How to achieve a 100% win rate with MDB!

[gman72]

My latest theory on this topic is that if we don't take our stop losses seriously in practise , we are less likely to take them seriously

in live play.

I couldn't agree with you more. But remember, when we post up these practice shoes, even though they may hit or exceed the -5 stop loss, the continued play in the shoe is just for "practice, demonstration" purposes. Same goes for those +20 shoes, in live play I most likely would have been out with just +5 or +6 unless it took off strong early.

To see how things would be going in a more real world scenario, I will take all my practice shoes and see how I would have done following what I would have done live, to see how I would have really done in all those shoes. No point in practice and review if you are not honest with yourself about how it is really going to work out.

[ECD]

Lou, I try to stay with the -5 stop loss. You see that I hit it in that #4 shoe. In live play, I probably would have gotten out, especially when facing a two bet. I just played the shoe out for practice.

One thing I'm struggling with in my practice of MDB +5 is that I seem to hit -4 and -5 often, but when I continue to play, I almost always seem to finally get to +5. And when I do hit -4 or -5 it rarely goes any lower. I know I've only worked a small number of shoes in the grand scheme of things, but I've worked a lot and that is what I keep running up against. I'm afraid this is going to tempt me to press that -5 stop loss a little bit.

I generally try to keep stop loss at -5, but also have seen very frequent rebounds as gman says. At the same time, I generally do not like hard and fast rules, as they don't allow for the exercise of experience and judgement. The more you play bac, the more important that experience is to your decisions (IMO). In the shoe #4 gman posted, he was at -4 when he made the good switch to OTBL. 13 plays later he hit -5. But in those 13 plays, the SAP counts went from 3,2,8,0 to 6,8,8,4. The shoe was indicating even stronger OTBL than when he switched at -4. In that case, "extending" the stop loss for another bet or two may make sense -- in this case it did as the shoe continued with a decent, not great, OTBL bias.

[Ice Cool Sam]

My Apology if this sounds too stupid (and simplish) but I read the MDB forum and couldn't understand where are the definitions of BaS40, BaOTB4L, BaS40M3 and BaS40M1 if I want to understand the following:

1's and 2s = BaS40 very strong

2s and 3s = BaOTB4L very strong

3s and 4+s = BaS40M1 very strong

1's and 3s = a weak BaS40M1 see dean's shoe #1

1's and 4+ = a strong BaS40M1 see Dean's shoe #2 played BaS40M1

2s and 4+ = a weak BaOTB4L

I think if many of you guys put yourself in shoes of someone who is new you will realize how horriffying and dificult it would be to understand these.

Is there are manual for SAP and above terminologies (BaS40, BaOTB4L, BaS40M3 and BaS40M1). If not is there a forum for SAP where they are explained.

As far as I can understand the definition and comprehension of these items are very important in order to be successful in MDB. I am aiming to win 2 units average per shoe and two shoes a night.

Please help.

Kind Regards

[ECD]

Yes, I played those 4 shoes yesterday W/O even doing the SAP counts. But you can look at our short cut version (the way way2fast posted them) and pretty much see the SAP count.

gman is correct. Shoes 1,2 and 3, I stuck with BaS40. But shoe 4 is different and we had to go to BaOTB4L.

Starting at Play 2, BaS40 hit +5 in the first shoe at play #8. In the 2nd shoe at play #24, and in the 3rd shoe at play #28.

But correct, the 4th shoe was a different animal. In the first col it has 4 2s and 2 3s - decidedly BaOTB4L.

It was a great exercise playing preshuffled. These are exactly the kind of shoes we face in Vegas.

They clearly demonstrate that yes you can do OK just sticking to BaS40 - maybe about a 70% win rate which is already way higher than any other player in the casino.

BUT, if you can learn to let SAP dictate what system to switch to it is almost never wrong and you can achieve a much higher win rate. I don't know, maybe 90 - 95%. It certainly did well with these 4 preshuffled shoes.

Lou, as far as stop loss is concerned, I'm thinking -5 looks pretty sound. There might be occassions where we might see fit to cheat a little but I think they are pretty rare.

Ellis, can you post how you played shoe #4? It appears to be a shoe where MDB does not win. The most important learnings will come from the shoes we do not win, not the easy ones.

[ztomsk]

I generally try to keep stop loss at -5, but also have seen very frequent rebounds as gman says. At the same time, I generally do not like hard and fast rules, as they don't allow for the exercise of experience and judgement. The more you play bac, the more important that experience is to your decisions (IMO). In the shoe #4 gman posted, he was at -4 when he made the good switch to OTBL. 13 plays later he hit -5. But in those 13 plays, the SAP counts went from 3,2,8,0 to 6,8,8,4. The shoe was indicating even stronger OTBL than when he switched at -4. In that case, "extending" the stop loss for another bet or two may make sense -- in this case it did as the shoe continued with a decent, not great, OTBL bias.

Very true. I use the -5 stop loss if I'm simply losing and can't make any headway (but if that's the case, then you are in the wrong system and need to switch... something I need to work on and get better at).

But if I get to -5 due to a rough spot or a bad "run" type that happened, then ill push on using a -8 stop loss.

Chip losses due to a bad "run" is much different than chip losses due to the overall shoe progress in my opinion.

[newbacplayer]

My Apology if this sounds too stupid (and simplish) but I read the MDB forum and couldn't understand where are the definitions of BaS40, BaOTB4L, BaS40M3 and BaS40M1 if I want to understand the following:

1's and 2s = BaS40 very strong

2s and 3s = BaOTB4L very strong

3s and 4+s = BaS40M1 very strong

1's and 3s = a weak BaS40M1 see dean's shoe #1

1's and 4+ = a strong BaS40M1 see Dean's shoe #2 played BaS40M1

2s and 4+ = a weak BaOTB4L

I think if many of you guys put yourself in shoes of someone who is new you will realize how horriffying and dificult it would be to understand these.

Is there are manual for SAP and above terminologies (BaS40, BaOTB4L, BaS40M3 and BaS40M1). If not is there a forum for SAP where they are explained.

As far as I can understand the definition and comprehension of these items are very important in order to be successful in MDB. I am aiming to win 2 units average per shoe and two shoes a night.

Please help.

Kind Regards

Greetings: You can find the rules for BaS40M1 and BaS40 in the thread labeled "Introduction to Million dollar bac." The rules for BaOTB4L are found throughout the thread "BaOTB4L+5 Practice." A few key posts within these two threads will give you the rules for each of the three systems. Hope this helps. gb

[Guest]

Greetings: You can find the rules for BaS40M1 and BaS40 in the thread labeled "Introduction to Million dollar bac." The rules for BaOTB4L are found throughout the thread "BaOTB4L+5 Practice." A few key posts within these two threads will give you the rules for each of the three systems. Hope this helps. gb

Also, I'll be posting all rules in the rules sticky thread as soon as I get a chance.

[Guest]

[ATTACH]3001 Ellis, is play 16 correct in the shoe that I have attached?

Play 16 is correct because the last run went more than 4.

Not bad for S40 practice.

Next you need to learn switching systems according to the SAP count

[Guest]

I've been experimenting with a way to utilize SAP and system selection, and I'm interested in your thoughts. Watch the three main system counts (1 & 2, 2 & 3, 1 & 4) closely. The base system is whatever two counts are highest (e.g. 1s and 2s high = BaS40, 2s and 3s high = BaOTBL). Whenever the sum of two counts is 1/2 the sum of the other counts, switch to that system until you lose a bet and the ratio is back under 1/2 the other counts - when this happens, switch back to base system.

When you hit +5, you can continue to play but you reset all counts to zero and play as though it were a new shoe (I think this means you would not continue to play if you were already past play 30 or so)

What do you think?

Not bad. But I wouldn't reset the counts. It was those counts that got you to +5. It you get to +5 in 15 plays or less, capture 4 and continue.

[Guest]

Makes perfect sense - thank you, Ellis.

Just curious (and yes, another stupid question LOL), for SAP, I get the weighting of the 1's (=1), 2's (=2) and 3's (=4), but why aren't the 4's weighted as 8?

Ha, 4s would be 8. But we use 4+ (4 or mores) in the Sap cols which is only 4. 4+s occur twice as often as plain old 4s.

[Guest]

I have been at or close to -5 in practise and in live play most of the time.

My latest theory on this topic is that if we don't take our stop losses seriously in practise , we are less likely to take them seriously

in live play. After all we see in practise that -5 isn't the end of the world, and more often than not we can recover by playing

perfectly.

Having said said that, I have gone past -5 in the casino, using flat bets until a lost 2 bet won't put me at -5 or lower and recovered everytime (not that many times and despite not playing perfectly).

My next thought is that when we are trying to recover , flat betting may be counterproductive.

Hmm, you said a lot there Wendel. The question is, why are you getting to -5 so frequently? The shoes posted thus far get to -5 infrequently. I'm thinking you are playing a pile of regular cards shoes that are in no particular order. In a casino, you would normally have a good idea what system to start with. You are usually starting your first casino shoe mid shoe so the tote board is telling you which events are high.

With preshuffled cards your second shoe at the same table is the same cards you just played.

With regular cards it is the same cards as the shoe before last.

To make a practice session realistic, You need to give yourself the same benefits you would have in a casino.

The only way you could be hitting -5 so frequently is starting with the wrong system frequently.

When playing a pile of practice shoes, you are best off to wait until SAP tells you what to play.

And if, for whatever reason, you are playing in the blind in a casino (something I always avoid) again you would need to wait for a SAP count to emerge.

Always starting at play 2 with BaS40 assumes you are playing preshuffled cards which are usually high in 1's and 2s. So your odds of winning your first prog are better than 75% if you bet a 1,2 prog to start. And by then, your SAP count is beginning to dictate.

But if you wait for a winning one to bet 2, you reduce your odds to 50%.

Therefore if you like the idea of waiting for a winning 1, you should also wait for your SAP count to reveal a system. Otherwise you are betting 50/50 - something we try to avoid.

It is best to conduct your practice sessions as close to casino conditions as possible. Why hadicap yourself with unrealistic conditions?

In a casino, if you've been seeing lots of 3+s, you need to wait for SAP. And with regular cards, you need to go by history to start.

In other words you only want to start at play 2 with BaS40 if the tote boards are, in fact, showing high 1's and 2s.

[Guest]

Ellis, can you post how you played shoe #4? It appears to be a shoe where MDB does not win. The most important learnings will come from the shoes we do not win, not the easy ones.

Ha, not so fast way2fast! 3s emerge hi at play 9. Go with BaOTB4L right then and there. The next 3,2,2 confirms big time.

[Quizzical1]

Ha, not so fast way2fast! 3s emerge hi at play 9. Go with BaOTB4L right then and there. The next 3,2,2 confirms big time.

[ATTACH]3005[/ATTACH]

Sorry Ellis,

I'm not seeing the switch to OTB4L. At hand 9 you have SAP = 3 2 4 0. Not knowing what's coming next in live play what is prompting you to switch? If anything, wouldn't it be a weak S40M1 switch per the SAP count?

[Wendel]

Sorry Ellis,

I'm not seeing the switch to OTB4L. At hand 9 you have SAP = 3 2 4 0. Not knowing what's coming next in live play what is prompting you to switch? If anything, wouldn't it be a weak S40M1 switch per the SAP count?

I always thought that we should ignore the first event of a shoe,because it may be a fragment of a larger event created by the cut. My first choice at 9 would have been S40M1 which if played through would have won, but I think the subsequent 2's would have put me on to OTB4L. I think I played this shoe that way , but the outcome is buried in a pile of practise shoes somewhere.

[Quizzical1]

I always thought that we should ignore the first event of a shoe,because it may be a fragment of a larger event created by the cut. My first choice at 9 would have been S40M1 which if played through would have won, but I think the subsequent 2's would have put me on to OTB4L. I think I played this shoe that way , but the outcome is buried in a pile of practise shoes somewhere.

Agreed Wendel,

That's still my toughest decision - when to switch systems. This particular shoe the BaS40 peters out by hand 9 - does that indicate a switch to S40M1 (again, not seeing what's coming in subsequent hands)?

[Guest]

Sorry Ellis,

I'm not seeing the switch to OTB4L. At hand 9 you have SAP = 3 2 4 0. Not knowing what's coming next in live play what is prompting you to switch? If anything, wouldn't it be a weak S40M1 switch per the SAP count?

3240, right. As I keep saying, you start by going with the highest event as soon as it becomes the highest event. 3s become the highest event at play 9. 3s are OTB4L. That is why we are doing a weighted count. You certainly don't want to be playing S40 with high 3s. S40 loses 3 units to 3s. Otb4l gains 1 unit on 3s. M1 is a 0 bet on 3s.

Yes, we count the first event but in this case that made no difference. 3s are still high.

We are using SAP to steer us right BEFORE we get into trouble. SAP has better sense than we do.

Forget what's coming. Nobody knows. Play what IS. That is what SAP does.

The rules keep it purely mechanical. If you start guessing about the future, it is no longer mechanical and your play will be as good as your guess.

[Quizzical1]

3240 right. As I keep saying, you start by going with the highest event as soon as it becomes the highest event. 3s become the highest event at play 9. 3s are OTB4L. That is why we are doing a weighted count. You certainly don't want to be playing S40 with high 3s.

Yes, we count the first event but in this case that made no difference. 3s are still high.

Are you also making the switch so soon because BaS40 is petering out by hand 9?

[Golfgirl007]

Ellis, is play #16 correct on the attached shoe??[ATTACH]3006

S40M1 MDB.pdf

[Guest]

Are you also making the switch so soon because BaS40 is petering out by hand 9?

NO, I'm strictly going by the highest count. The highest count controls your primary prog and THAT is where the money is.

Once we start a secondary prog (0 bet) we WANT the hi count to change because that resets our secondary prog to 0.

Yes we LIKE it when the highest 2 counts agree on the same system BUT it is the highest count that RULES. When 2 counts are tied for high THEN the second high count decides the issue.

MDB is not NOR. MDB is mechanical. Nor isn't. The old rules do not apply. You are merely a spectator. The rules decide everything.

[Guest]

Ellis, is play #16 correct on the attached shoe??[ATTACH]3006

Well, I'll be. It's still correct!

[Guest]

Guys, look, if you are sitting there trying to decide what to do you aren't playing MDB correctly. With MDB the rules decide EVERYTHING.

The only decision you might make is when to stay on all runs. But even that decision should have been decided by the number of 7+s you are seeing on multiple tote boards.

[gman72]

NO, I'm strictly going by the highest count. The highest count controls your primary prog and THAT is where the money is.

Once we start a secondary prog (0 bet) we WANT the hi count to change because that resets our secondary prog to 0.

Yes we LIKE it when the highest 2 counts agree on the same system BUT it is the highest count that RULES. When 2 counts are tied for high THEN the second high count decides the issue.

MDB is not NOR. MDB is mechanical. Nor isn't. The old rules do not apply. You are merely a spectator. The rules decide everything.

WOW!! IMHO, this post right here is the icing on the cake for everything we have learned about MDB +5 so far. This one is getting hi-lighted and tagged in my binder (which has grown pretty large in the last month). Thanks Ellis.

[stevep]

I keep reading the if we get to +5 within the 1st 15 plays we capture 4 units and continue to play. If that is the case how do we continue to play the shoes that I see here where we get to +5 but never capture 4 and even though by the end of the shoe we may be ahead of +5 but we keep violating capture 4?

[Wendel]

Hmm, you said a lot there Wendel. The question is, why are you getting to -5 so frequently? The shoes posted thus far get to -5 infrequently. I'm thinking you are playing a pile of regular cards shoes that are in no particular order. In a casino, you would normally have a good idea what system to start with. You are usually starting your first casino shoe mid shoe so the tote board is telling you which events are high.

With preshuffled cards your second shoe at the same table is the same cards you just played.

With regular cards it is the same cards as the shoe before last.

To make a practice session realistic, You need to give yourself the same benefits you would have in a casino.

The only way you could be hitting -5 so frequently is starting with the wrong system frequently.

When playing a pile of practice shoes, you are best off to wait until SAP tells you what to play.

And if, for whatever reason, you are playing in the blind in a casino (something I always avoid) again you would need to wait for a SAP count to emerge.

Always starting at play 2 with BaS40 assumes you are playing preshuffled cards which are usually high in 1's and 2s. So your odds of winning your first prog are better than 75% if you bet a 1,2 prog to start. And by then, your SAP count is beginning to dictate.

But if you wait for a winning one to bet 2, you reduce your odds to 50%.

Therefore if you like the idea of waiting for a winning 1, you should also wait for your SAP count to reveal a system. Otherwise you are betting 50/50 - something we try to avoid.

It is best to conduct your practice sessions as close to casino conditions as possible. Why hadicap yourself with unrealistic conditions?

In a casino, if you've been seeing lots of 3+s, you need to wait for SAP. And with regular cards, you need to go by history to start.

In other words you only want to start at play 2 with BaS40 if the tote boards are, in fact, showing high 1's and 2s.

Hi Ellis,

Thank you for your comments.

I am beginning to see that if I am NOT playing pre shuffled cards in Vegas then I am basically paddling (to be polite) upwind.

Further, I have available to me 2 casinos . 1 has 2 mini bac tables and I has 1 EZ Bac table, so I have virtually no table selection.

I mainly practise against shoes that i have personally played at these casinos and shoes that are posted on the forum.

The better game is at the EZ bac table . If I exit a shoe early ,that probably ends my session, because killing an hour between games is not an easy thing to do in a casino without blowing some of your winnings. Blackjack here offers little table selection.

Last evening , I waited around for an hour for players to show up. I started playing when 1 player showed up. After 3/4 of a shoe ,

I quit(+0) and didn't even wait for the next shoe(all the players had left).

I will put the suggestions you have made into practise as opportunity presents itself.

Thanks again.

[Quizzical1]

WOW!! IMHO, this post right here is the icing on the cake for everything we have learned about MDB +5 so far. This one is getting hi-lighted and tagged in my binder (which has grown pretty large in the last month). Thanks Ellis.

Already did that Gman LOL......