It feels like after Covid, a big change has occurred in business philosophy where it's ok now to screw over the consumer at every opportunity with high prices and just as importantly, very indifferent customer service.

Maybe the big think tanks came to the conclusion that most people were quick to accept all the rules and regulations dished out through the pandemic and so think we will all roll over and just accept whatever else any of the big business corporations decide to roll out as well.

Either way, it's actually good to see people voting with their feet and maybe we can make them think again!

Asym,

 You are right about the waiting time concept. It has accelerated my learning and progress of understanding the EC's to a whole new level. Also Your quality over quantity remark is spot on and made me see once and for all that it really is beneficial in picking your spots very carefully if you really do want to get the very best of it. Thank you!

KungFuBac,

 The ''Terrific Two's''  I like it! That's a great terminology for them!

I do try and keep one step ahead knowing that whatever is currently happening is going to break off. Most of my play tends to revolve around the 2's and how to handle the chops with all their different guises and then the runs/streaks come last of all.

My personal opinion is that it's the runs/streaks that are going to cause most players the most problems even though that kind of sounds strange because someone might ask what's so hard about riding a run/streak. The thing is that if we take Asym's quality over quantity remark seriously (which I believe is right) then, there are not as many opportunities for us to profit with the runs/streaks compared to the two's and the chops.

cheers

Thanks guys!

Before I go onto something else, I just want to say one more thing in relation to the 2's and why I think they have to be an important consideration when coming up with some kind of strategy, be that Bac, Roulette or Craps.

There is a mathematical concept known as the 'waiting times' I don't really think it's all that well known to be honest.

It goes like this...

The average waiting times for any of the following groups BBP, BPP, PPB and PBB are 8.

The average waiting times for any of the following groups BPB and PBP are 10.

The average waiting times for any of the following groups BBB and PPP are 14.

What's interesting (to me at least) is when you take a look at a registry and see how these numbers of 8, 10 and 14 are performing.

So if you get some 2's coming out using my framework from above....

B
B 1
P 2  BBP
P 3  BPP
B 4  PPB
B 1  PBB

You can see how that shortest waiting time of 8 is also coming out as 2's and so is it any surprise that I am seeing some nice long runs of the 2's even if they are interspersed with the odd single sometimes.

Let's have a look at some chops...

B
P 2
B 4 BPB
P 2 PBP
B 4 BPB
P 2 PBP

Here is the middle waiting time of 10 for the BPB or PBP.

Finally some runs/streaks...

B
B 1
B 1 BBB
B 1 BBB
B 1 BBB
B 1 BBB
P 2
P 3
P 3 PPP
P 3 PPP
P 3 PPP

Here is the longest waiting time of 14 for the BBB or PPP.

What's kind of strange to me although I am no mathematician is that we know that the 1's = 50%, the 2's = 25% and the 3's = 12.5% and so I would have thought the chops would have had the lowest waiting time and not the 2's. (I will need to ask the AI about that one!)

Anyway, my basic point here is that we can't afford to ignore the 2's and they have to be an integral part of any strategy because of the very fact that they have the lowest waiting time which should really equate to us seeing plenty of action from them. That's not to say that we are not going to see any streaky shoes because of course we do but what I referred to years ago as the 'bag of trash' shoes are more prevalent and they take a bit more working around to stay on top of them.

That will lead me on to my next post where I am going to look at parlays and why they can be quite elusive unless you are selective when looking for them.

cheers

So here, I am going to share some of my approaches to Baccarat, things that hopefully are a bit new to anybody reading and so maybe that can help with your own game.

One thing I always believed throughout the years of studying the E.C. game was that someone needed a kind of framework to help them navigate their way through the decisions as they came out. It's not so much a prediction tool as just something to look at which can show you what's currently happening. Let's face it, whatever is currently happening or not happening for that matter is either going to continue along in that fashion or come to an end.

Based on my own understanding, I see the shoe is going to do one of three things for the most part. It's going to streak, chop or show the 2's. Now any of these that go on a prolonged run can be fairly straightforward to read and therefore profit from. When they are all appearing one after the other in a very haphazard way, well that's another story and I will come to that later but for now, I will just try and stick to something easy to read when it's happening.

I break the Bac results down into 4 numbers using pairs.

BB = 1
BP = 2
PP = 3
PB = 4

So here is a bit of a registry to show what I mean.

B
B 1
B 1
P 2
P 3
P 3
P 3
B 4
P 2
B 4
P 2
P 3
B 4
B 1
P 2
P 3
B 4
B 1
B 1
B 1
B 1

By doing it like this, I have learned to spot what's happening, be it runs, chops or the 2's.

If you get a continuous run of 1's, then it's showing B

If you get a continuous run of 3's, then it's showing P

If you get a continuous run of 2,4 or 4,2 then it's showing chops.

Finally, if you get a continuous run of 1,2,3,4, then it's running the 2's.

Let's have a look at that registry again.


B
B 1
B 1 (a small run of B)
P 2
P 3
P 3
P 3 (a small run of P)
B 4
P 2
B 4
P 2 (a small run of chops)
P 3
B 4
B 1
P 2
P 3
B 4
B 1 (a run of the 2's)
B 1
B 1
B 1 (a small run of B)

So that just gives you an idea of the notation that I am using.

I remember reading in several places over the years that the 2's just creep up on you and after testing a load of systems, a lot of them didn't seem to be able to handle the 2's. Now looking above you can see how easy they are to read. In fact, quite often, you will get the 2's dominating although you will see something else interspersed with them.

So it might go something like the following...

B
B 1
P 2 (2's)
P 3 (2's)
P 3 (single)
B 4 (back to 2's)
B 1 (2's)
P 2 (2's)
P 3 (2's)
B 4 (2's)
P 2 (single)
P 3 (back to 2's)

Hopefully you get the idea. That can actually be a real strong run and it's not unusual to see 20-30 hand runs where it performs like this and even just a simple 1-2 neg progression can capture a lot of units this way. I only mention this because a lot of people don't seem to like the 2's but really, there is nothing to fear from them.

So I think that's a good place for me to begin from and I use this framework as my basic template and pretty much everything else then revolves around this.

cheers

I still love coming here and reading the Baccarat posts from Assym, Al, KungFuBac and Andy. To be honest, it almost feels like it's the last bastion of genuine Baccarat talk on the web apart from a handful of other experienced players dotted around here and there. I have learned a lot from some of you guys and your posts are appreciated.

That's me pretty much done with Roulette for now. I figure that there is really no point in playing it now that I just focus on the EC. That green zero just gets in the way of things and when it does streak, it can be annoying. So why pay the extra tax if you don't have to.

My Baccarat knowledge (or even EC knowledge) has grown pretty rapidly just lately. It seems to go like that where you feel like you are just treading water for a while and then things just kind of take off again leading to new insights and discoveries. I have done quite a bit research lately on the subject of parlays. You would think getting two in a row is not that difficult. On hindsight, it's actually not that difficult I suppose but where it becomes difficult is when you are looking for those two wins on a particular decision.

So for instance, looking for two wins on the Bank is obviously not going to be as straightforward as looking for two straight wins anywhere like on either the Bank, Player, Chops or two's etc... Sometimes I think we don't realize how we are setting ourselves up for failure depending on how we are setting our game or if we are looking for something in particular. There is no future in trying to put randomness into some kind of limited framework because we will likely end up disappointed.

It's actually quite sobering when you see just how long certain things can be absent from a shoe because of other elements dominating and that even the cleverest MM scheme might not be enough to circumnavigate it. I will come back and give a few examples of that and they could be used for other EC games I suppose if Roulette or Craps is your thing.

see you all soon

Hello guys,

 I was pretty much asking a similar type of question over on another forum just recently. Where I play, they have always washed and hand shuffled the cards at the start of each new day and I have never played Baccarat anywhere else.

Reading Al's post which he linked to above, then it makes sense that with the cut and burning of cards, then any pre-arranged order would come out differently. On saying that, it's good to listen to different players genuine experiences.

cheers

Nice to see this thread has had a good few hits down the years. Renzoni's thoughts have stayed with me and really helped shaped my thoughts on how to attack the game of Baccarat or Roulette.

Quite simply, What has worked best for me is increasing the bets as long as I am only getting single losses. Two losses in a row takes away most of the wins for that particular sequence but nobody forces you to sit there and keep playing if you have a big pile of chips in front of you!

Gizmo was getting on a bit in years and his health not so great either. Let's hope he is just taking a bit of a well earned rest. When you reflect on things looking back, it's clear to see now that Gizmo was well ahead of the curve in relation to where a lot of other guys were at and what's impressive about that is that it was all mostly self taught as well. Here is hoping we have not heard the last from him.

Any hardcore roulette enthusiast has likely heard of ''Turbogenius'' I can remember him on forums as way back as 2004. He gets a lot of love and a lot of hate but I respect him for sharing his ideas.

A couple of years ago, he posted a few threads which struck me as a very good way to try and come up with something good. The main premise behind them was repeaters and he produced a chart showing that a lot of the time, the lead numbers would stay in front and that actually, there was a kind of order amongst all the chaos for the most part.

I will show a pic of one of those charts and I am sure most people reading this have probably seen or read about it before.

When you look at the chart, you can see a consistency amongst the top numbers and quite often, you will see the same 3 numbers repeating row after row. (that's what the matches column to the right shows you)

I played around with all this a bit but one of the problems with a game involving 37 numbers is that the variance can still have you waiting a long time for the lead numbers to appear even though they remain on top. The laggards can appear 2/3 times trying to catch up without putting a dent in the top 3 but that's costing you time and money and so it was something I wanted to try and see if I could fix.

Roulette was my first love although I did play a bit of BJ before that. I think around 1990 was the first time I played roulette and I still play it and enjoy it to this day.

Baccarat was never really on the radar for me until Alrelax took over the reigns here and I started reading his posts along with GR8Player and a few others.

I spent years trying to come up with a winning roulette strategy and there were a few times I really thought I had something close to the grail but unfortunately they were not as successful as I hoped and thought they would be. It wasn't through a lack of desire or hard work and I must have spent a small fortune on what were considered the best up to date books and not just your usual Martingale nonsense.

Anyway, I kind of gave in and thought I would put my energy into Baccarat and I am glad I did but I still had a bit of the roulette bug because the ego was telling me not to let it go completely and I have kept searching the last few years.

They are a lot of clever people who write on the forums regarding roulette and it's easy to get sucked in to what sounds plausible or maybe a new way of looking at things but if I had to give a vote to anybody, I would say 'Turbogenius' was the best. His approach seemed logical rather than fanciful and you can replicate a lot of the things he has shown and achieve pretty much the same results.

So I will write up over the next few days my take on something which Turbo laid out and has proved to be more effective than anything else roulette related that I have ever played.

cheers

Here is a pic of the first shoe I played.

Shoe 2 went down like this!

B
PP
BBBBBBBBBBB (that's 11)

There were a further 4 Bankers before it switched over to player.

L WWWWWWW for +5.5 with 1 Banker 6.

It's funny because I just commented up above how a few people were saying the Evolution shoes were streaky. If they were all that streaky, they would be dealing the cards from under a bridge! 

I agree with you 8OR9, some players love the streaks and they are great when they happen (which I will show from my 2nd shoe played) but well they undoubtedly happen, I maintain along with you how are we going to read the combinations which appear more and like you say, it's those 3 hand or 4 hand combinations of mixed results.

No doubt that's why some people like to look at the derived roads to try and find a steady supply of whatever it is they are looking for but they are all independent from each other and could really have someone chasing their tail.

Since I can't upload the pics, I will try it manually.

PPPPP
B
P
B
P
BBBBB
PP
B
PP
BB
P
B
PP
BBBBB

My goal is just to stop at +5 for no other reason than keeping a bit of discipline and also because it's a bit taxing on the grey matter and so doing things in short bursts suits me just fine.

WW L WWW L WW L W LL WW LL WW L WW (14 W vs 8 L)

I had 2 Banker 6's in that lot and so had to give them a unit.

A bit of a strange shoe really but everything at least lasted for a hand or two and so it wasn't exactly difficult to navigate.

Run, Chop, Run, Chop (some 2's mixed into the chop) Run. Sometimes there are little sections within sections if you really want to be precise. I think I mentioned before that my sections seem to be a bit shorter than the ones Al show but I put that down to my bet selection.

Thanks Asym,

 You could be right! 'Johno' had a lot of table experience and he said the same thing about Evolution shoes after playing them for a few months. I think he commented that they were very streaky and like you, he noted the shuffling procedures were sloppy.

To be honest though, I don't really care what they throw out. As long as I am reading what's currently happening correctly, I can't really do too much damage and should come out winning a few more than I lose more often than not.