You are absolutely correct.

The main problem is that we can't expect to get consistent profits from a negative edge game, let alone huge profits.
What we can do is trying to exploit the game's flaws and, fortunately, there are many of them.

Math needs some time to fully take its power, we should act in the same way by opposite reasons.

as. 

The partial unrandomness of the shoe is the main reason why we could beat this game itlr.

Such conclusion may be deduced empirically or by strict scientific methods, of course most players use the first approach as it takes a quite long work to demonstrate scientifically that any single LIVE shoe isn't true randomly generated.

Since the definition of real randomness is a complex and very debated subject and 312 or 416 cards working into an asymmetrical physical  finite model cannot be properly shuffled by any means, we know for sure that most of our bets are placed into a non perfect random world.

A pretty exhaustive proof comes from putting in motion dozens of "random walks" applied to the same outcomes springing from the same shoe and then repeating the process for the next shoes.

Therefore what we tend to classify as a "normal deviation" happening into a single shoe is instead a unrandom product working at various degrees.

It's quite surprisingly that some successful players I know can ascertain that by just watching at what is happening, still the common denominator (without exception) is that they play very few hands.

People who make a living at games want to wager upon the probability that something isn't going to happen and not that distant probabilities come in their favor.

We see that the goal to make a tiny profit per a given series of shoes isn't a so appealing task to most bac players.
That's why they are entitled to lose forever and fortunately this is the reason why the game is still alive.

as. 

The theory according to which we should beat this wondeful silly game is quite simple:
even though the negative math edge remains constant, the probability of success on certain spots will be higher than expected.
This supposedly raised probability is caused by many factors:

- bad shuffles
- actual asym/sym hands ratio
- asym hands outcomes
- nature of winning points
- strong points winning or losing
- key cards producing or not a winning hand
- actual finite distribution related to the expected long term distribution
- other

In some way this theory aims to take advantage of the past in order to partially estimate the future.
Easy to see that generally speaking the more was the past assessed, better will be the chances to guess the future.

After all we need to guess right just very few spots.

as.

Quote from: Babu on July 10, 2019, 06:03:26 AM
Indeed baccarat can be beat in the long run.  This is what I have been waiting to hear.  Many spend a life time trying to find strategies to beat every shoe and guess every single hand.  Once can actually win without any strategy as long as they have a good approach.

One can randomly guess and use random size bets.   Leave when one is up and recover when down.  It takes great discipline.  Key is a huge bankroll and reasonable win expectation.

Actually it's quite likely the few who make a living at this game adopt this strategy as any serious player knows that it's literally impossible to beat every single shoe or hand. I mean that even getting a verified math advantage of 2% one is going to endure inevitable harsh losing sessions.

Anyway the conclusive word would come whenever we find a long term edge by flat betting and obviously this conclusion must be strictly intended as a randomness defect.
There are no other ways to get an edge if we are playing a perfect "random" math negative game.

I got the confidence that around 80% of total live shoes are not properly shuffled or that they present intrinsic card distribution flaws, it's up to us to find how and when those features could help us.

Good post Babu.

as.

Yep.
I wish to add that after only one hand played (no matter the result) our brain works in a totally different way than if we would have just observed that hand.
And the process goes on and on logarithmically.

as.

Indeed Kashiwagi was a brilliant player but he didn't fit to the "pros" category.

Undoubtedly around the globe there are few people who make a living by playing baccarat and they like to go unnoticed for obviuos reasons.
They are not there for gambling but to win. And not to win astronomical sums but to win. Consistently.
It's funny (euphemism) that such people wager very few spots or at least using a large spread on certain hands giving to the house the illusion of action.
Many do not care a bit about comps, they pretend not to know what a player's card is.
They do not want their play to be registered.

Despite of what many could think, casinos do not like baccarat winners and generally speaking they adopt an old statement telling that any player being ahead after playing 80 hours isn't welcome as in some way he/she surpassed the "math" test.
Well, baccarat is an unbeatable game but we never know. We (casinos) expect to win and we do want to win. Period.

The common trait of those players is they wager very few hands, almost always quitting the table after getting relatively small profits and, most importantly, they don't like to chase losses.
In the sense that after two or three losses in a row they tend to lose interest to that shoe.

It's like they are playing a kind of blackjack card counting strategy. Selecting the spots to bet, look at the outcome and keep the results whatever they are.
That is a complete different approach made by most bac players worldwide.

Now let's take the casino's part.
We know that some successful bj $20-$80 spread bet counters are going to be barred, what about the possibility that bac can be beaten by bets of $400, $500 or more?
After all so far every math expert says such thing isn't possible. Actually only side bets can be beaten mathematically.

That's the worst assumption they can make as their only hope to win money at bac tables remains upon the probability that most bac players like to gamble, that is betting a lot of hands and trying to guess the unguessable. Or that the game can be beaten by progressions. 

Remember that if any side bet is beatable, BP bets are more beatable. It's only up to us.

as. 

Gambling experts as well as casino's supervisors are really laughing when they read all the bighornshit we're writing about baccarat on the net.
Not mentioning the miriad of magical system sellers that for just $49.99 promise us millionaire profits.

As long as we can't (or we do not want to) demonstrate a verifiable math edge we are just fooling ourselves and the world.

That means that all efforts made to find exploitable ways to beat the house are totally worthless, confirmed by the huge profits casinos make by offering bac tables.

Probably the best player ever known in the history of baccarat was Akio Kashiwagi, a japanese real estate guru who put in some trouble mr D. Trump who gladly accepted very huge bets from him at one of his AC property.
It's ascertained Kashiwagi adopted a kind of trend following strategy by wagering a kind of flat betting approach. That is he knew very well that in order to beat a game, tax apart, one must get more winning hands than losing ones.
Furthermore, by flat betting he knew he was going to lose around 1% at worst.
Naturally Trump took advice from the best math gambling expert of the time who suggested to let him play as long as possible in order to get the negative edge fully working against him.

And actually this thing happened even though Kashiwagi (that was shot dead shortly afterwards) was still ahead in the process.

Of course even if Kashiwagi played a quite huge amount of hands but not enough to constitute a "long term" scenario by any means, we must give him some credit that his strategy was good.

To get a clearer example of what Kashiwagi did, try to flat bet 60/70 shoes and let us know how many bets you are winning or losing. Knowing that he wagered a large amount of hands dealt, the answer will be very likely placed on the negative side.

Therefore a question #1 arises: does a sophisticated trend following strategy lower in some way the math negative edge?
Was K. playing a kind of trend following strategy mixed with something else?

I have chosen to mention A.K. as it's my firm belief that in order to win one must spot more W than L situations as no progression could get the best of it when L<W, especially when wagering a lot of hands per shoe.

Truth to be told, I do not think that a strict trend following strategy could get the best of it, but I tend not to disregard such possibility at least in order to lower the negative edge.

More to come.

as.     















 



 

     

Thanks Al, I will.

as.

It was just a kind of joke, we know mathematicians can't beat the game and neither players using an empirical approach. Probably the answer is in the middle.

I won't give specific answers to my questions as nobody is interested on numbers. Just personal comments.

Question #1: it's very very rare to get three consecutive shoes without at least one natural 8/9 showing, especially if 8s and 9s are quite live in the actual portion of the deck. Since such side bet is payed 50:1 we have plenty of room to set up a progressive profitable betting.

#2: when we are on Banker showing 4 and the third card is a 9, of course we are in a very good shape unless player's initial cards shows zero. A missed bonus as the probability player has zero is 1:3.77 (5 is ignored as it forms a tie hand).
An excellent wasted probability that we won't find around the corner. If we were on Player we have no reasons to jump.

#3: the average number of player's 3+ streaks is, imo, one of the best tool to take advantage from. Remember that sh.it or fantastic situations tend to come out in clusters.

#4: oh well, everybody reading my pages should teach me about this. Say we'll get at least 3 asym hands per shoe and it's very very unlikely to get more than 14. Do not fall in the trap to bet banker when the asym force went away.

#5: when 7s are particularly live at a EZ baccarat table, the best move is to bet player and the F-7 bet. You don't want to pay the banker's vig when a symmetrical hand is more likely to show up and to get a F-7 with live 7s, banker must get zero as initial point that is a non advantaged asym situation.

#6: Mathematically is relatively low but any Player standing point is favorite to win itlr. And do not forget the clustering effect: Glen wrote an interesting thread about this.

#7: player gets a 42.07% probability to win just about 8.4% of the total hands dealt. Not that easy to get consecutive dog situations like that.

#8: it's quite easy to lose (or win depending on which side we were betting) even 12 or more hands in a row in such B favorite situation. Sometimes it seems that P helping 3s are concentrated on the possible player's third card. Again a kind of clustering effect.
Notice that when the P third card is a 3 only a B 5 or B 6 point are standing (asym situations).   

#9: it's a pretty good spot to bet P side and getting a 7 as we'll lose immediately just 19% of the situations (B naturals). Moreover Banker must stand on its 6s when facing a P standing; actually it should draw to get a better probability not to lose (a sort of mistake made by bac inventors, probably set up in order to limit the B advantage). In the remaining possibilities Banker can beat us only catching two cards out of all 13 probabilities.

#10: the probability to get a natural on either side is 34.2%, yet per every shoe dealt card distribution issues tend to deny a perfect balancement of such occurences.
A careful assessment of the consecutiveness of naturals falling on one side or the other one may help to spot the actual "card distribution" advantaged side. Especially when cards are not properly shuffled (that is almost always).

It would be a honor for me to work with you Lungyeh as well as with many other members here.


as.

An easy test to assess how a bac player really knows about baccarat.

1) What's the probability to get a natural 8 vs a natural 9 in every position per every shoe dealt?

2) What's the Banker's advantage when Banker shows a 4 giving a third card 9 to the Player?

3) What's the average number of 3+ streaks on Player side in a 8-deck shoe when an average 12 cards are cut from the play?

4) How many asymmetrical hands are going to show up per 70 resolved hands dealt?

5) Disregarding other key cards, what's the average EV on F-7 bets (dragon bonus) when after 30 hands dealt no 7 had shown?

6)  What's the average probability to get a back to back "standing" Player (6,7,8 or 9 point) hand?

7) How the Player disadvantage is calculated?

What's the probability Banker wins when showing a 5 and giving a third card 3 to the Player?

9) What's the probability a Player two-card 7 point showing will win?

10)  What's the probability to get a back to back winning natural hand on either side?

as.



     

Probably a "baccarat is solved" site would entice more members to join it but you should charge them in the order of thousands.

And of course such members will want to experience real live proofs that such thing is possible.

No short term negative variance is allowed, btw. :-)

as. 

 

Hi and thanks for your replies!

@roversi.

Look, of course I have got a statistical significance about what I'm talking about.
Anytime you are playing a shoe getting a strong P predominance at the start, you are getting a lower probability on certain subsequent "more expected" events as the room to get them is more limited albeit slightly.
It's not to be forgotten that asymmetrical force is very often nullified (inversed) in P predominant shoes, thus B is sailing mainly on a 50/50 proposition. 

@bally

You are right, yet in positive counts a bj counter could bet two or more spots thus enlarging the probability to get a natural or a doubling hand.
A luxury we can't have at baccarat, being an on/off single game.

@alrelax

The situations you depicted are quite unlikely being too much left or right deviated from the center of the bell curve, I generally prefer to let them go without betting even if I'd have won a lot wagering on them.
Of course, what I need when I encounter such deviated situations is to be at least one hand ahead as the rest is just a winning streak unless a WL event occures (break even or close to it).
Therefore when in doubt I tend to follow things, even though they are unlikely.

Nonetheless, my records show that I have made more money wagering shoes more adapting to my approach at the start then trying to get a "reverse line" albeit more expected (theoretically).

Naturally, if I think that shoes are not properly shuffled and outcomes tend to get a kind of univocal line I'll ride 'em, partially forgetting my primary plan.

I do not care to be right or wrong, I do care to win.

as.



   

 

Some shoes are unplayable

You've heard this statement many times from me.
I will try to illustrate my point.

Say the worst driver in the universe is 300 feet behind the finish line and Lewis Hamilton is half a mile behind.
Who would bet Hamilton as winner?
Of course the probability to get Hamilton as winner isn't zero but very close to it.

Translating this into baccarat, per any single shoe it's really really unlikely not to get at least one  3+ banker streak and/or at least one P single and many other "expected" situations.
Nonetheless since any shoe is a finite space, we know that the more we're going through it without finding what we're looking for, higher will be the probabilities to get such unlikely situations.
Even if we finally find a single or a couple of expected situations, the failed previous attempts will pose a serious or letal threat to our bankroll.

When the limited space is more and more consumed and things went in the wrong direction, we risk to place worthless bets.

Good.
What about abandoning our strategic plan and starting to bet what it seem to be predominant?

Wrong choice, imo.

First, quitting our plan trying to get positive outcomes while denying (even temporarily) our studies is a mistake.
If we have ascertained that A>B, A remains favorite period.

Think when you are at a virtual blackjack table getting a positive count of +18 where dealer keep getting 20, 21 and naturals and you are allowed to wager the dealer's side. Are you really interested to wager the dealer's side?
If the answer is yes you should quit gambling immediately.

Second.

If things should go everytime as expected or almost as expected, gambling games wouldn't exist at all.
Even the math advantaged houses rely upon a long term edge.
And even if it would appear contradictory to what I've been sayed so far, sometimes the house hopes that a given shoe will finish ASAP.
Therefore, what not happened so far, especially whether is more "due", is likely to not present for the subsequent portions of the shoe.
More "due" could be interpreted as a kind of balancement, a strong unexpected predominance or a too huge expected predominance.

Third.

Are we willing to guess a random world per every single fkng shoe dealt just because we think that we are able to possede the instincts to do that?
If so, contact NASA or MIT and you'll get more substantial rewards than playing this silly game.

Fourth.

Any single choice we make forms the large picture. More choices = more mistakes. It's a human feature and it has a general value.
It's a proven fact that bad choices will endorse more bad choices and good choices (even made by mistake) will more likely lead to good choices.
In a sense either good and bad choices will distribute more by runs than by singles.
And to get good choices in a row we must first get an initial good choice.

Thus if the shoe we are facing isn't going toward our plan, tell the casino to fk off, that is not to play a dime.
Remember that baccarat outcomes are already preordered and nothing will change their pace.

Final note

If a bac player have found betting lines capable to get a long term edge,  this edge will be quite limited hence susceptible to great fluctuations. That's why we should think about the large picture and not about the stupi.d single shoe we're playing at.

as. 

Quote from: Johno-Egalite on May 29, 2019, 08:58:44 PM
IMO there exists superior opportunities if you wait and monitor multiple tables. 

Yes, yes, yes and yes!!!

as.

Actually Junket King aka Johno, this is a good post.

When playing a strict mechanical game (and it could mean to bet every hand or only one-two hands per 2-3 shoes) any serious player should know the sd values, the different points of success, in a word the probability to be ahead or behind because such player had tested a lot of different shoes without having to bet a dime on them.
If we think the game in term of pattern ranges of probability, imo, we can't be so wrong, surely not beyond the math disadvantage.

as.