Bet Phoenix "Cutting it short"

[gablaw]

Speaking of shuffles, Ellis, it seems to me that the cards in a baccarat shoe clump just as they do in BJ. So if the last card or two in the last hand are 10s, then it's more likely Player will have a first 10. Do we know the likelihood of a side losing with a first card 10? I guess I'm thinking about a reverse first base play.

And why is a first card Ace so often followed by a 10? So many blackjacks in Bac!

[ECD]

Speaking of shuffles, Ellis, it seems to me that the cards in a baccarat shoe clump just as they do in BJ. So if the last card or two in the last hand are 10s, then it's more likely Player will have a first 10. Do we know the likelihood of a side losing with a first card 10? I guess I'm thinking about a reverse first base play.

Well this is good out of the box thinking! But it's flawed. First, first card tens are highly meaningful in Bj because they increase your chance of winning the hand to 74%. But, first card tens are virtually meaningless in Bac because they count as 0.

Second, there is no reason for cards to clump in Baccarat because they are picked up relatively the same way they are dealt.

But in Bj the cards are artificially clumped by the dealer BEFORE going into the discard rack. The dealer picks up the break hands first which are mostly low cards and then picks up the non break hands en masse which are mostly high cards. Then the shuffles or machines are designed to preserve or even enhance this "clumping".

Of course, the casino party line is that they pick up the break cards first so that the dealer doesn't accidentally pay off a player who broke. But this story doesn't hold water at all. First, any dealer KNOWS who broke. But second is the fact that the dealer can no longer deal back the cards to instantly and thoroughly settle all disputes because the cards are not in reverse order in the discard rack because the break cards were picked up first. Half the time when the dealer attempts to reverse deal the cards back it heightens the dispute instead of solving it. If they were truly concerned with accidental payoffs the dealer could simply move the break hands foward a little and thereby preserve the integity of reverse deals.

So its obvious to any thinking player that the casino is clumping the cards on purpose. Why? because clumping ruins Basic Strategy AND reduces the dealer break rate at the same time. If the dealer picked up ALL the cards in order the game would give the house about a half percent advantage. But this cheating card pick up increases the real house advantage to about 15% in BJ as demonstrated by the fact that the casino retention of the drop in BJ averages about 15%.

After I conducted a seminar in the twin cities in Minnesota, a local Indian casino challenged me saying that they would pick up all cards in order. They did exactly that and got killed. After a month of NO BJ profits they went right back to the standard cheating card pick up and proved my point beautifully and W/O question.

But NO, a Bj count in Baccarat will not help you.

And why is a first card Ace so often followed by a 10? So many blackjacks in Bac!

Ha, it just SEEMS that way. Think about it. Once you have a first card Ace, 4 out of 13 cards are tens so a first card ten will draw a BJ 31% of the time.

Edited July 1, 2010 by ECD

[gablaw]

BPH just did a full-fledged strip before the usual shuffle. Two dealers split the shoe, then each split their half into 2 piles alternating 1-3 cards on each pile. Don't know what the shoe before was like. It will be interesting to see what the next shoe looks like. (Yeah, I know, I've been spending a lot of time at BPH since I deposited money about a week ago.)

Out of the box but wrong-- how far out is that?

About as expected--SAP count 16 24 8 16

Edited July 1, 2010 by gablaw

[gablaw]

Anybody up? Great OTB4L games at BPH

Edited July 6, 2010 by gablaw

[Mark_Ripple]

What's a helicopter on Thanksgiving?

[Mark_Ripple]

I'm up, unfortunately.

[Mark_Ripple]

He's right, tho, Dad! So funny

[gablaw]

F2 shoe going on right now.

[MVSeahog]

All,

Just finished up tonight's play at BPH. +11, naturally!

Anyway, I seem to notice that they've speeded up their game. The girls (and Byron) now pick up the cards and get the countdown clock started in 7 seconds. I think they've finally solved their slow play days for sure. It was a nice change though. Good video tonight too. No lag at all. Maybe they fed the chipmunks some extra peanuts or something to keep the generators going.

Also, at hand 24 (which I lost) there were FOUR TIES in a row before the Bank hand came out. That's a new record for me!

I'll post up the results when the shoe finishes.

Edit... Yes, I missed that run of 14 Player as I had hit +10 for the fourth time at hand 36 and it was time to exit. Arrrrrrgh.

BPH July 7, 2010 8:45pm

B13316114

B2131112432

P(12)111113

B22312311

MVS

Edited July 8, 2010 by MVSeahog

[gablaw]

There were 4 ties a few days ago as well. Did you play this shoe straight through RDh with no pauses? I got +10 with 5 hi that way to just before the humongous run. At first OTB4L looked promising, it won 4 of 6 in hands 3-8--big mistake as the 6 run came immediately after.

BPH looks choppy in the mornings, and definitely gets streaky later in the day. Just as Ellis says. I have trouble moving from chop to streak and back in their shoes.

Edited July 8, 2010 by gablaw

[ECD]

Gabby, when you play our OTB4L system, you MUST go on the run at some point. The 6 would not have hurt you had you gone OTR after it went 4 but your SAP chart can tell you exactly when to go on both straight and ZZ runs.

You are making excellent observations at BPH and we thank you for those. Now the trick is to use those observations wisely.

[MVSeahog]

There were 4 ties a few days ago as well. Did you play this shoe straight through RDh with no pauses?

Gab,

No, I actually started it running F2 at hand 10 as Sap was showing 3's MC. Stayed on F2 until hand 21 where I went to RD as 4's had become MC and RD was making a nice comeback.

Went back to F2 at hand 26 after the three RD losses. Back to RD at hand 38 after the two F2 losses coming off the run.

Stayed on RD all the way to 59 where it lost 2 in a row on Bank.

Mostly F2 from there until the 4 loses at 64 which neccesitated a 3 hand wait. Then a final losing RD bet as my "hand after the joker" flyer bet.

MVS

Edited July 8, 2010 by MVSeahog
Starting hand

[gablaw]

Thanks, Hog. Super chop from BPH tonight==28 20 8 12 sap count.

[ECD]

Very interesting report MVS!

Look, I'm not sure how to say this W/O reflecting on Mark. I don't mean to do so and I certainly want to see him come back and take up where he left off. Maverick may well be one of the best approaches we've ever had but at least for now it has lost its champion. Mark was doing an excellent job of evolving this system, but I don't think it is as good as it can be YET. I DO think that its main strength comes from the marriage of the particular systems Mark chose to put together. He did this the hard way, thru trial and error but he came up with something obviously magical thru hard work and devotion. I would think that Mark would want us to CONTINUE evolving this system from where he left off. I think it needs that professional touch.

Look, we know exactly what each of the component systems like and dislike. I'm thinking that we need to take a closer look at our switch triggers. I'm thinking we could be switching sooner using the most recent events as a guide. We are already looking at our SAP counts but maybe we could be employing them sooner. I'm thinking that sometimes we should be switching with fewer losses or even no losses. I'm trying to think BEFORE the fact rather than AFTER the fact.

For instance: We KNOW that OTB4L wins EVERY bet in the TTs BUT are we using that fact?

We know that SYS 40 wins every bet in a ZZ run, but are we employing that fact?

We know that F2 and 3 beats the sporadic 1's BEST but do we incorporate that fact?

We know that certain systems like chop and certain systems like streak but are we employing a C/S count?

I think even Mark would agree that there is still lots of room for improvement.

We are ALL becomming THINKING players rather than playing by rote like everyone else.

I'm thinking we are smart enough now to start thinking AHEAD of the game rather than letting mistakes guide us.

Is anyone seeing any logic in what I'm trying to say?

OK Gablaw is seeing super chop. Fine! What does that tell us? How should we be starting our shoes? With a streak system? I don't think so. Are you catching my drift? I want us to be as good as we can be - the best there is!

Edited July 9, 2010 by ECD

[ECD]

EVERY pattern there is has a system that beats it BEST. THAT is the secret of Maverick. Then WHY are we waiting for 3 losses? What good did 3 losses do us???????????????????

When we get a 2,2, what should our next bet be REGARDLESS of whether we won or lost?

When we get a 31311 what should our next bet be REGARDLESS of whether we won or lost?

Edited July 9, 2010 by ECD

[ECD]

A really good system can trick you into believing it is invincible. You get tricked into believing that if you carry your progs far enough, you can't lose. This is NOT the case and is the downfall of many great players. Sooner or later you'll hit the shoe from Hell that just keeps doing exactly the wrong thing no matter how hard you try to follow it.

Sometimes I wonder if such shoes are actually designed by casino experts??? It really doesn't matter. Shit happens!

We must ALWAYS have a safeguard, a surrender point. The BEST player is the one who gets the hell out of there first. Sometimes the BEST player is the guy on his way home.

We must ALWAYS have a reasonable stop loss. I think a good way to design a stop loss is to look at the avg of your winning shoes only and do not exceed that number.

For instance, lets say your system is winning 7 out of 10 shoes. It might be averaging 7 units overall but your winning shoes are averaging +11. You can afford an 11 unit stop loss.

Another important associated number is the avg of your losing shoes. For instance SAP averaged about +6 overall. That is very good for a 2 High system. Also very good was the 80% win rate. But perhaps its BEST feature was the fact that losing shoes only averaged about -4.

Now I'm not saying run right out and only play SAP. ALL systems have good days and bad days. SAP is weakest in super chop. I think the best thing to come out of SAP is the SAP chart. Yes, it did a LOT for SAP but I think its BEST use is in other systems. Just my thoughts for the day.

[Mark_Ripple]

Good stuff, Dad

[gablaw]

Bravo. Ellis, but how do you know what's coming? In many shoes at BPH, there will be a trend for 5-10 plays then abruptly change. I might catch the last 3-4 hands after identifying the trend and then lose it in the next 2-3 hands when the trend changes. I guess the safest way is to play those few shoes in which the trend lasts much longer. For example, the first shoe today after the morning wash-+23 O/R count. Sys 40 straight through U1D2= +35, hi bet 3.

P11131211211311

P1121241112112

B31111231111112

B21111121151

Edited July 9, 2010 by gablaw

[ECD]

Bravo. Ellis, but how do you know what's coming? In many shoes at BPH, there will be a trend for 5-10 plays then abruptly change. I might catch the last 3-4 hands after identifying the trend and then lose it in the next 2-3 hands when the trend changes. I guess the safest way is to play those few shoes in which the trend lasts much longer. For example, the first shoe today after the morning wash-+23 O/R count. Sys 40 straight through U1D2= +35, hi bet 3.

P11131211211311

P1121241112112

B31111231111112

B21111121151

Exactly! I think you are asking the right questions Gaby. I think we need to be asking ourselves MORE of the right questions about every single event.

1's - are 1's high or low. In your shoe they are VERY high. What does that tell us??? System 40?

1's - are they coming 1 at a time (sporadic) or in droves (ZZ)? Your shoe is droves. That is AGAINST F2-3 And OTB4L but favors 40 and TB4L except the super chop rules out TB4L.

2s - Are they high or low. High spells System 40 and OTB4L. Low spells TB4L

2s - Are they coming sporadic or in droves. Sporadic = 40. Droves = OTB4L

In your shoe 2s are slightly high and occuring sporadically

3s - low 3s with high 1s and 2s like your shoe screams Sys 40 with 3s the culprit esp when the 3s are followed by 1's.

That is the kind of analizing we should be doing.

For instance in the TTs yes, repeats is winning every other bet but OTB4L is winning EVERY bet. In that case we should be switching after A WINNING bet.

Just as in a ZZ run, yes, F2-3 is winning every other bet but SyS 40 would be winning EVERY bet.

Trying to get the blood flowing. We don't have Mark telling us what to do anymore. But we have brains too. Esp. when we think collectively.

Edited July 9, 2010 by ECD

[gablaw]

Thanks, Ellis! I guess as you always (or used to say, anyway) "It's a thinking person's (pc) game."

One more question-- is Big Whip a river in Arkansas?

[ECD]

Ha, No, big whip is an expression from the '60s. Same as Big Deal when said fasiciously.

[Dazza]

Hello Ellis

Thank you so much for your posts....

I was wondering if you could actually do a shoe for us to show it more clearly what you are saying etc...

( when you change systems and etc etc )

Thank You

Dazza

[TomM]

Well I just thought I would check in here. I was playing at Bph today and the feed has been horrible. When I left Monica was frozen in time. Anyone got and ice pick head'in down Costa Rica way ? Poor girl is going to get all cramped up posing like that forever. Obviously Bph still has problems with their network. There were a couple of times I could not get my bet accepted even placing it as early as I could manage. All the time they spend worrying about a few players winning some colons they maybe should have dug deeper and had their feed fixed (if humanly possible with current Costa Rica digital infrastructure. It’s totally hit or miss there. I usually play after midnight and you just never know. Still just the 2 tables going...if that at times.

I do have to thank the Bph chiefs for rounding up Carolina and putting her back in the game. It seems they fixed her wardrobe problem...drats I wonder what they have the rest of the dealers doing with only one or two baccarat shoes going. Did they add some more live roulette or BJ (I doubt it as the live games are resource hogs) as I haven‘t checked. It is almost humorous when someone off camera is having to direct the dealer to slow every thing down to accommodate the feed lag at times. Some shoes go over three hours when it is real bad there. Shoes used to average about 1 hour 11 minutes or so before the big freeze. Beats me. We need a Costa Rican connection to get to the bottom of this.

I still find it difficult to believe that the UIEGA bill got passed and in reading around a little it is clearer to me that the people who voted on that had no idea that it was anything other than a port security bill to curtail terrorism. Nobody didn't want to appear to be against securing our ports from the terrorist so it seems as if it was penned without much thought if any to this Uiega thing that was attached to it. How this went down is beyond me. Sure would be nice to be able to play all the outfits offering live baccarat instead of just one. The world court ruled the Uiega thing to be illegal or just idiotic. They say at most the bill only stops financial interests from processing deposits and withdrawals from these places. Good grief too much for me! If the world court is still scratching their combined head over some of the bills that got past in the last decade join the club.

This thread started more than a month ago when they started shorting the shoes. It really didn't surprise me that they took some measures to tighten up their game but the more they did just left them open for other exploit maneuvers. That bring up the point being discussed here about reacting to the shoe at hand. I still base my game on Maverick and track RH vs.Anti RH however when the game is shouting with long ZZ runs I hit them sometimes. The same thing with very trendy Otb4l shoes. This is how Maverick started out but as Mark was attempting to make it simpler he gradually dropped off most of the early Maverick exploit stuff and ended with RD-H and F2. These two methods married together with the guidelines that Mark wrote up for them are very effective in the vast majority of shoes. However personally when I see something that I can exploit I use all the tools. That includes changing progressions also. I can start a shoe flat betting and end up playing U1D1M..or optional bet.. to follow. It’s more work but for me but interesting to follow and bet a shoe as close to perfect as possible to not only win units but to control downturns. But a lot of this is difficult to teach and I think Mark did an exceptional job of designing a simple method of winning an awful lot of shoes with particularly U1D2M2. In my opinion all that you have to do is play opposites when they are the key event and OTB4L when the 2’s are flowing like the Nile. Just keep and eye on the rest of the stuff and adjust your progressions to minimize drawdown and maximize return.

I have a question for Ellis or anyone that is mathematically inclined that I brought up in a post a few days a go in the Maverick thread. I was tracking RD-H and Anti with the DOTS until recently when I changed to actually writing in the number… so +13 for RD-H and say -7 for Anti RD-H. I was wondering if it is more precise to count the Anti numbers that fall at the end of the run as -.5 rather than as Mark and others just count it as a whole number. It should seem as if the end of the run loss should not count a full unit to my sensibilities but I don’t know exactly why. I suppose as played with Maverick it is an inevitable loss so I was even keeping my DOT chart with the end of the run “DOT” as a circle to differentiate it from a “primary loss”. Maybe this is not important or really all that mathematically calculable. In most systems we arrive at the idea that most of the time it is better to hit he end of the run with the inevitable losing bet then trying to guess when it will end. But depending on the progression you are using and the primary event you are facing you can do better by switching sides before the end of the run. At times as skip betting or OTB4L etc. does successfully in standard run shoes for example. By standard run I mean straight runs of 4 or 5... Skip.. the same with opposites of 4 or 5 counted correctly, or better yet OTB4L as an example.

I’ll toss a shoe up later today with this ½ unit calculation for the Anti tracking in Maverick as a visual. It is not a hassle to do but I don’t know if it is meaningful mathematically wise. For all I know I may be screwing with something perfectly fine as it is. In any case it must be a minor detail.

P.S. As someone brought up in this thread a while back about setting up a phony out of the country IP address. I went to the website that was posted and I got lost in the Nerd jargon. It did sound complicated to me. I didn’t really research any more than that. I did look at the free proxy servers like www. Proxy.com or something. They offer free proxy service for those that want to surf the net without leaving personal tracks but it is just the tip of the iceberg for setting up some out of country IP thing. Someone mentioned not to even try to set up a fun account at a “restricted” online casino with a proxy server as the online casinos are hip to this and they will ban you or something if you presumably sign up at their web casino using a proxy. That’s just what I read. I can only imagine it must be a little difficult to set up an account with a covert IP so you could play at Dublinbet and other legit places. It would seem to me you could be caught up in the internet security zone…AKA cyber cops cruising for bad guys and inadvertently be caught playing restricted” overseas casinos. These cyber cops could probably give a shit about someone playing online casinos when they are trolling for terrorists and father rappers and such. But you could get caught up in that if you were unlucky I guess. There was an older movie that Bill Murray was in that he dressed up as a clown to rob a NYC bank. Funny movie but forget the name but he hat a line in there like “ Those damn terrorists are making it tough for us bank robbers” That movie is probably 25 year’s old and already terrorism is mentioned. But the beat goes on. The damn terrorist were instrumental in causing a bill to be passed that the UIEGA thing piggy backed on. It is a bit out of my league. Next rainy day I will troll that sight again and ask about feasibility.

P.S. The Bill Murray movie 1990 Quick Change. Very funny. I just thought of another older movie that is in the same venue. Going in Style…George Burns and Art Carney rob a NYC bank and go to Vegas and turn their small fortune into a larger one on the dice table. Pretty good. Thanks GOOGLE !

Edited July 9, 2010 by TomM

[stanislaus]

If anyone is thinking of using a foreign IP address to get a live casino account with DublinBet or Black Orchid Casino, for example, don't waste your time. Getting the foreign IP address is the least of your problems. What would you use as an address in the application form the casino uses? You cannot use a U.S. address. If you use a U.S. address, the casino would not let you open an account. And if you use a phony address, this would cause a problem when the casino asks you for a copy of some sort of ID, like a passport, and a copy of a utility bill in your name at your address. The main problem will be putting money into the account and withdrawing the money. There is no way I know of that you could fund an account like DublinBet if you live in the U.S. You cannot fund it using U.S.-issued credit cards or bank transfers, because these are illegal under U.S. law. If you happen to have a credit card issued in a foreign country, the address you use with the on-line casino would have to match the address of the credit card. The problems are endless. However, is you had access to a foreign address and used that address for banking purposes, then that's another story.

[TomM]

If anyone is thinking of using a foreign IP address to get a live casino account with DublinBet or Black Orchid Casino, for example, don't waste your time. Getting the foreign IP address is the least of your problems. What would you use as an address in the application form the casino uses? You cannot use a U.S. address. If you use a U.S. address, the casino would not let you open an account. And if you use a phony address, this would cause a problem when the casino asks you for a copy of some sort of ID, like a passport, and a copy of a utility bill in your name at your address. The main problem will be putting money into the account and withdrawing the money. There is no way I know of that you could fund an account like DublinBet if you live in the U.S. You cannot fund it using U.S.-issued credit cards or bank transfers, because these are illegal under U.S. law. If you happen to have a credit card issued in a foreign country, the address you use with the on-line casino would have to match the address of the credit card. The problems are endless. However, is you had access to a foreign address and used that address for banking purposes, then that's another story.

That's the preliminary conclusion that I came too after a quick search. It seems complicated. I think maybe if you have a good friend or relative that live in a country that permits online gaming you might be able to hook things up if you could have the financial thing handled by your partner. 30% of the take would be a nice incentive to have them set up a separate computer ( send money for computer) and as far as access could you use something like www.gotomycomputer.com to access and play the games. I tried go to my PC.com or whatever it is called to remotely try it when they had a free trail offer and it worked great accessing my computer with the wife’s laptop but that was in the USA.

Anyway without a “license to hack†or some total insider techno deal it seems like the best route to try if you have a relative in Europe or wherever it is legal and make a juicy proposition with front money for computer and extra tech setup and hassle money. Maybe then it is feasible with less probability of arousing suspicion. Just have the relative do the financials and send you a shoebox full of buckos minus their commish. I think it could be very lucrative for a dedicated partnership as long as you don't hit one outfit too often for too much. With my miniscule financial and techno abilities that seems to be a possible shortcut for some even though not very convenient. I'll investigate this further on one of those rainy days. Sounds like a rainy day program to me.

I checked out of Bph an hour ago and I think the last shoe went 2 hours or so. At least it felt that way as I had it figured wrong and only netted 4.5 units with a conservative progression. I looked at it at the end and saw definite sys 40 possibilities even though I don't think it was great for anything but a small win with most floating systems.

Bph actually did a pretty good job in a short time plugging some holes in their very exploitable super trendy streak shoes but they still haven't been able to nail down dealing mostly all neutral most as of this time. Just a couple days a go I had a 80 unit shoe with Maverick and some Opposite exploit and a big shoe change in the second half with two 9's that I was so shocked to see I only ladder bet one of the balanced streaks. B and P were running about equal disparity and two 9 in a rows came out in the second half. I was caught a bit off guard or I would have scored more on that one. Where there’s a will, there's a way, or at the very least a dead person (on paper ?)… last weeks 60 minutes flashback on dead doctors billing Medicare for prostate operations on women and male pregnancy pay-offs and other multimillion dollars scams are just the tip of the iceberg there. The expert admitted the sophisticated scam operations are to far advanced for the normal red light programs to pick up on. Only the boneheads get caught.