Let me clarify a bit more.  H-Money does blacks out, plainly blacks out at the table.  On the surface he is conscious of course, but he is blacked out in my opinion.  He is oblivious to reality.  Reality is where you need to constantly check into every min or two at the very most.  The game is not reality, the game is fantasy.  It is fantasy because it requires nothing but money to survive in it.  The same as a business without good service, product or real meaning.  Like having a storefront, an office with all the amenities, a showroom with no product or services.  And you believe as long as you are there to man it all, you will perpetually make money and have a shot at the forthcoming rainbow of everything.  Your rent, your taxes, your phones, your cable and internet, your coffee service, your cleaning service, and all the other numerous monthly charges and bills.  Your imaginary income with your desired payroll, just magically covered, each and every month.  No real commitments except what time to open and what time to close. 

And thus, not being in reality.  Same at the baccarat table my friends, no darn different, IMO!

The average person there is really not in reality.  He is in his little corner of safe haven, as long as he has money in front of him.  Completely tunes out the world in 99% of all areas.  Complete faith and belief, that the next hand or two or three will begin to make up for his past losses and set the way for his new found riches.  Everything forthcoming.  Everything will fix itself with nothing really to do. 

Maybe that is why I have actually been noticing those player's mouths dropping open when they continually lose hand after hand.   

Let me clarify here, January 19th I wrote that H-Money returns.  We played once together right then and I was going to start to write about him again.  He stopped and did not gamble again until March because our winter cam in and came in real hard here in the Central Midwest.  A few weeks ago he started gambling again.  I have not been with him since, except once in March, which was for a very small session in fact, maybe one hour at most.  He was holding his own, I lost my buy in and left.

We talk, we communicate, we discuss everything we did at the casino if the other did not go along, etc.  He does have a habit of leaving out details when he straight loses and the details is what I am after to understand.  So be it.  I can find out everything if I really want to at the two properties we go to mostly anyway. 

He played 6 times in March, meaning, six trips to the casino.  He was up over $10,000.00 and gave back $6,000.00 is the bottom line for March, so he won $4,000.00.   Since I was not writing about his trips or our sessions, I am recapping it.  I have had a few inquires from regulars on this board about what we have been doing.  Kind of since the break up of the several members that were the most frequent posters on BetSelction whom took it to be banned, moderated or quit on their own and take up space elsewhere.

H-Moneys problem like most players, especially the newer players is the win hold factor or the figuring what to do factor of playing.  Whether boredom sets in or your greed and lust gets the better part of you, you do need to come to terms with it all as I have outlined in great detail.  So many people here as well as within the casino will laugh at what I write, but I know in my heart it is true and applies to most all of us in so many numerous ways. 

The mathematicians and statisticians have a field day with what I say and they are so far off when it comes to the reality that inflicts itself on us all in a casino, at the baccarat tables, it is not even funny.  Just reality.   

H-Money lost another 4 of his last 6 sessions.  Just spoke to him on the phone tonight as well.

He won about $4,000.00 overall, he was up as much as $10,000.00 roughly, he said and then gave back 2 sessions of $3,000.00 each.  He is doing a bit better but could be holding even more of his wins, when he wins.  He just refuses to realize the reality of what happens at a bac table.

He is not unintelligent, just blindsided or plain forgets all basics when he begins to win. 

"To get a long term edge at this game one needs to bet huge and very rarely and it would be an outrageous statement to say otherwise. Especially if someone tries to demonstrate that every single shoe is controllable, a total fkng bighornshit".

The size of the huge wagers is all in perspective to the buy in as well as the average or the regular wagers of that player.

Every shoe is not controllable, 100 percent in agreement with that one.  Whomever says that either just started playing, has not played for any length of time and/or is attempting to spark up some drama talk. 

Classic, one of the best scene of all times.  From the movie Bugsy (1991 Movie) about Bugsy Seigal establishing gambling in Las Vegas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkx_puJMF3c

I agree with you, but I was up literally hundreds of units, it was enough.  I would have struggled or won and lost at best.  The best opportunities are not always there, sticking around and praying for more or waiting for more would be frustrating and tempting.  I do believe it was well after midnight as well with an hour and half drive home and had to get up by 6 am.  I know myself and the same as the days I was in NYC or NJ and at Mo Sun or FW and it was midnight or 1 AM and I had a business to open early in the morning, limits are limits and things get complicated when a person plays to win and is not at ease.   

Good job on the wins for sure!

Simply unbelievable, but in so many ways, believable.  Main street with 4 lanes of traffic, two each way.  Side cross street intersects with the main street.  Traffic light is there.  Light red for the side street and green on the main road.  Traffic is there, not too busy, smaller city.  Lady on the side street going to make a right hand turn at the light and onto Main Street.  She has her phone in her left hand and she is texting or something with her right.  She slows up at the light and turns right, does not even look at the traffic coming at her.  The first car closest to her jams on their brakes but the car in the second lane collides with her as she turned right and immediately crossed the lane she was supposed to turn into and then signal left and switch lanes. 

I see it all the time where the cross street turns and the person never even merges into the lane they are supposed to be in, just crosses it to get to the further over lane. 

She winds up getting a ticket for failure to stop, improper turn, improper lane change, distracted driving and expired registration.

What a champ!   

Absolutely spot on, no matter which way you think or desire.

I know in that shoe I posted last night of 23 or so players against he 2 Bankers out there in the very beginning of the shoe, winning large money compared to a relatively small buy in, that if I continued playing, most of it--if not all of it would have gone back to the casino.  Why would someone wager tens of thousands of dollars against what was happening, versus the same amount of those very same wagers with what was happening? Well, IMO, insight, knowledge, experience, desires, expectations, frame of mind, beliefs, false positives overruling and many other things. 

People would come on here and say, wait a second Alrelax, the only way it would have gone back to the casino is if you were foolish, did not apply money management and got unlucky.  Nope, wrong.  Within one or two shoes it would have went back or the highest majority of the win would have anyway.

Sorry, I have been gambling too long.  It was a great win with hundreds of times greater than the buy in.  Leave, be gone a few days, reset and back to my same LEVEL and PLATEAU, I normally wager at in this area and types of casinos I play at. 

THe other people playing, win and win and then they fall because they attempt everything AsymB just outlined.  Hocus Pokus or whatever you want to label it, the numbers and statistics will not consistently hold up at the bac table, day in and day out, grind or pounce on it.  You cannot win and win and win and continue any type of win on a solid consistent basis.  No matter is that is one unit or 100 units each game/shoe. 

If you merge numerous factors of my psych detailed explanations along with numerous factors of what AsymB talks about, you will start to get a clearer picture of how to prevail at bac with insight and understanding, IMO.  There are other members that do contribute and know plenty as well, I am just highlighting what I just read with what I just did as well last night.

I hope this makes sense, to me it does but then again maybe I am just waving that magical wand that Mickey Mouse loaned me from Disney World and I am screaming the words hocus pokus? Maybe, huh?  I do not know.   

You know, I live in a fairly small town.  About 5,000 people or so.  3 city cops on during the day and 1 at night.  Dispatch at night is the Sheriff's Office, type of town.  Okay, I ran from the office over to the market to get something for lunch today.  There are a couple of teens on a corner making snowballs with the melting snow and tossing them at cars as they go by.  I seen one of the cops pull over, get out of his car and talk to them.

I can only imagine.  Most likely, hey come on, stop.  Not nice.  There is your warning.  The same cop pulled me over last week.  I was rushing home to get something done, the snow was falling on top of ice.  I slowed up at a stop sign but clearly did not stop and started to slide.  I did not see anyone coming close by from the cross street so I ran the stop sign.  Sure enough, the cop saw me.  Lights came on, I pulled over.  He said what I did.  He told me he was going to run my license, registration and plates, if not problem, then we can talk.  He comes back in about 2 minutes.  Hands me the paperwork, tells me, be careful, watch those stop signs.

Okay, back to the teens and the snowballs.  I pulled in the market, ran in and got what I wanted at the deli counter.  Back out to my car.  The teens are throwing more snowballs once again.  The cop comes back.  This time the teens are put in the back of the police car and off they go.

Sometimes it is best to adhere to a warning and learn from it, other times the bullies and the ones that like to circle and circle and circle and circle, learn the hard way.  Of course, IMO.   

I have repeatedly witnessed this exact stupidity of wagering, more and more the past 2 years than ever in the past 30 or so.

Some of the players were doing so well with the shoe as well as the previous shoe.  Then they start losing and especially when it is all 1s and 2s and 3s, they begin that relentless drive with a negative progression repeatedly on the opposite side.  Does not matter if it is player or banker on a run, they will wager against it.  Then 7 or 8 or 9 or 10 or 11 repeatedly come out and they all get wiped out, every single one of them. 

Years ago, almost never seen that kind of wagering, but now, all the time.  Today, I see more great patterns and trends so obvious and most of the people playing will not wager with the shoe.  Total disarray in their wagering and beliefs.

A lot has been posted by Alrelax and Gizmotron about how they win using their years of experience, knowledge of the game, situational awareness etc.

Others like Xander and Mike have posted that you need an edge.

I am not here to debate the merits of Alrelax and Gizmotron's methods, but I would like to explore Xander's and Mikes position of having an EDGE.

What is an EDGE?  Can you actually get an EDGE?  To me an EDGE would be something mathematical, statistical or physical that would turn the odds or probability in your favor.

The above is a quote from the OP.  Yes, you are absolutely correct about wins and losses.  You can never be on all sides with an Edge.  It is impossible, so--IMO, why attempt to do that.  However, trying it leaves room to improve your knowledge of reality the game produces.  Problem is, most of us are not in reality and refuse to see it. 

It is also like someone saying, that restaurant specializes in seafood and is well known for having the best seafood in town.  There is no way they could have a great Asian dish, it is impossible.  But, maybe they really do?  Maybe their sole Asian dish is horrible.  Maybe is great on the days a certain chef is working and off on the other days when that chef is not present?   

Same in baccarat.  But there is no edge that can give you consistent wins on anything that will redundantly appear.

People attempt to convert computer statistics to live gaming and those statistics were not derived from the amount of hands that you will be playing in front of.   

The real edges come from other avenues within the game of baccarat.  I don't know about the game of roulette, perhaps so or not?  But in baccarat the edges are not definable by mathematical numbers.  Disclosure:  IMO.

But there are edges. 

Quote from: Bally6354 on March 02, 2019, 11:13:02 PM
Flat betting is my personal preference. On saying that, I will use a positive progression if a section of the shoe looks like it's heading for a run of a streak/chop or what I would define as a 'staggered' chop. Obviously nobody knows what's coming out beforehand, but you do need to have something in your armoury which can identify the switches quickly if you want to profit from flat betting. It's no good losing a few units at the end of one section just to possibly win one unit on the next few decisions before another couple of losses if you hope to be successful. Asym is right in one respect! You better know your 'first bet' is going to be a winning one the majority of the time because then you have some wiggle room.

Simply put, good logic in many ways. 

Interpretation plays a huge part of baccarat, IMO. 

Think, Know, Act on Gut, Cut out False and No Good Influences.

There most definitely is a way to get ahead by flat betting.

Just almost all players, at least those in all the B&M's I go to and have ever been at, main floor bac and high limit bac, I would have to say an unofficial 98 out of 100 will never stop with a few units.

Once again, I have written extensively, IMO about psych and reality of bac gaming and how to get the best chance of gathering up some sizable wins, capitalizing on groups, sections and opportunities, etc.  I have experienced almost a turn around in leaving the table with a profit in sizable amounts versus that of a few units.

But, yes.  Flat betting can work the same as anything else with less risk, but less chance to win larger amounts.

Time is the players enemy #1.  Everything falls behind the time factor.

Quote from: AsymBacGuy on February 18, 2019, 02:44:56 AM
Imo to win at baccarat itlr, our plan must be considered in cycles adhering at most by taking into account just two steps:

1-  winning the first hand wagered is of outmost importance;
2- winning the second hand whether the first was lost.

This simple two step wagers plan considered by cycles must have each a higher 75% of success.

When it happens to be wrong at both opportunities, we need to be very careful to place more bets as strong negative variance is going to come out more often than we think.
Thus waiting to get a fictional positive outcome is not sufficient to restart the betting.

The reason is that baccarat is very similar to a coin flip endless proposition, therefore WW, WL, LW and LL sequences are presenting whimsically but itlr they'll be equal.

We cannot guess the lenght of the streaks, therefore we should simplify the problem by considering columns as singled or streaky (any streak).
It doesn't matter what strategy we like to adopt, what really counts is whether how many times we'll win the first or the second hand (really or fictionally), then classifying the results.

Since any bac shoe is a finite limited model, we know that more often than not a losing series won't be balanced by a perfect counterpart and the same is true taken in the opposite direction.

I mean that some shoes cannot be played at all as we do not want to find us in the position to guess the opposite of what our plan is dictating.

In a word, we'll be in a far better shape not playing certain shoes not fitting our plan at the start than trying to follow the actual shoe or, even worse, trying to hope to get balanced outcomes that have no room to show up.

Professional players like to bet a lot on very few spots and they never want to chase previous losses and it's not a coincidence that they'll stop the betting after two consecutive losses.

as.

You are so correct in so many ways.  Great summation, but as I have problem also---is explaining it in detail so all understand.  Just too much.

BTW, the first two wagers or three in fact are almost always vital to the real-serious player, unless you are grinding small min amounts of wagers of course.

Here is something I found from my Blog that I believe fits in here well, IMO:

"And, in my book--you are NOT going to accomplish that by what the highest majority of players say here on this board as well as the other message boards.  No possible physical way!  I have truly been there and done that thousands and thousands of times.  You know, baccarat is strange--extremely strange because  tonight you can win or lose by doing same exact thing you did last time.  Baccarat is NOT like cooking--where there is a certain and a proven way to prepare a dish.  It doesn't change--unless you the chef changes it.   You have a perfect recipe and you repeat it, it will come out the exact same every time.  Same thing with, troubleshooting a motor vehicle.  Same equipment, same procedure, same results doing the same thing.  You know, baccarat is more like hunting.  Exactly.  Different course, different outcomes, different chases, different rewards, different amount of success and different amounts of failure.  Same game!  Also, two hunters can start at the same line with the same equipment, and finish with drastically different results at the end of the hunt session.  Just like the game of baccarat.  It is how we, myself and you and them--handle ourselves, our money--our thought process and our visions-desires-wants--our realization and how each accept the losses or the wins within each shoe and session we play."

I read this a few minuets ago after waking up from my nap on the couch, don't we all do that before we finally go to sleep?

Fantastic, real, explains all the boards and all the people, real quick.  Again, LOL!