss"

This is a asymmetrical situation affecting our mindset as the damage of getting one more loss is superior than the benefit of winning one single hand.

as.