gman72

I haven't found the hold % for the most recent year, but below is the place where I think that information will eventually be found. It has a lot of interesting data. http://gaming.unlv.edu/reports.html Check out this report, it is a current mid-year 2013 report on gaming, and it has an interesting little section about the importance of high-roller baccarat to the big Vegas casinos. http://gaming.unlv.edu/reports/UNLVColliers%20MidYear2013.pdf

It is amazing that with a mathematical expectation of a 1.25 hold that the casinos in Nevada can average over 14% in a twenty year period. I wouldn't be surprised, if you added in AC and other casino areas, that the average hold percentage would be higher. I do want to point out though, that in the first article linked by jmz91, that the 43.88% figure was not a hold percentage from baccarat. It was the percentage of the casino's total profit from all table games attributed to baccarat. My understanding of this would mean that for every $100 in total table game profit, $43.88 was attributed to baccarat. I would think you could infer from that data that the hold percentages from the baccarat tables must be good if they account for nearly half of all the casino's table game profits.

That was interesting, but the 43.88% was the percentage of total table game profit from baccarat. Check out this article/pdf: http://gaming.unlv.edu/reports/nv_table_hold.pdf Just ran across this, a March 2013 report is showing that the 20 year historical average (1992-2012) for the baccarat hold in Nevada casinos is 14.68%. Interesting, not as high as some reporting I've seen on here, but obviously higher than the 1.25% commission.

The above is good advice to new members for sure. Go to the NOR+ thread to page 7 of the thread I believe and in post #292 you can see the shoes Ellis is referring to. Then go to post #300 and read the play by play he posted. These are really great posts to study. Stuck in between those posts at post # 296 is a great post about selecting the right system. It's a must read and print out for future reference, I have and refer to it in my binder often. Digging around in the Forum and reading the posts has been very informative and Ellis and others have obviously spent countless hours providing members of the forum a wealth of baccarat knowledge. I've especially enjoyed reading the old posts in the NOR forum starting back at the beginning. There are some great posts there. I'm especially enjoying looking at the posted shoes and commentary from a Sands trip back in early 2011 I believe. Those are good reads. There were a few Ellis posts in the thread titled "Sands II" that I even printed out for my binder. There's great little "gems" of knowledge out here in the forum, take the time to search them out, you won't be sorry.

Oops! I hope I haven't done something I wasn't supposed to. I thought this was a thread in the private NOR forum. At least that's the way it comes up on my computer after I log in. Maybe I should lay low for awhile and let the experts respond to questions. I was just participating really to help with my learning and if that possibly helped someone else, well, even better.

I am actually doing this with two decks of cards (I think I'll add a third now). The only difference is I am using a red deck and a blue deck. I shuffle the cards and leave them face up, then when I turn them over the red colored deck is banker and the blue color deck is player. Red and blue just like the tote boards in the casino. I'm glad I read this, I wasn't sure what I was doing was very accurate as far as frequencies of occurrences was concerned, but it is fast and easy.

As you can see in the M2 column sequence in the post below, if you were going OTR in M2 your bet would have been on player not banker, because you would be going on a zig-zag run and a player bet would be the continuation of the current zig-zag run.

EE, below is how I believe you would play out the sequence you posted. I ran the sequence both ways, assuming you were in Mode 3(M3) and then assuming Mode 2(M2). As you can see, M3 was the better choice in that sequence. In M3 you never lost your third bet and you would still be in M3 at the end of the sequence. In M2, you lost your second bet at play #5 and went OTR for zig-zag(zz) with a player 3 bet. You lose the OTR bet, so you are back to OTB4L with a player 4 bet and you are now in M3 for your zz runs, but still in M2 for your straight runs. Hope this helps.

Emeraldeagle, Here's a good post on modes for you to review. It's Ellis' post #3 in the thread. http://www.beatthecasino.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7505

Here's the shoe played out as Ellis described. I'm off a couple units, but I think I got right. The slight difference starts at the bottom of column 2, where I end up at +13 instead of +11 as Ellis described, which then puts me finishing up at +30 instead of +28.

Tunica MS sounds good to me. It's been a lot of years since I've been there. Stumbled on it by accident over 15 years ago during a road trip. Would love to see how it's changed since then. If I remember right, there were only three casinos there at the time.

Oh, also forgot to say, thanks Ellis for that post #58 below. That's another great explanation of the F system. I've already printed it out and included in my binder.

WOW! Now that's a trip report I would really like to read. Any other reports about this past weekend's seminar and how it went would be great to read as well. Hope it all went well. I can't wait till the next one, I'm going to do everything I can to make it. I hope it's soon.

I understand that table selection is critical, but my problem is the times I am able to get to the casino are usually weekends when it is most crowded and table selection is made very difficult when the good tables I spot are all full. I guess I could be one of those over the shoulder players, but I think that would make it very difficult to keep a score card and hold my chips. I don't want to play that way. I guess I need to work on finding better times to get to the casino, and that is going to be tough with my current life schedule.

I believe what I meant was when M2 switches you to the other side OTR and you win your first and second bet on your M2 OTR you will now stay on that side. You only switch right back if you lose either your first or second bet OTR in M2 or your one OTR bet if in M3. I hope that is more clear about how I understand F play. If I've still got this wrong, I'm sure my error will be pointed out. Also, I hope my last post did not seem critical, it was definitely not meant that way. Reviewing other's play is always helpful in understanding and learning the systems.

Hey derkyft, Nice hit and run, but... I think you made a mistake starting at play #48. I emphasize "I think", because I'm still new at this, but my understanding of F is that when you switch sides based on what mode you're in, you stay on that new side until you lose a bet and then switch back to the other side. That being said it would appear to me that you would have stayed on the banker side at play #48 with a 1 bet (following your U1D1 progression) and then your bets starting at play #49 would have gone 1B 2B 3P which all lost putting you in mode 3 now and then the 4B 5B 6B would have all lost as well so at the end of pay #54 you would be at -5 units. Now granted your next five bets would all be winners now of 7B 6B 5B 4B 3B ending the shoe at +20. But would you have gotten that far with the stop-loss limits? Ha, don't listen to me on that, I'm still not doing a good job following those rules yet. If I got this all wrong, just ignore what I've just posted.

Trip Report 8-10-13 (Second trip to Lauberge) – Part 2 Ok, so after a little while of my dazed and confused wandering around the tables I found a table that looked promising. I sized it up as an OTBL table, and jumped in at play #34, by play #50 I lost my 3 bet to put me down -6. I was super mad at myself for making the next 4 bet, which lost, and just like that I was down -10. Thank goodness I got up and walked away. I was steaming now, starting to doubt everything about my play, but the more I thought about it, I just didn’t think I was playing the systems that bad, I was just hitting some bad spots in the shoes, but more importantly, I wasn’t following the stop loss rules and it was costing me. After walking around a little more, believe it or not I went back to the first table I had been playing at and my same seat was open. I looked at the board and liked what I saw so I sat back down and started at play #24 with OTBLM3 and ended up finishing out the shoe at +8 units. I started the next shoe the same way at play #2 and after play #32 I didn’t like the way the shoe was going and thought it was turning really choppy, so I switched to S40 at the next play and managed to finish up that shoe +13 units. Things were looking a little better at this point. I was starving by now, since I hadn’t had a bite to eat in five or six hours, so I got up and went to grab a quick snack after that last shoe. By the time I got back the next shoe had already started and was finishing up play #9. The board looked OTBL so I stayed with what was working on that color shoe last time around and I finished up at play #65 with +10 units. I decided to start the next shoe S40M2, since that is what it seemed to favor the last go around and sure enough that proved a good call. It was pretty smooth sailing all the way through the shoe and I decided to quit at play #54 while I was up +21 units. At this point I calculated I was up pretty good and it was already really late. I had a long drive home ahead of me and was glad I was going to be leaving on a more positive note than what I thought it might be earlier. All in all, another good trip despite the way I ignored the stop-loss rules several times. This second trip ended +1 -2 +13 +20 -20 -10 +8 +13 +10 +21 = +54 units.

Thanks Chief. I really like your "options straddle" approach. That's a very easy way to approach cash management in the game and a good visual right on the scorecard to follow. I can always use some help and your idea looks to be a really good tool I think I could incorporate into my play. Obviously I still have to follow the plan and not deviate once I implement it, which is turning out to be the harder part. I've tried to figure out why I'm having trouble with that and I think I have an idea. Here's my theory. I don't make it to the casino very often, maybe once a month if I'm lucky. But when I do find the time to go, it's not just a drive down the street. It's over a two hour drive and it's usually on a weekend. I know I'm only going to have a short amount of time while there, so I want to play as much as I can. There in lies the problem. I'm usually forced to find the first seat open and when I do find a seat, I don't want to get up, because again, the tables are usually full and it's hard to get a seat at another table. So if I get down early at the first table or hit a stop-loss, I hate having to get up and start all over finding another table and then waiting for a seat. I know this causes a real problem with table selection and it's something I'll have to figure out.

Trip Report 8-10-13 (Second trip to Lauberge) – Part 1 Ok, so my first trip two days prior had gone pretty good and I didn’t have any plans on Saturday, so I decided to drive back to the casino and give NOR another run. These trip reports are time consuming to write, but I always enjoy reading about other’s trips and how they did, so I definitely want to contribute a little back to the forum. Arrived about 1:00pm and didn’t settle on a table until about thirty minutes later. I just couldn’t find one that looked good, and when I did finally sit down at a table, I managed to finish that shoe only up +1 unit. Started the second shoe at the table at play #2 OTBLM3 and after play #9 it was 1 banker to eight players, so on play #10 I went F2 on the strong side and by play #52 I was +17 for the second time and should have quit, but oh no, I pressed it, and didn’t follow the half decade management rules and ended the shoe -2. Talk about being really mad, not mad at the way the game went, just mad at myself for not being smarter. I mean I didn’t even quit when I was +1 facing the 3 bet, to at least preserve a win. Just stupid! Unfortunately that’s not the last stupid thing I do on this trip as you’ll read later. The third shoe at that table started OTBLM3 at play #2, switched to S40M3 at play #17 and cruised through the shoe without much drama and finished up +13 units. I was feeling a little better after that shoe. The fourth shoe went smooth as well. Started OTBLM3 at play #2 again and it was an easy ride to +20 units finishing up at play #56 because I needed to hit the restroom and stretch a little. These games just move at a snail’s pace it seems like. They are no touch, but the tables are full, the dealers are slow with the payouts and commission tracking and then wait for what seems like forever to then deal the next hand. I’m not sure why they move so slow, you’d think the casinos would want them to pick up the pace. In another thread in the NOR forum, titled Rivers Casino, the poster writes about how there are nine spots on the tables there, but the casino lets people play from behind, effectively making up to 18 spots on the table. This is exactly the same scenario here at Lauberge. There are players who just float around all the tables. They swoop in and make bets right on top of the seated player’s bets, or put tie bets or Dragon bonus bets up next to the player or banker bets. It’s crazy. Now it doesn’t really bother me if they do that with people they know, or even if they politely ask me, it’s when they just did it without asking that really annoyed me. That only happened to me twice. The first time someone added a green to my player bet, we lost, no big deal. The second was when someone added $10 to my banker bet at the last second before I could object. The hand won and this guy scooped up his $20 and rolled. At first I didn’t think anything of it other than to be annoyed, but then I realized I got stuck with his portion of the commission. Now I was pissed, granted it was only $0.50, but it’s the principal of the matter that got me mad. The dealer didn’t even see a problem with it, so I guess it happens all the time there. Fortunately after that, no one else tried to bet over me on my hand so I didn’t have to say no. I finally get back to the table just as that last shoe was finishing up that I had left a little earlier and I waited for the new shoe to start. Now please take it easy on me after I tell you about this shoe. I’m really embarrassed to post this one, but I’ve got to be honest about my play to myself, so I might as well be honest about it here. Maybe my mistakes will help others learn not to make the same. What can I say about this shoe, other than I blew it big time and there is no excuse for it. Here it is: I started as usual at play #2 OTBLM3 and by play #8 I was at -5 units facing a 4 bet, I made it, so now I’m down -9 facing a 5 bet. Dumb me actually makes the 5 bet and loses so I’m down -14 after only play #10. But I don’t quit there, oh no, I keep going. I draw a line and at play #11 I switch to F2 (its 3B/7P at this point) and start my progression over with a 1 bet. Then I switch to S40 at play #18 and I get all the way back to -2 by play #36. Then I switch again to OTBL and wind up ending the shoe losing my 2, 3, 4 & 5 bets and managing to finish -20 units all by play #47. WOW!! It’s really ugly I know. I got up from the table and walked around for a bit in a daze, trying to decide if I should just leave or find a new table and keep playing. I was still up +12 units despite the disaster of my own making, so I decided to stay. I’m not sure what I was thinking at the time, other than I must have figured I had done so well on the previous two shoes that I thought I couldn’t lose. Big mistake and it cost me. To be continued……

Trip Report - Part 2 Okay, so I walked around checking out the tote boards and finally saw a good looking board that was about half way through. The table had a seat open, so I sat down. I realized after I sat down that it was a no commission table. One of those EZ baccarat tables that have the Dragon7 and Panda8 bets. It wasn't what I had planned on, but what the heck, I figured that was not a big deal. I bought in for twenty units and got my scorecard all set up and proceeded to bet. Things never really started off well and I was down and up, mostly down. It wasn’t but a few hands in when my 3 bet banker bet won(I thought anyway), but it was a Dragon7 win so apparently I don’t get paid on my banker bet in that situation. This is where the no commission comes in I suppose. Well this is where my problem really started. I was flustered on what my next bet should be. I was playing OTBLM3 so the repeat banker win should have put me on a 1 bet player the next hand. But I treated the no pay like a tie and left my 3bet banker up and of course it came up player. I figured I should have moved my bet, but still not sure what the right play is in those situations. I’ll have to bring that up in the forum here and see what others have to say about it. Anyway, the long and short of it is I lost 9 units on that shoe and got up and left the table. Needless to say I was a little discouraged after that, but I wasn’t giving up just yet. I wandered around a little bit watching some other tables and finally found a promising spot on another table. I settled into the ten seat just under the tote board and bought in for another twenty units. Sitting under the tote board was a little weird, because it felt like everyone was staring at me the whole time as they were looking at the board. I started play at hand #33 in what looked like a good S40 M2 shoe and off I went. I had one 5 bet and two 4 bets and ended the shoe +10. It should have been +13 but I screwed up a bet late in the shoe, which would have meant I only had one 4 bet instead of two, but it worked out ok only costing me 3 units I calculated afterwards. I made a mental note to pay better attention. I still made a few mistakes later in other shoes, but they again did not hurt my score too bad. The next shoe(blue), I jumped in at play #2 OTBLM3 and moved right through the shoe and ended up +22 units, with only one 5 bet and one 4 bet. The next shoe(red), I started OTBLM3, even though I played it S40 last go around, and made it through this time with +12 units with only one 5 bet and one 4 bet. The last shoe, which should have been the blue shoe, was the red shoe again as I explained in part 1. Since I had played it with success OTBLM3 I went at it again with that system starting at play #2. But after play #10 I was just +1 units and the shoe had gone 2 Bankers to 8 Players, so I jumped to F2 at play #11, which worked great because by play #45 I was at +19 units. But then the wheels fell off and I ended and I quit at play #60 up only +5 units because I was facing a 5 bet. In between plays #45 and #60 I had gone down to +7 up to +15 and back down to the finish at +5. I really should have stopped at +15 coming back up from +7, but I had been doing so well I really felt I was going to come back in that shoe, but it ultimately just didn’t work out. Like I said in part 1, I finished after that shoe, because the next shoe was a brand new shoe and I didn’t want to play it and it was getting late and I had the drive home ahead of me. All in all it was a great first NOR outing. I played 5 shoes, bet U1D2 the whole time and got to try out all three systems, switching between modes 2 and 3, and even switching systems mid shoe. I was pleased with the overall outcome of +40 units and happy I have paid for my NOR purchase in my first trip. P.S. I couldn't help myself after such a good first trip, so I went back this past Saturday. Another trip report coming soon, and let me just say, it's another good one.

Here is a photo of one of my scorecards from last night. I picked this one since it was my best shoe(Hey, why not?). I played it OTB4L, starting M3 with a U1D2 progression. The way you see the photo is how I kept the scorecard in front of me. It was easy to write sideways and keep up with it. I made two main columns that had three columns each for P, B & S. Just thought some might find it interesting to see.

TRIP REPORT, PART 1 Well, this is my first trip report, and I have to tell you, I hope they all go as well as this one went. Maybe it was just beginners luck, but after totally blowing the first shoe, I got up, moved tables and had success at the next table in all four shoes. Before I give you the play by play, let me give you a little color on the casino. So I drove over to the closest casino with baccarat, L’Auberge, in Lake Charles, LA. It’s about a two and half hour drive from where I live, which is not too bad, but not convenient enough to just go all the time. Ha, that may be a good thing. I arrived about 5:30pm last night and after getting a new players card (I couldn’t find my old one, probably left it in a video poker machine at the bar last time I was there, sometimes those free drinks at the bar can get expensive) and cashing out the free $10 on the card at the cage (ahead already, yes!!), I proceeded to do my recon on the baccarat pit. So, the casino has eleven baccarat tables. There were about six open at the time and most were pretty full. They appeared to be all midi tables I believe, with 10 spots. A few were $25 min and a few were $100 min. I believe the one $200 min table was the only touch table going last night. Two of the tables were the EZ Baccarat tables and only one was open. It so happens that was also the table I first sat down at because it had a spot open, but that turned out to be a mistake and caused me problems, which I will explain later. I never watched the full touch table so I actually never saw them replace the cards, but I did see the pit bosses with stacks of individual card packs on their table in the middle of the pit, so I’m assuming they didn’t use pre-shuffled cards, but I can’t be certain. The one opportunity I had to see on my table, I missed. I had gone to the restroom after the end of the third shoe at that table and when I returned they were cleaning up a big wet spot in the middle of the table. After they finished we just sat there for a while and I finally asked the dealer what was going on and she said someone spilled their drink while she was cutting the cards and the cards got wet. It was the blue deck. So what we were waiting on was for the shuffle machine to finish the red deck we had just played. The floor had also just dropped off a new blue shoe right before I got back. The dealer put that new shoe in the shuffle machine after the red shoe was finished shuffling. I was bummed because I had killed that old blue shoe last time and was hoping to get another crack at it. It was at that point I decided I’d be done after playing this red shoe one more time, which I had been successful with twice before already. I didn’t want to play that new blue shoe in the blind, plus I was already up pretty good and didn’t want to press my luck. Another thing I wanted to point out was how slow the games went. The second table was a no touch table and I played and it took just over five hours to play three and half shoes. I couldn’t believe how the dealers took their time and let several older players just talk about their next bets with each other and study the tote board and their scorecards, and the dealers would just wait around on them until they finally bet and then the dealers would deal. It made things move really slow and at first it didn’t bother me, because I was getting the hang of doing my scorecard in a live setting, horizontal instead of vertical (I’ll explain in a minute), but after a couple of shoes, I was ready to move things along, win or lose. I should have moved to a couple of the empty tables that had opened later in the evening, but I really like how things were going score wise at this table, so I didn’t move. From what I’ve gathered on this forum, most NOR players have made their own scorecards to use. I have done this for practice at home, but in the casino, I just couldn’t see showing up with my own scorecard. I’m a proponent of really trying to fly under the radar and not stand out when I’m playing in casinos. I don’t want to draw any unwanted attention from dealers, the pit, or even other players. I decided even before I got there that I would use the casinos scorecards. Now I did fill it out just as if I were doing it vertically, using three columns marked P,B, & S at the top of each column, but I kept the scorecard horizontal in front of me like all the other players. I was easily able to follow along and nobody seemed to take any notice of it all. To be continued……….

Okay, I didn't get any upfront info, but off I went anyway last night. Well, how did I do? I played five shoes and they went like this: Table #1, -9. Table #2, +10,+22,+12,+5. That's a total of +40 units. I was betting green so that is a $1000 profit. NOR purchase was paid for in my first trip. I know my first shoe is over the -8 stop loss, call it beginners stupidity, excitement, whatever. In hindsight, I was using the wrong system and the signals to change were obvious, I just didn't do it and it cost me in that first shoe. I'd like to think I did a better job at the next table. I'll try to post up the shoes later and maybe give a trip report.

Any one have any information or scouting report on the baccarat tables at L'Auberge casino in Lake Charles, LA? I've been several times, and I know they have quite a few tables, I've just never played baccarat at this casino. I'm possibly going to make a run over there this weekend and play. I was just curious if anyone had any scoop. Thanks.

Okay, I've regrouped and I think I've got it figured out now. Below is shoe #3 again, played correctly this time I believe. Take a look and let me know what you think.