Hi KFB!

Stup.id gambling experts think that baccarat is only beatable via edge sorting (a virtual technique) or card counting the side bets.
Bighorn.sh.it.

As long as a finite number of cards is shuffled into a playable shoe and cards are getting a different substantial value over the outcomes, some sure indeniable favourable spots are arising for the acute player.

Back to your questions.

Differently to many other outcomes, the probability mentioned above is well restricted into valuable 'variance' terms.
And more often than not everything is in direct relationship about how good or bad are shuffled the cards.

Say asymbacguy bet toward singles and doubles after a virtual win came out. He will play toward getting any kind of 1/2 clustered event.
He will lose whenever a 3+ streak will come out after any single 1 or 2 event shows up, that is a 3-1-3 or 3-2-3 situation.

Asymbacgirl will bet toward getting the exact opposite situation, that is hoping to get a 3-1-3 or 3-2-3 event at some point.

The difference is that asymbacguy, albeit being entitled to get more winning streaks than losing streaks, must bet two times to be right whereas asymbacgirl can wait to get 'key' spots to wager, that is she'll be 50% wrong or 50% right. 

Notice that consecutive 3+ streaks doesn't hurt either player.

Itlr, there's a probability that asymbacguy will get ALL winnings at a given shoe and a probability that asymbacgirl won't get ANY win.
Notice that both scenarios are mutually exclusive, meaning that whenever asymbacguy will get ALL winnings asymbacgirl won't get any win but at the same time she could get a lower amount of losing hands (as singles coming out after a 3+ streak won't entioce any action for her).

It's like that for once girls are somewhat more likely to win as it's more unlikely to get back-to-back ALL asymbacguy winnings for a couple of shoes dealt than getting two consecutive shoes not forming at least one spot to get asymbacgirl to win and with a way lower effort.

The reason stands about the relative unlikelihood to get a given number of 3+ streaks so much deviating from the average  by a abnormal deficit value than getting short-gapped 3+s streaks making asymbacgirl to win at least once in the most circumstances.
It's like that after a 3+ streak and a single or double appearance, any next double will make more likely to get a 3+ streak than another double. Obviously at percentages way different than what a 50/50 independent proposition dictates.

In practice.

Shoes not producing at least one 3+/1-2/3+ pattern are quite rare to happen, if not think about how many winnings in a row you would accumulate by wagering singles and doubles after either one of those events will show up after a 3+ streak.
And such opportunity cannot stand for long.

So assign a value about the probability to get a 3+/1-2/3+ pattern vs the specular 3+/1-2/2 pattern; most of the times you'll be right just once per shoe, so I would make a progressive plan about this simple opportunity.

Playing constantly toward such opportunities in a back-to-back way along any shoe dealt needs a strong bankroll, anyway the results will be slowly yet invariably shifted at your side, after all it's the same issue Alrelax stressed about here:

- when things seem to go in your favor, do not be shy to ride the positive wave. Sh.it happens in clusters the same way heaven happens in clusters.

Ties interfering with the actual play

It's true that after a tie and more often than not things tend to alter a given flow of the game, yet this attack seems to be quite insensitive to that, so I would recommend to consider a tie just as a 'neutral' event.

Conclusion.

A random walk playing to get a 3+/1-2/3+ streak is not going to get huge negative variance, especially if we'd search just one of this opportunity to happen per shoe.
Baccarat 'rule' is to get many 'unbalanced' outcomes than balanced ones.

It's sufficent to check your shoes and see how many times such opportunity won't happen back-to-back.

as.

Hi Kfb!
See you in a couple of days!

as.

Playing the 'short gapped' 3+ predominant streaks

This strategic plan is very powerful, especially when you have reasons to think that shoes are poorly shuffled.
Everything is based upon the verified probability that along the vast majority of shoes, there will be spots where key cards will be somewhat 'concentrated' to get a predominance of one side within a limited amount of hands.
Actually almost every bac player will be enticed to bet this propensity, yet there are some caveats to add.

There are just two 'triggers to follow:

a) BBB...PBB then betting B or PPP...BPP then betting P  (one time) and

b) BBB...PPBB then betting B or PPP...BBPP then betting P (one time)

Comments

1) This plan does get a strong advantage in terms of variance, meaning that it's quite difficult not to cross this situation for long. So a 'virtual losing strategy' along with any kind of progression will get the best of it by a wonderful positive probability.

2) We need that after the first 3+ streak (followed by a single or a double on the opposite side) an immediate 'double' come out, so nearly half of the possible situations won't belong to this plan (that is when a single come out).

3) It's recommended to look for the least amount of wins per shoe, that is 1.

4) This attack constitutes the 'enemy' of a simple single/double plan (betting toward 1s and 2s after a 'singled' 1/2 situation shows up); unfortunately such single/double plan tends to collide with the 'natural' probability that cards are one-sided clumped in some portions of the shoe. IOW (ty KFB) and without the help of additional factors, the 1/2 plan is affected by a greater volatility.

Take care

as.

Hi KFB!
You wrote:
I find it interesting when a long same-side streak presents in the first couple of columns and all of a sudden other players from nearby shoes come running over salivating for that streak "just one more time" . Though if the same length streak of say tres presents: pppbbbppp, not as much hoopla.  If the same-side streak is really long such as 10-11 in a row even other players from other games will often come by, gawk, and point,  and make statements like: "I would have made about $400K" or "I would own the casino IF i had been here",...etc. Oh well, at least they are optimistic.


Yep, you're right. 

Any long B or P streak is considered 'post hoc', that is after it happened, so pretending a player would bet it at the start of it or after a couple of hands belonging to that streak.

Rattlesnakesh.i.t.

At baccarat people constantly confiding in long streaks or long homogeneous patterns are going to lose without exception.
Casinos' fortune is that such players constitute the large majority of bac bettors, even though some unlikely shoes will make casinos to lose a lot of money at HS tables.

Nothing wrong to occasionally ride a long streak, after all after 1000 or so resolved hands dealt a 10-streak must happen on average.
The same about a 16 or more 1-2 long pattern not showing a 3 event.

But being optimistic is a lot different thing than being realistic.

as.

i]A streak of anything, does not have to be a banker or player run. [/i]

This is one of the best quote ever made regarding baccarat.

Streak= any event happening back to back (at various lenghts)

No streak= any event NOT happening back to back (at various lenghts)

Strategy #1.
Betting to get streaks of something, probability to win at least once at every shoe is 100%.

Strategy #2
Betting to get NO streaks of something, probability to win at least once is <100%.

Obviously the words 'at least once' will take a way different impact whether the number of bets per shoe are 72 or 10, for example.

Say we want to consider 'doubles' gaps, that is events not belonging to 'double' category within the 1 gap and >1 gap (so consecutive doubles are not included in this classification as belonging to the 0 class).
Even if the number of doubles in the actual shoe is quite huge, we can't refrain the shoe to produce >1 gaps and at the same time back to back precise 1 gap cannot get values greatly deviating from an average number.

So and proportionally considering their greater probability to happen than 3+s streaks, itlr double/no double/double patterns (1-gap) are coming out by a slight lesser probability than 3+/no 3+/3+ patterns.
For an obvious reason as they are more likely to show up clustered (0-gapped) than interspersed by just one 'no double' event.

Another reason why it's quite difficult to spot a shoe not showing up at least one 3+/x/3+ pattern is because cards are strongly asymmetrically placed (and for general asymmetrical game features) thus endorsing at least a transitory 6/1 B/P or P/B ratio or a 6/2 B/P or P/B ratio happening along any shoe dealt.

No need to employ fkng virtual edge sorting techniques, any shoe dealt in the universe will make more probable to get at some point at least one 1-gap 3+ streak (any 3+ streak followed by a no 3+ streak then followed by another 3+ streak).
Some variance will act (some rare shoes won't show any pattern as this) so virtually waiting to get many 'losing' spots will only raise your EV.

On the other end, selectively betting towards not getting certain doubles gaps is one of the best way to bringing down the house as we're just comparing general probabilities to actual asymmetrical card distributions.

Doubles and 3+ streaks flows are just an example, Al names such 'streak' opportunities as playable 'sections' or unplayable 'sections', the important thing to realize is they do come out on the vast majority of shoes and of course they do stop at some point.

as.

Run whatever number of shoes you wish (providing they are coming from a live source), you'll see that 2-3 clustered streaks (for example) are moving around more likely cutoff spots getting a very low variance. Especially if 'unfavourable' streaks are formed by unnatural two-card result situations.

It's like this fkng random walk could get the 'sky's the limit' approach without sweating that your QQ or AK all-in will win at a so called 'coin flip' challenges taken at either side.

But there's a strong interest to let people think that poker is an intelligent game whereas baccarat is just for stu.pi.d gamblers. Maybe by selling poker books instructing you how to get an Ace or a King when going all-in with A-K or avoiding those cards when going all-in with Q-Q.

Actually you'll make at least a 10-fold more money to play this approach than joining poker tournaments even as 'top notch' player.

Next week we'll meekly see how to get the best of it by exploiting card distributions, after all 'sky's the limit' world just belongs to poker players where only winnings are magnified without any mention of the actual losses (buy-ins).
Thinking in the same way we all bac players would be millionaire winners.

as.

Thanks Al and KFB!
I appreciated your replies.

Ties: As many times already written here, shoes particularly rich of ties do favor just one possible (not recommended) action. That is betting ties.
There's a mathematical answer about that: ties are well more likely to show up when 6 cards are utilized to form a hand and six cards could only enhance the volatility of outcomes.

Two-layer wagering regime: excellent point.
Test how many times in a row a 0.75 (or so) probability will be wrong along any shoe dealt. Of course and for reasons abundantly traced in my section the most emphasis must be put on the very first bet out of two.

Instruct shoes to get singled (not clustered) streaks of certain lenght (two different adjacent class streaks not getting a cluster of any lenght) for long and you'll see that it's very difficult to lose, especially if you have waited to fictionally miss one or two 2-wager steps.

Long streaks are more likely coming out from a poor shuffling, yet at the same time HS rooms particularly fear long streaks as they tend to let players winning many hands without guessing a fkng nothing.

There's no a precise streaks pattern to be followed, it all depends about the actual texture of the shoe.
Obviosuly 2-3 and 3-4 streaks are the more likely to be traced, naturally do not forget about the average 3+ streaks number happening along every shoe.

If this average 3+ streaks number is 9.5 per shoe, you may safely assume you'll cross more shoes getting stronger deviated sd values at the deficit side than at the surplus side.
Hence, for example, it's way more probable to get a shoe showing up to four or five 3+ streaks (-5.5 and -4.5) than a shoe forming the same symmetrical fourteen or fifteen  3+ streaks counterpart (+4.5 and +5.5).

Thus just a 2-3 streaks plan is going to get a valuable edge over the house, itlr. Of course strongly favoring the doubles appearance than 3s (being good anyway) or 3+s 'enemies.

To face such plan, house can only hope to get many 'singled' streaks situations in a row taken from a double-level shelf (I like KFB word) and the probability to not get such clustered spots is very low.

Moreover, acute buddies know that a math two-card situation can be sometimes disappointed, so 'unnaturally' prolonging a given streak or series of streaks. So it's like they kind of putting brakes on their plan.

Then, but this is a direct corollary of what sayed above, unlikely very long streaks tend to destroy this plan either by lack of proper room to get lower streaks appearance and by other reasons I won't discuss here.

as. 

Ok Al, that's a different story.

So a 'weak shoe' is anything that do not belong at any point of it to a strong or moderate polarized side, right?

When we do have reasons to think that a shoe will be 'weak' or 'strong'?

as.     

Quote from: alrelax on June 06, 2022, 12:07:31 AM
So many live for these types of shoes, then when they do appear just about the entire table is in real-life denial and wagering for the opposite side to match or just a continuous wagering for the so called, cut.  By the way, the last three natural bankers in the second run back to back, were all natural 9s over players natural 8s.  Which fueled the furious wagering on players. 

[attachimg=1]

Yep, but how many times such shoes are going to happen?

At every HS in the world this shoe means a very huge dent at casinos' pockets.

And we know that HS players are very welcome at every premise.

So I would infer that such shoes are not so likely to happen.

as.

ABG reponded: Another example is considering doubles vs 3+s streaks at byb and/or sr.

     You might clarify as Im not sure exactly what youre suggesting.


Well, it's more likely to find long 1-2 spots at byb and sr than at BR.
Actually we've found at byb and sr 1-2 series going up to consecutive 31 spots in a row without getting a 3+ streak than at BR (here maximum limit was 26).

For that matter and even taking into account the more probable 3s line, even CR will get an interesting amount of 'poor' 3s and many 1-2 spots.

Jackpots happen even at baccarat.

as.

Quote from: alrelax on June 05, 2022, 10:35:48 PM
As you wrote, "More often than not, long streaks are just an 'incident' happening along the way, so restarting the more natural process of  two-card math favorite situations."

Players confuse themselves terribly with chasing 'incidents'.  Defining them cause the highest majority to chase, wait, continue wagering, etc., and IMO it is dangerous.  The incidents will always come and go quickly. 

Problem is, if you win on defining an incident almost always you will give back and lose additional funds in front of yourself by wagering for it again and again.  Why?  Because you have just convinced yourself of a definable opportunity. 

Players will find all kinds of incidents and there are many many so called incidents coming out of the shoe.  Not just long streaks.

But yes, many times after long streaks there are sections of chops, but my experiences of chops can be two cards each side, or five cards, as well as six card total hands.

Wonderful points Al!

Most people think that 'incidents' are more likely to produce 'actual deviated outcomes' as the idea to quit a shoe is out of order.
Then some 'reversed' points must take into account.

Recently we've witnessed a HS player (wagering 5k or more) abandoning the table after a 11 B streak happened, I mean without getting a P hand to stop his winning streak.
Actually the 11 B streak collected another 5 more B hands to get a final 16 Banker streak.

I do not recall a single bac player quitting a winning streak by not chasing that streak up to an eventual end.
Casinos prosper on such id.i.ot.s.

as. 

ABG said: It's true that B or P 3s eventually belong to a more likely 3s/1-2s ratio, nonetheless itlr we'll face a slight greater number of shoes poorer of 3s than richer of 3s.

     I agree 100%. The main issue is we never know how many(3iar+) in that specific shoe, though we do know as each 3iar+ presents there is now one-less 3iar+ in the shoe. IOW the finiteness of Bac does present us with a limiting-type profile on most patterns. Just my thoughts/opinion.

Hi KFB!

Good points.
I'll give you the strategy of a couple of bac pros I know, maybe it could help:

They selectively bet that a double or a given series of doubles won't make or will do make a 3+ streak and vice versa for 3+s streaks.
Naturally they give more emphasis when the searched outcome will be a Banker wager.
And they bet huge. Really huge.

Either a double or a 3+ streak will make a cluster or not, but if everything would follow a kind of 'sky's the limit' clustering effect baccarat wouldn't exist at all.

It's like we're taking the casinos' part: we hope 'following patterns' players  sooner or later will be wrong and as players we do bet that in selected circumstances the 'wrong' works in our favor.

as.

Al wrote Problem for almost all bettors is, their belief that they should follow their experiences as well as what the shoe has previously proven or not proven.  I know that is a catch all statement, but and seriously BUT, the equilibrium usually prevails the highest majority of the times when it approaches - or + 10 and once again right at the - or + 20 mark, especially around the middle of the shoe.

Good point, then it's all about which patterns a player wants to follow or not.

The 'equilibrium' strenght or RTM effect or 'balancing' factor, whatever one wish to name this kind of natural happening produces  less strong deviations when many hands are needed to form a given pattern.
More hands form a pattern = less deviations.
Notice that long homogeneous streaks happening at either side do not belong to this category as just one hand which went unnaturally wrong for one side will simply prolong the already dominant side.   
And of course we cannot have any control on that.

What we can do, IMO, is to take the slight more natural flow of the things and comparing that to the actual shoe results.
So when many unnatural situations happen (the favorite two-card side will lose several hands) the shoe is not going to be a favourable one. Regardless of what the fkng roads will display, and even if we were winning at those unnatural hands as it doesn't last for long.

Long term data (and experience) help us just to find out the average math favorite spots flow; itlr we cannot expect to win by drawing a Player 3 point vs a Banker 7 maybe by shouting "two side".

More often than not, long streaks are just an 'incident' happening along the way, so restarting the more natural process of  two-card math favorite situations. 

as.

The alternate B/P symmetrical scheme

This is an interesting approach to let hands get their flow without having to guess nothing but the lenght of the winning and losing situations.
It's a strict mechanical registration.

The procedure is very simple to follow: after the first hand is dealt (say it's a P) every next hand will follow the PBPBPBPB...scheme up to the end of the shoe.
If it's a B we'll use the BPBPBPBP....scheme.

Naturally if the B or P hand dictated by the scheme will win, we'll sign a W, otherwise a L is signed.

So for example a shoe sequence as

BBB
PP
B
PP
B
PP...

first hand is a B so the sequence becomes a WLWWLLLWWWL...

To cut a long story short, only chopping situations of some quantity happen to form long winning or losing patterns as any streak of any lenght at either side will stop the winning or losing process.

The theoretical plan is to face a pure symmetrical 50/50 preordered proposition with the sure asymmetrical hands distribution (and quality) of every shoe dealt.

Obviously probabilities to W or L remain (almost) the same and in fact, as always, we're not interested about getting long W spots or trying to avoid the L ones, just to evaluate an average impact of such registration over the entire shoe and for series of shoes.

Notice that probability to get long WLWLWLWL or LWLWLWLW patterns are related just to the occurence of streaks of lenght 5 or higher: e.g. BBBBB (WLWLW under BP plan and LWLWL under PB plan), the same about PPPPP.

At any rate, every streak happening at either side will make at least a W and of course half of the chopping lines will produce a long winning (or losing) sequence.
Since the number of 3+s streaks per shoe roams quite good around averages, we know that besides doubles stopping a homogeneous L or W pattern, many LWL or WLW (at least) spots will come around.

For now I stop.

as.

As KFB correctly stated, every shoe dealt in the universe will present 3IAR situations at one or either side of the medal (losing or winning).
The fact that we might 'jump' some hands doesn't change the issue, we're just interested about the probability to get a W (or L) followed by another W (L) and another W (L) even if we bet hands #5, #11 and #14.
An example is when we try to get three P doubles with no P 3s in between that obviously can't be bet consecutively. 

If the shoe would offer just up to 2IAR W or L situations, the game wouldn't exist.
For the same reason we know that such 2IAR at either side must, sooner or later, transform into 3IAR.

But differently to the hypothetical game I traced in my last post, along the shoe nothing prevent us to bet toward the side that seems to offer better probabilities to form a first positive 3IAR.

In some way and knowing that not all of the time we can wait for fresh shoes, our approach might work way better when we adopt a strategy linked with a 'reverse' strategy.
Easier sayed than done, but this is one of the few options to be astoundingly 'right' at 2-3 or more consecutive shoes without having a tremendous luck working for us.

The important thing to remember, imo, is to shift the 'strategy' ASAP, so not delaying it. This because particularly 'good' or 'bad' shoes are way less likely to happen.

After all, the number of 3IAR spots per shoe are roaming around an average value that rarely touch strong deviations.

OoOoO

Say we set up a 'random' betting strategy where the red or black nature of the first card dealt on the previous hand will dictate the side we'll bet next (for real or fictionally) and we register the results in term of W and L.
Suppose a red card entices a Banker bet and a black card a Player bet.
Now look at your registration card and take care about how W and L will place and form patterns.

Say our goal is to spot when a 3IAR W or L pattern will be 'more likely' to happen without a precise 'method' to follow.
We could bet singles and doubles, long streaks, dominant patterns, my plans, etc.
Obviously if we'd think the next hand will be more probably a W we will bet Banker if the first card at previous hand was red or Player if it was a black card and vice versa.

Notice that resolved hands will come out randomly of course, yet the first card nature is somewhat affected by a constant dependent 'world' working at various degrees as more red or black cards are live in the deck, higher will be the probability that this new 'road' will take a univocal 'betting the same side' line.

It's like that the actual deck is playing a parallel game with us, getting its strings of wins and losses.

Unfortunately such approach works quite bad at HS rooms or premises where players are allowed to peek at cards: many times it could be difficult to spot the nature of the first card as many players like to shuffle and reshuffle their cards, yet there's always the 50% general probability that both cards are of the same color. 

A final note.

What we cannot bear is the constant arrogant attitude of so called 'gambling experts' labelling all baccarat players as 'id.iots', at the same time endorsing games as poker where itlr the rake or tournaments fees cannot be overcome by the vast majority of the players.
So let people think that poker tournament coin flips have more scientifical merit than betting Banker or Player at baccarat.
(It's not a coincidence that poker players tourneys data are evaluated only by wins not mentioning a bit about the buy-in losses).

Join a baccarat table and you are an id.iot despite the 1.15% average negative edge; join WSOP (coming up in four days) where the awarded money is taxed at origin by 11% at most tournaments and you are an 'intelligent' player. Maybe if the poker dream doesn't come true this year, you can purchase some books instructing you how to magically overcome that fkng 11% edge. "Theory of this", "Theory of that", yet poker super minds must win 'intelligent' coin flips whereas baccarat players must guess "stu.pi.d" coin flips.

Maybe as bac players we should go 'all-in' more often thus trying to take the 'intelligent' part of coin flips.
By some reasons they are not so wrong.

as.