Getting Started - Tips from Ellis

[Guest]

I played my first game of Baccarat back in the late '80s. It was just as mysterious to me back then as it is to you now. In fact, it was mysterious to everyone back then, including the casinos. All we knew was that Baccarat offered the most favorable odds in the casino - 1.25% agaist us while Roulette, for instance, was more than 5% against us. In fact, Baccarat is a 50/50 game + commission of 1.25 %.

It is best to think of Baccarat as a 50/50 game and then think of commission as a small fee you pay to get them to deal the game. Mathematicians like to think of commission as part of the game odds and they thereby call Baccarat a negative expectation game.

I don't look at that way: Your odds of winning each hand are 50/50. Therefore I call it a 50/50 game. I don't include commission in the game odds any more than I include tips to the waitress or cab fare to get to the casino.

Once you know the true game odds your goals become clear:

1. Win more on the hands that you win than you lose on the hands that you lose. Progressions usually accomplish that as I will show you below.

2. Win more than 50% of your hands by playing with biases rather than against them. That, I will show you tomorrow.

NOR is designed to accomplish BOTH.

Let's look at #1. above first:

Mathematicians will tell you that there is no point in anything other than flat betting because you never know which hands you will lose and which hands you will win. This is one reason I keep saying that Mathematicians make really poor gamblers.

Draw out a col. of 21 plays as follows: PP BB PP BB PP BB PP BB PP BB P.

Now start at play 2 with a 1 unit bet and play a 1,2 up as you lose progression.

Ok, first is such a column realistic?

Absolutely! Because except for the final P, it has an equal amount of Ps and Bs and also an equal amount of Opposites and Repeats so it perfectly matches the long range shoe expectations.

Note that had you flat bet your score would be 0 but you still owe commission.

BUT, since you bet a 1,2 progression you are at +10 in 20 bets even though you won only half your bets.

So you met the game odds expectations by winning half your bets.

And you made half your bets on P and half on B again meeting the game odds expectations.

But YOU are at +10 while our Mathematician is still at 0 and owes commission to boot.

We owe commission too at 5% of our bank wins or 5% of 10 units or 1/2 a unit.

So our profit after commission was 9.5 units.

BTW, on the forum we tend to talk in terms of gross profits or profits before commission. It's just cleaner to talk that way. But also we bet so low that our avg commissinon per shoe is only about one unit anyway.

Also BTW, don't be fooled by so called "No Commission" tables. Such tables are fine but you ARE paying full commission as you go - it is just figured a different way.

But here is the point I want you to fully grasp from the above:

We won the column big time while our friend, the mathematician, actually lost.

WHY? One reason and one reason only - we were betting a progression and he wasn't.

So if you can match the game odds of a 50% hit rate, or better, And we will teach you how to do that, progressions are GOOD.

Don't let anybody ever try to tell you different. They can't beat the game but WE CAN!

That is only half the story so far.

The other half is #2. above. How do we win more than half our bets in a 50/50 game?

Let's get into that tomorrow.

Guys, I've had an emergency come up here so I'll continue this tomorrow.

[ChiefAurelius]

Thanks Ellis.

Hope everything is ok with your emergency.

Cheers

Chief

[Guest]

Ha, some phone company I never heard of made 32 charges to my debit card last week. I fixed it. I think one day soon we will regret ever inventing computers. What if a simple solar flare caused a world wide computer backout??? The Earth would come to a grinding halt! No ships, no planes, no trains, no power. We are too vulnerable. We'd have to go back to playing solitaire by candle light with actual cards if we could remember where we put them and turn a fan on if we could remember where we put one - oh yeah, except there is no electricity.

[zebra]

No computers would also mean no Beat the Casino! How in the world would we

be able to win at baccarat?

[Guest]

OK, getting back to the subject at hand;

In review I told you that there are 2 basic ways to win at Baccarat:

1. Win more on the hands that you win than you lose on the hands that you lose. Progressions usually accomplish that as I showed you.

2. Win more than 50% of your hands by playing with biases rather than against them. That, I will show you right now.

NOR is designed to accomplish BOTH.

OK we already discussed #1 but I will entertain any questions re how OUR progressions tend to make your winning bets average more than you losing bets. I want to be sure you understand this because it is totally contrary to what Mathematicians say and think. I want you to have confidence in OUR progressions - not all progressions mind you but OUR progressions and especially U1D2.

OK, #2 is a horse of a totally different color. How do we improve on the 50% hit rate that the game odds seem to dictate???

Early Baccarat Intructors (a polite term) dictated that everything must return to its normal frequency of occurrence.

For instance:

opposites must equal repeats

banks must equal players

1's must occur 1 every 4 plays

2s every 8 plays

3s every 16 plays

And so forth

And they were RIGHT! True, everything MUST hit its normal frequency of occurrence - EVENTUALLY.

They even used the example: If 2s are behind bet 2s will catch up. And they will! Ha, over 100 shoes or maybe a thousand.

But the key word is "EVENTUALLY".

So I tried playing to that rule.

I lost every freaking shoe BIG time. I'm talking every single shoe. NOTHING caught up to its normal frequency of occurrence over the course of a single shoe. And, WE PLAY THE GAME IN SINGLE SHOES! DON't WE! I was a little pissed to say the least.

So I did my homework. I did what they SHOULD have done before they uttered such nonsense.

I took 1000 shoes and charted EVERYTHING about a 0 axis in color code. You Know, one color for opposites another for repeats and so forth.

And I charted them on clear acetate so I could hold them up to the light and overlay 100 shoes and see the actual trend of each color. It looked like a Christmas tree on its side with all the branches (colors) running AWAY from normal vs toward normal as they had said. I had been playing BACKWARDS. I SHOULD have been betting the exact opposite of what they said.

If 2s are low, they are far more likely to go lower yet over the course of a single shoe. Sure, they will EVENTUALLY catch up, maybe in 500 shoes but long, long after you've lost all your money betting on the damn things.

And the same thing was true of EVERYTHING: Opposites, repeats, 3iars, you name it.

Look, watch my lips - the reason doesn't matter. Maybe it is the law of small numbers. Maybe it is insufficient shuffling. Maybe it is casino orchestration. Who the hell cares. We aren't bettin on why. We are betting on what is.

The FIRST rule of gambling is YOU BET ON WHAT IS - Not on what is supposed to be in somebody's opinion. Look, if it rained the last 21 days, it is probably going to rain tomorrow. You sure as hell don't want to bet against it.

ALL shoes have trends. Some are stronger and more obvious than others but all shoes have trends. The shoe has yet to be dealt where EVERYTHING hits its mathematical norm. You probably couldn't even design one if you tried.

So, just like BJ everything I read was wrong.

So from that whole new point of view, the CORRECT point of view, the question became what is the BEST way to bet on a trend - the best way to bet WITH a shoe rather than AGAINST it. Hence, NOR. And I have been winning ever since and so have most of you.

Why? Because when you bet WITH the strongest trend of the most biased shoes you WIN more bets than you LOSE.

What did I just say? And what was our #2 objective above? To beat a 50% hit rate, right? Well, when you win more bets than you lose, you BEAT a 50% hit rate - DON'T YOU.

NOW, what happens when you throw the double whammy at them - when you combine #1 above with #2 above. NOW you have real power. You are going to be the best player in the casino. You are combining bet placement power with betting strategy power.

NOW your progressions work because you are also winning more bets than you lose.

Get it?

That is what NOR is all about - and NOR+ is even better. THEN we start throwing an arsenal of tricks at them like U1D1M2. That is where the real fun starts. And THAT is what I'd like to catch you up to. 30 unit shoes are in everybody's future on this forum - at least those who want to shoot for it.

[Guest]

No computers would also mean no Beat the Casino! How in the world would we

be able to win at baccarat?

Ha, you've been with me since before computers. You were with me back in the days of mailed Newsletters. Hell, Elvis was still alive.

[Sport]

when you say after qualifying a table,you play and if you should lose 5 iar you pick yourself up and leave.my question is which ever side you choose to start with p/b,do you stay that play for 5iar.i know that if you were in a lets say mode 3 you would change sides for 1 play and then switch back.is this possibly the way you would play this.thanks sometimes i do get frustrated and stay the course and play the same play 5 hands in a row without switching.

[shereevanest]

You are so right. I bought a book called "Secrets of Winning Baccarat" by Brian D. Kayser that teaches that every event should equal out in a shoe. He taught how to mark the shoe so that you could tell what was occurring and bet that all would catch up. It was a losing situation. When there were chops, he told you to bet that the runs would catch up. Yet there continued to be more chops the majority of the time. I never played his system in a casino because of how much it lost in practice.

[Guest]

You are so right. I bought a book called "Secrets of Winning Baccarat" by Brian D. Kayser that teaches that every event should equal out in a shoe. He taught how to mark the shoe so that you could tell what was occurring and bet that all would catch up. It was a losing situation. When there were chops, he told you to bet that the runs would catch up. Yet there continued to be more chops the majority of the time. I never played his system in a casino because of how much it lost in practice.

I've never heard of this guy Kayser but they just keep coming out of the woodwork. They have no conception of the harm they do. He probably copied that strategy from some other book. That's what these book writers do. They are after book sales. One does well on selling a book, ten others try to jump on the band wagon. It is highly likely none of them have ever seen the inside of a casino. They become a mutual admiration society - the accepted strategy - they keep quoting each other. Maybe between them they sell a million books. That adds up to billions of dollars lost by completely unsuspecting readers. The book writers don't care. They made their $10,000 each on book sales.

Blackjack is far worse. For every Bac player there are a hundred BJ players. And there are a hundred book writers all saying the same thing. They formed an official club and give each other rewards for writing such great books. None of them have actually ever played and have no idea of how badly their readers do. They are far more concerned with getting movie rights - and many do. The casinos sit back laughing up their sleeves. They totally defeated card counting 30 years ago. The movie makers who jumped on the band wagon have no idea that the system flatly doesn't work because there are so many award winning books out there all saying it does.

Then I come along with a winning approach and 100 book writers shout me down including the whole internet. I feel like a dying voice crying in the darkness. It's like fighting city hall.

So I go out and do a public casino demonstration in front of 500 spectators and win $20,000 in less than an hour W/O betting over $200 and 100 book writers and the whole internet say in unison: "Well yeah but he cheated!" How can I fight that? There are too many of them, too well organized and I'm getting too old. 100 years after my death, NOR and NBJ will become famous because they are the ONLY way to beat either game.

Some say I should write a book about it before I die. Maybe they are right.

[Guest]

when you say after qualifying a table,you play and if you should lose 5 iar you pick yourself up and leave.my question is which ever side you choose to start with p/b,do you stay that play for 5iar.i know that if you were in a lets say mode 3 you would change sides for 1 play and then switch back.is this possibly the way you would play this.thanks sometimes i do get frustrated and stay the course and play the same play 5 hands in a row without switching.

Well, I think you are being overly pessimistic. First, I never stay at a table if I lose the first 4 hands and that maybe happens one shoe in a thousand. I usually leave if I lose the first 3. Obviously I either picked the wrong table or the wrong system. Next, no NOR systems bets straight down for 5 losing hands. You might try reading your manual BEFORE you play.

[moneybac]

well since we are talking about systems I guess this would be good to go here,i met someone over 10 maybe 15 yrs ago,he was playing on the ships,of course he was always WINNING EXCEPT WHEN I WATCHED HIM,OF COURSE IT WAS MY FAULT.he gave me a business card,that had something to do with cruises.turns out he's a system seller,i had no ideal,but I keep getting these systems to buy over the yrs,with the same email address,the other day got some more systems to buy,now check this,maybe you have heard of this guy on baccarat,it's called tri-power baccarat,by trace cooper,silverthorne publications,start with,you ready $20.00 and turn it into 4 or 5 grand,and buy it for $100.00,look out Ellis,LOL,We work so hard to win at this game and this comes along,you just got to laugh and move on

[shereevanest]

Don't by anything from Silverthorne. Everything I have tried of theirs is a rip off. End up getting my money back because they have money back guarantees they don't back up so I filed with credit card companies and got the money back. They are just system sellers. They could care less whether they are winning or losing systems. Most of them you can find for free on the internet already anyway.

[shereevanest]

I read the forum about what to do after you lose three in a row. I may be missing it but I never found a clear answer. I know when you first play you only bet 1 unit until you win. But during the course of a shoe, say you lose three in a row. I know you should not play a fourth if there is no history of four hands but after three hands you are down 6 units. Your stop loss is 8 units. How could you justify playing four in a row if it goes over your stop loss? And which side do you start your bet back up on?

[Guest]

Don't by anything from Silverthorne. Everything I have tried of theirs is a rip off. End up getting my money back because they have money back guarantees they don't back up so I filed with credit card companies and got the money back. They are just system sellers. They could care less whether they are winning or losing systems. Most of them you can find for free on the internet already anyway.

Right! We had a war with the Silverthorn crowd a couple years ago. One of his players, KKKKK I think it was or something like that who was trying to tell us how great this Silverthorn thing was. He was completely bambuzzled. or however you spell it.

So I looked into it:

It wasn't even a system - just a betting scheme. It was an up as you lose Fibonaci camoflauged with numbers - absolutely nothing more. Such progressions may win for a while but you eventually end up betting and losing the farm.

We found a forum of Silverthorn losers devoted to finding him. They had murderous intentions.

The internet is filled with such scams.

[Guest]

I read the forum about what to do after you lose three in a row. I may be missing it but I never found a clear answer. I know when you first play you only bet 1 unit until you win. But during the course of a shoe, say you lose three in a row. I know you should not play a fourth if there is no history of four hands but after three hands you are down 6 units. Your stop loss is 8 units. How could you justify playing four in a row if it goes over your stop loss? And which side do you start your bet back up on?

Right, your stop loss rules. If you are getting a lot of 4 bets with straight NOR's 123 4 prog, your table selection needs work.

The 6 shoes I played in A.C. for Virtuoid (ImSpirit) was an example of good table and system selection. I was playing straight NOR (123 4) by the book. As I recall, the first 2 shoes at one casino were OTB4L. The last 4 on 2 tables at another casino were S40. I played to +10 every shoe except we quit the last shoe a little early to meet the guys for dinner. So, Virtuoid, (Dave) following me, won about $1500. My point here is that due to good casino, table and system selection and also sticking to NOR's +10 stop win, no matter how early I hit it, I only encountered ONE 4 bet in all 6 shoes - which, of course, I won. This contributed greatly to my total Player Advantage of 26%! The better your table and system selection, the fewer your 4 bets.

What do you do after a 4 bet? You simply follow the system you are playing. Mode 2 you stay OTR for 2 bets and Mode 3 one bet and then return to your base system, win or lose.

Now of course Atlantic City, my past stomping grounds, offers the best table selection in the U.S. because there are so many casinos within walking distance, many W/O even going outside once you know your way around and they pretty much all have Baccarat. I learned the value of table selection in A.C. both for Bac and BJ.

Table selection in both games is pretty much EVERYTHING! If you get that right, the rest is easy. If you don't get it right, you are gonna be asking a lot of questions that could have been avoided. ONE 4 bet in 6 shoes - now THAT is good table selection and should be a good lesson for everybody.

[Guest]

Yep, I know what some of you are thinking - "he got lucky". Well first, there is no such thing as luck or fairy god mothers or leprechuns. Elvis is dead! There is no Santa Claus.

But I have won some 300 such public demonstations, some for a whole lot more money and I won everyday in A.C. playing full time for 3 years. So, I hope I stay..."lucky"!

[moneybac]

well you know what they say,NO ONE EVER KICKS A DEAD DOG,