Horseshoe Casino, IN, Scorecards & Play

[shuttlesmasher]

And i would agree with this, if you hit -8, it is harder to get back to break even. if you hit -8 obviously the shoe is not doing what you think it is doing. Moreover, if -4, it means you could have just lost 3 or 4 bets. but, if you hit -8 then really you would have lost 6-8 bets more than you have won.

hit -8, get out of there, as potentialy the shoe can squeeze another 4 to 8 units out of you. making yuo hit -12 or -16.

There is a reason why you hit -8 and that is the shoe is not what you think it should be doing. get out!!!

Sometimes if you are on a roll, no matter what you do, you can't lose! thats when you CAN squeeezx more out of the shoe.

[Guest]

Joey, that was a very good example of putting yourself in the right place at the right time. Consider what happens when you multiply that small feat. What if you knew what the morning card preps produced at every casino in AC. What if you knew which ones tended to turn streaky and which ones didn't. What if you knew which one was the streakiest in the whole city.

You like to walk. So did I. But you can put that walking to good use. A shirt pocket note pad can do wonders for your memory. Every casino has their modus opperanda and eventually you can begin to anticipate them. It gets to the point that you know exactly where to be at any specific time on every day of the week. Then one morning you wake up and it dawns on you that you are a pro now.

Dave, no I don't even begin to agree that in a no commission world your best proposition is to simply play the Bank edge. For all intents and purposes I already live in such a world because I totally ignore commission and I totally ignore the bank edge. If I were reduced to the Bank edge I would have quit Baccarat a long time ago. I strive for and get a double digit PA.

The best proposition is to know what is happening, where it's happening and when it's happening. Then simply play what is happening with good cash mgt. And especially knowing when to attack and when to retreat. I like to look at the whole thing as a well planned military opperation. Hit them where they are the most vulnerable, when they are most vulnerable and hit them with an overwhelming force. No fanfare. Get in, do your thing and get gone! THAT is the real mathematics of it. No splitting hairs.

[Guest]

"Cash is a position too!" I like that Joey. And how true it is!

[davelevad]

I wonder if in testing you should ignore commission??? As an impurity.

Dave, no I don't even begin to agree that in a no commission world your best proposition is to simply play the Bank edge.

Ellis, your original question was in the context of computational testing, which assumes baccarat is a fair, random game.

In that context, always betting Banker is best. That's the real mathematics of it.

Put it another way, if we have a contest of playing 1,000 randomly chosen shoes, and I only bet Banker always, while you play however else you wish, then the odds favor my winning the contest, with or without Banker's commissions taken into account.

[Guest]

Yes, I agree that in a theoretical, random world Bank is best. But I'm talking about the real world when I say forget the Bank edge and go for double digit PA.

I watched Player when every shoe for 9 days straight at a big bac, new cards table at Foxwood. Sometimes you have to forget math and forget why its happening and simply bet on what IS happening. Sure, Bank has its mathematical edge but Player doesn't seem to know that and will sometimes win 80% of the hands in a shoe. In that scenario the Bank only player is S.O.L. We couldn't care less what happens in 1000 shoes. What we care about is what is happening in THIS shoe that we are playing right now!

[Guest]

Ellis, your original question was in the context of computational testing, which assumes baccarat is a fair, random game.

In that context, always betting Banker is best. That's the real mathematics of it.

Put it another way, if we have a contest of playing 1,000 randomly chosen shoes, and I only bet Banker always, while you play however else you wish, then the odds favor my winning the contest, with or without Banker's commissions taken into account.

I sincerely doubt you would win Dave. Just because shoes are selected randomly doesn't make them random. And don't forget that I am betting Bank about half the time. You are relegated to winning only about 51% of the hands and paying commission on all of those. I regularly play better than that. Yes, you will win ALL the Bank favorable shoes but I'm likely to win most of them too. You will lose ALL the Player favorable but I'll win my fair share. You can't go by purely random math in a game that isn't purely random.

Also, to insure your 1% edge which may or may not actually develop, you would pretty much have to flat bet and play every hand. Not me! Plus I don't have to worry about Standard Deviation. But You do.

I think the edge I procure will be greater than your built in edge.

All I'm giving up is Table Selection. But you are giving up your brain.

I think my brain is worth more than the slight edge you retain after commission , if any.

I think your win is a long way from assured.

Edited September 10, 2011 by Guest

[davelevad]

I sincerely doubt you would win Dave. Just because shoes are selected randomly doesn't make them random. And don't forget that I am betting Bank about half the time. You are relegated to winning only about 51% of the hands. I regularly play better than that. Yes, you will win ALL the Bank favorable shoes but I'm likely to win most of them too. You will lose ALL the Player favorable but I'll win my fair share. You can't go by purely random math in a game that isn't purely random.

Also, to insure your 1% edge which may or may not actually develop, you would pretty much have to flat bet and play every hand. Not me! Plus I don't have to worry about Standard Deviation. But You do.

If you play systematically by a set rule-based procedure over a random selection of baccarat shoes, I've already performed this "contest" computationally dozens of times, and unfortunately, you will lose.

For example, I know you're aware I had tested an earlier version of your Advanced System40, which was a prototype of your present NOR system. The results were posted here: Baccarat Simulation Series 9 Results: System 40S (Advanced System 40). It could not do better than always betting Banker. Nor could any other system or combination of systems. Nor will NOR, ADN, SAP, or any other additional systems or rules you'd like to add.

As far as 1000 shoes not being random, there's really no objective evidence to support that view. For example, I've thoroughly examined the events distributions of Zumma 600 shoes, Zumma 1000 shoes, and 2361 hand-collected live shoes. All of these are live shoes. The results are posted here: P and B Events Statistics: A Comprehensive Comparison. In all cases, each data set showed characteristic distributions expected in a random set, matching exactly the statistics in a set of 1,000,000 randomly generated shoes.

I could repeat the exercise indefinitely with data-sets consisting of 1000 randomly chosen shoes, and I will find the same thing. Indeed, I don't need 1000 shoes. Probably 100 is more than sufficient. Indeed, it only takes on the order of a few hundred coin flips (roughly equivalent to about 5 baccarat shoe's worth of P/B decisions) to demonstrate the clear signatures of a random distribution.

I've requested this several times before, but never got a response, that if you or John would send me your data set of live shoes, I'd be happy to run an events analysis on it to see whether it shows any signs of non-randomness.

If you claim to be able to beat always betting Banker in a 1000 random shoe contest, then you're essentially claiming to be able to beat random, since you should be able to just do the same thing in the next 1000 shoe data-set, one after another indefinitely. So, are you claiming to be able to beat random? If so, I sure would like to learn how, too!!!

[Guest]

Now don't go changing the rules Dave. You originally said I could play any way I wished. I would play NOR with a few other things thrown in from time to time. NOR doesn't have a single set of rules. It has three and then each of those has two modes. Then we have several betting techniques depending on circumstances. It is you who must play rigidly and brainlessly. We would want to make such a contest as close to actual casino play and conditions as possible. Would we not? Realistic, in other words.

But you can get a rough idea of what you would be up against. The six shoes you recorded are sans table selection. Check my hit rate (hands won rate). That takes the effect of progs entirely out of it. Even though perhaps somewhat inflated. I think you'll quickly see that I wouldn't have any great fear of perhaps the half of a percent advantage you MIGHT retain after commission. That is what playing biases is all about is it not?

See, biases are something you have yet to prove or disprove to your own satisfaction. I don't have that disadvantage. I already know. At this point you are going by what people say pro and con. I have no reason to care what people say. I'm going by the actual fact of experience, not opinion.

Dave, nobody here has any argument that numerous shoes eventually hit all random targets. Everyone here has already told you that numerous times. We've been saying this for 20 years W/O consulting any test data. We don't need any. But no one in the world plays according to the rules of your test data. We play in individual shoes. Once you play Bank only, individual shoes becomes meaningless to you. But not to me.

Random math is a great tool. But don't turn it into a millstone.

Edited September 10, 2011 by Guest

[Guest]

Well I see you saw fit to delete your post but the answer is: NO, I'm not claiming I can beat random. I'm claiming I can beat non random. You said "randomly selected shoes". Some of those will be biased toward streak, some biased toward chop, some biases toward Neutral ans some random - not consistently biased toward anything.

Here's a real simple test: Take ten randomly selected shoes and simply bet dead against the O/R count. See how that works out for ya.

What you are saying is there is no such thing as streaky or choppy shoes. That one changes into the other as often as not. That two shuffles magically produces random cards. That everyone here is all wet and could not possibly be winning. Lot's of luck with that. Once you've sat at the same choppy table for 3 days, you'll change your mind. I don't think math is on your side. I think it's on mine. Math also proves non randomness - biases. However they got there nobody cares. But you had better be playing them. Guys that bet against them get killed.

Now, back to the US open.

Edited September 10, 2011 by Guest

[ECD]

Can I chime in please? We can discuss baccarat theory in the Baccarat Universe, and is it random or not until we are blue in the face, but that has NOTHING to do with ONE Baccarat Shoe.

I don’t know about everyone else, but I only play ONE SHOE. That’s all I ever play ONE SHOE! I don’t care about the thousands of shoes or millions of shoes in the Baccarat Universe! For me, the game of Baccarat consists of only ONE SHOE!

In my ONE SHOE, sometimes things will be going along according to what should be happening in that ONE SHOE and some times things will be “out of whack” with the normal occurrences. That’s when we need Baccarat Math:

Here is the only math that I consider when playing my ONE SHOE.

8 decks = 72 hands avg. not counting ties. Half will be opposites, half repeats.

72 hands create 36 events. Half of the EVENTS are 1's giving you

18 1s = 18 hands

9 2s = 18 hands

4.5 3s = 13.5 hands

2.25 4s = 9 hands

2.25 5+s = 13.5 hands

36 events = 72 hands

Or you could say it this way:

a 1 every 4 hands = 72/4 = 18 events

a 2 every 8 hands = 72/8 = 9 events

a 3 every 16 hands = 72/16 = 4.5 events

a 4+ every 16 hands = 72/16 = 4.5 events = 36 events total.

Knowing this, and applying the SAP principle, it is usually pretty easy to spot what is “out of whack” and exploit it.

So, although I’m sure it is very stimulating intellectually, to argue (discuss) the great and vast Baccarat Universe, and what would happen if you only bet Bank for 10,000 hands, I prefer to only consider the ONE Shoe that I play. That way I only have to look at 72 hands to spot the non random exploitable events.

Now armed with this knowledge and watching what is actually happening right here and now at this point in my ONE SHOE, it’s easy to beat the casino.

A little Baccarat wisdom... take it or leave it.

Thanks,

PJ

Edited September 11, 2011 by ECD

[kkriats]

Well said PJ very simple and very useful

Kkriat

[joeystyle]

Joey, that was a very good example of putting yourself in the right place at the right time. Consider what happens when you multiply that small feat. What if you knew what the morning card preps produced at every casino in AC. What if you knew which ones tended to turn streaky and which ones didn't. What if you knew which one was the streakiest in the whole city.

You like to walk. So did I. But you can put that walking to good use. A shirt pocket note pad can do wonders for your memory. Every casino has their modus opperanda and eventually you can begin to anticipate them. It gets to the point that you know exactly where to be at any specific time on every day of the week. Then one morning you wake up and it dawns on you that you are a pro now.

Dave, no I don't even begin to agree that in a no commission world your best proposition is to simply play the Bank edge. For all intents and purposes I already live in such a world because I totally ignore commission and I totally ignore the bank edge. If I were reduced to the Bank edge I would have quit Baccarat a long time ago. I strive for and get a double digit PA.

The best proposition is to know what is happening, where it's happening and when it's happening. Then simply play what is happening with good cash mgt. And especially knowing when to attack and when to retreat. I like to look at the whole thing as a well planned military opperation. Hit them where they are the most vulnerable, when they are most vulnerable and hit them with an overwhelming force. No fanfare. Get in, do your thing and get gone! THAT is the real mathematics of it. No splitting hairs.

If ever there was just ONE piece of advice that should be ingrained in our skulls on BTC is what you mention right here. Thinking back of my play at the Golden Nugget this week where I took advantage of a major streak dominance, I observed the exact streak type of shoe, at the same exact table,around the same time of day, when I was doing some aisle viewing of the Nugget a couple weeks back. I also love this thought process of planning a military strike with precision execution on a casino, hit it good and run!

Since, we are on the topic of paying the commission on Banker and how it effects computer testing results, how does commission free Baccarat work into this equation? Since we will never play the tie or the 40-1 Dragon bet, is there any major disadvantages to playing E-Z Baccarat using NOR? The reason I ask is that the only tables,(except for one at Bally's in AC) that have tote boards in these casinos are the no commission variety.

Also, just to further the point of the existence of tote boards, I asked the person who was supervising the dealers in the BAC pit, why the Taj doesn't provide tote boards for ALL the Baccarat tables? She replied this is why we give you score cards.

Be well as we observe this memorable day

Ciao

Joey

[Guest]

If ever there was just ONE piece of advice that should be ingrained in our skulls on BTC is what you mention right here. Thinking back of my play at the Golden Nugget this week where I took advantage of a major streak dominance, I observed the exact streak type of shoe, at the same exact table,around the same time of day, when I was doing some aisle viewing of the Nugget a couple weeks back. I also love this thought process of planning a military strike with precision execution on a casino, hit it good and run!

Since, we are on the topic of paying the commission on Banker and how it effects computer testing results, how does commission free Baccarat work into this equation? Since we will never play the tie or the 40-1 Dragon bet, is there any major disadvantages to playing E-Z Baccarat using NOR? The reason I ask is that the only tables,(except for one at Bally's in AC) that have tote boards in these casinos are the no commission variety.

Also, just to further the point of the existence of tote boards, I asked the person who was supervising the dealers in the BAC pit, why the Taj doesn't provide tote boards for ALL the Baccarat tables? She replied this is why we give you score cards.

Be well as we observe this memorable day

Ciao

Joey

Joey, I don't see where it makes a speck of difference to us. I played both at Trump Plaza, 2 shoes each at two tables, and had no trouble with either. No commission Bac is merely a time saver for the casino. It doesn't change anything we do.

[Guest]

Can I chime in please? We can discuss baccarat theory in the Baccarat Universe, and is it random or not until we are blue in the face, but that has NOTHING to do with ONE Baccarat Shoe.

I don’t know about everyone else, but I only play ONE SHOE. That’s all I ever play ONE SHOE! I don’t care about the thousands of shoes or millions of shoes in the Baccarat Universe! For me, the game of Baccarat consists of only ONE SHOE!

In my ONE SHOE, sometimes things will be going along according to what should be happening in that ONE SHOE and some times things will be “out of whack” with the normal occurrences. That’s when we need Baccarat Math:

Here is the only math that I consider when playing my ONE SHOE.

8 decks = 72 hands avg. not counting ties. Half will be opposites, half repeats.

72 hands create 36 events. Half of the EVENTS are 1's giving you

18 1s = 18 hands

9 2s = 18 hands

4.5 3s = 13.5 hands

2.25 4s = 9 hands

2.25 5+s = 13.5 hands

36 events = 72 hands

Or you could say it this way:

a 1 every 4 hands = 72/4 = 18 events

a 2 every 8 hands = 72/8 = 9 events

a 3 every 16 hands = 72/16 = 4.5 events

a 4+ every 16 hands = 72/16 = 4.5 events = 36 events total.

Knowing this, and applying the SAP principle, it is usually pretty easy to spot what is “out of whack” and exploit it.

So, although I’m sure it is very stimulating intellectually, to argue (discuss) the great and vast Baccarat Universe, and what would happen if you only bet Bank for 10,000 hands, I prefer to only consider the ONE Shoe that I play. That way I only have to look at 72 hands to spot the non random exploitable events.

Now armed with this knowledge and watching what is actually happening right here and now at this point in my ONE SHOE, it’s easy to beat the casino.

A little Baccarat wisdom... take it or leave it.

Thanks,

PJ

Right! Take two side by side tables at a casino. One super choppy, One super streaky. Together, at the end of the day, they happen to hit all normal occurrences dead on. Did that make either table unbeatable? No, far from it. Did it make either table random? No, far from it.

So you make your 10 units a shoe on the streaky table. Does that mean you beat random? No, it merely means you know how to beat a streaky shoe. That's all. Don't start reading magic into it. Nothing magic about it. Just plain common sense- taking advantage of the situation you found. That is all we do - one shoe at a time - one day at a time. What happens in 1000 shoes is simply not our concern.

The average temperature in Arkansas is 75*F. Does that mean its 75* every day? Of course not. We have cold days and hot days and tornado days. 75* avg becomes meaningless and gets lost in the shuffle. Pun intended.

Edited September 11, 2011 by Guest

[shuttlesmasher]

Thats' not a bad analogy! taking the weather....of course it will be hot in summer, warm in autumn, cold in spring! however on the tables, things can change over a matter of hands. Discipline is the only thing that prevent you from making a 'uncertain' bet.

however, if there are percievable trends, then you would llove to have it occuring just a few more bets past when it detected.

[Guest]

Speaking of Golden Nugget, there was a computer gaming program called Golden Nugget. I've probably still got the disk around here someplace. It had a good Baccarat program on it. It had normal table min max with a $10,000 max bet. It also had a limited bank roll. No purely mechanical system could beat this program except one and that was net betting U1D1.

I bet $100 units and made my goal $50,000. Staying within the table min max was the easy part. The hard part was getting to $50,000 W/O going broke on the way. Most times went very easy. But sometimes I would get to bets in the low 20s. I think the highest bet I ever got to was 25. $2500 was well withing the table max but to get to a 25 bet it meant that you had just lost a 24, 23 22 etc and you were close to going broke. As I recall, I only went broke once out of over 1000 attempts.

So, of course it occurred to me, why not try this in an actual casino? Well, I'll tell you why.

As I recall, your max allowable bank roll was 300 units or $30,000. So $50,000 was a very reasonable goal.

If you net bet opposites vs repeats you win unless the total running OR count, playing continuous from one shoe into the next, never goes higher than 25 in either direction. Of course you are playing against a random generator and random generators usually stay well within a count of 25 in either direction. In other words, random gererators of that era had a max count spread of 50.

It goes right back to the question of how exactly do you define random? How far can a count go in one direction before it breaks through the random envelope into the realm of bias??? And how quickly does it have to go that far? I don't think there is any forumula - any single definition of random. You get a 20 in a row. Some define that as random. But what if you get two in the same shoe? Or in consecutive shoes. Is that still random??? Some people say yes and others say of course not. Where exactly does random leave off and bias begin? If you lost a coin toss 20 times in a row, wouldn't you get a little suspicious?

OK, we can beat that particular random generator because the OR count stays within a range of 50. But what do casinos do?

Well, consider a super streaky table. We've all played them. We know it is common for super streaky tables to stay super streaky for 5 or 10 consecutive shoes. Is that random? Or do you think there is some other influence? Look at it this way: If you played F U1D2 M2 and graduated up to U1D1 M3 B2, you would be up so far in 5 shoes that a Bank only flat bettor couldn't catch up to you in 5 years.

Which is exactly why our net betting system will not work in a real casino. At that same table, the running continuous OR count could easily be up to -100 or more in 5 shoes, let alone 25. The net bettor would have been killed. Meanwhile our Bank only flat bettor would still be plugging along about -5 for those same 5 shoes. Playing F and graduating our prog upward, we may easily be up several hundred units in those same 5 streaky shoes.

In my experience is DOES matter what system you play. In fact it is the only thing that matters and the only way to win. No, we aren't going to win them all - that's what -8 is for. But we are going to win big time more than our fair share! And we are going to do that regardless of how you happen to define random. Does it really matter?

Edited September 12, 2011 by Guest

[Guest]

Thats' not a bad analogy! taking the weather....of course it will be hot in summer, warm in autumn, cold in spring! however on the tables, things can change over a matter of hands. Discipline is the only thing that prevent you from making a 'uncertain' bet.

however, if there are percievable trends, then you would llove to have it occuring just a few more bets past when it detected.

Yes, you would. And if you deploy good table selection and find the most biased table to begin with your chances are much better the bias will last. Your chances are also much better if you only play new cards right after the prep and avoid factory preshuffled.

As I've said before I end up only changing systems about once every ten shoes. But some members end up changing systems several times per shoe. This is usually because they couldn't deploy table selection. Maybe the casino had only one or two tables or it was full.

But even in the 6 shoes Dave recorded, there was no table selection and I only changed systems once and that was in the first shoe. The rest of the shoes I picked the right system in the first place and stuck with it and got out at +10 max. They were all relativly good shoes but not good enough to advance my bet or try for more than +10.

Edited September 12, 2011 by Guest