Professional Baccarat Essentials

[Guest]

Please do not post on this thread. I'll start a questions thread entitled Professional Baccarat Essentials Q & A where you can also post comments.

I'll put this thread on both the NOR and the MDB forums for now. But I strongly encourage the very few NOR members who have not joined the MDB forum to do so because that forum is essential for playing preshuffled cards and like it or not, the whole world is going to preshuffled cards. It is just a question of time. Las Vegas and all of Asia are already 100% preshuffled cards and you can't play preshuffled cards adequately with NOR alone. NOR members, or anyone else for that matter, can join the MDB forum by contacting me directly by PM or Email; Ellis@beatthecasino.com or by phone 901 405 1723.

I'm striving to have ONE private Bac Forum at one price for all Bac members. It is easier to teach that way and easier to learn.

My purpose here is to correct a BTC forum weakness by giving you one place to look to find all of the essentials you need to play Baccarat professionally.

I am seeing by member questions and playing mistakes that this new thread is sorely needed. Members need an Overview of all the Essentials located in manuals and forum threads and they need them all in one quick reference location.

A professional player cannot have holes in his overall play knowledge. He needs to be strong in EVERY aspect of the game and especially in system selection and tote board reading.

I will include brief examples where needed both in our short cut method and also in shoe score card format.

The NOR manual bases NOR on 3 systems: S40, OTB4L and F.

On this thread I will restructure NOR based on 4 systems: S40, OTB4L, TB4L (S40M1) and then relegate F to only Strong Side shoes.

That way EVERY shoe type possible will correlate to the BEST possible system to play it.

I will also concentrate on the best counts to keep during play and how to determine the best possible system to play based on those counts.

I will also move net betting up to the forefront with equal status and show you how to recognize net bet shoes.And we will add OvT net betting to our choices.

For instance A high + OT count is an OTB4L shoe

A high - OT count is TB4L

But a hovering 0 OT count is ideal for OTB4L vs TB4L net betting.

I remind you that Norm, our most successful player, always kept an OT count along with his OR count. All of our top players do that.

And I will also detail how to keep a SAP count and how to best use it.

When I'm finished, every member who follows this thread enthusiasticly will be able to look at the beginning of ANY shoe in short hand and KNOW what system to play.

For instance: P113111415

What system is that?

Well, if you said TB4L, good!

Because if you played TB4L U1D1M2 and started at play 3, your score would already be +14 with a highest bet of 3 and a worst position of -1.

Let's take a tougher one:

P4

What system is that?

Well , so far TB4L would have won 100% of its bets.

See, these are the kinds of things you need to know automatically.

And for those who already DO know this basic stuff, can you net bet? Do you know when to net bet, what to net bet, how to do it and what progression to use. Well if you don't, you soon will.

ONE thread with EVERYTHING you need to know PLUS a separate place to ask your questions and make your comments.

Agreed?

The Essentials that every Professional Player needs to Know:

Score card:

Keep your score card in columns of 20 plays - This not only helps us perform good money management but also it helps us spot biases because we get used to what is normal for 20 plays so it makes it easy to spot biases as well as lack of biases as well as changes in biases.

The counts:

Keep at least 3 counts on your score card:

The O/R count (Opposites vs Repeats)

The O/T count (OTB4L vs TB4L)

The SAP count - (all event totals compared to all other events)

The PvB count is already on the tote board but we must be aware of it. I always put the P total and the B total directly under the P and B columns every 20 plays. I start over each col.

The P and B totals are very important for net betting:

8v12; 9V11 and 10v10 are all good net bet signals.

More disparity than that is telling us NOT to net bet.

I think it is high time to start a new net bet thread. Existing threads are too outdated.

The OvR count is our best indication of S40 and OTB4L Modes:

A + count is M3

A - or 0 count is M2

And, of course, a high + count is signaling S40.

Dean note: TB4L has no modes because we are already ON all ZZ and ST runs

But remember TB4L hates 2s so we must be seeing low 2s to choose TB4L

TB4L likes low 2s with lots of ST and ZZ runs

And in the case of a TT run (BB PP BB PP) simply stop betting until the TT run ends then atart over at 1.

You can attempt jumping on a TT run but that maneuver has not proved to be all that successful.

It is great when it works but.....

The Systems:

Note that I am not going to include the 3 MDB systems here because they are merely a simplified way of playing NOR for new members.

But a professional is going to know the 4 NOR systems, including TB4L (S40M1)

as well as Net Betting at least PvB

AND MDB+ (the 5 of a kind system) especially for preshuffled cards but definitely for shoes where the SAP counts are running near equal.

And MOST importantly, the professional will know the signals for each system, which system is best for each shoe as well as when switching systems mid shoe is best as well as which system to switch to.

A word about switching systems mid shoe. It is NOT a good thing. It is a necessary evil to be avoided.

Professionals do NOT play in the blind. They NEVER sit down to a table W/O knowing which system to play.

And they always select the easiest table to beat - the toteboard where the right system is the most obvious.

Their main tool is the tote boards.

The biggest difference defining the professional, whether BJ or Bac, is the Pro is very selective as to which tables deserves his attention.

He NEVER challenges the casino. He only plays tables he knows he can beat.

So here are the systems he knows along with their signals.

1.) S40 - Hi 1's; hi 1's and 2s. M2 for streaky shoes, M3 for choppy shoes. Choppy shoes.

2.) TB4L - Hi 1's and 3+s; hi 3+s; Lo 2s. Streaky shoes

3.) OTB4L - Hi 2s; Hi 2s and 3s Neutral shoes

4.) F - Strong sided shoes - 2 to 1 or better F2 beats sporadic 1's, F3 beats sporadic 1's and 2s.

5.) PvB net betting - P and B are running near equal. 12345 skip 6 U1D2 for choppy shoes; 123 skip 456 U1D2M2 for streaky shoes.

( particularly effective for preshuffled cards)

6.) 5 of a kind system (MDB+) This system likes random cards, particularly used preshuffled no touch games. (Vegas, Asia, Australia)

SAP counts are running near equal

While the Pro may know other systems like OvR and OvT net betting, he MUST be proficient in the above 6 systems and know which of the 6 is best for the situation at hand.

Progressions:

First, virtually any Mathematician will tell you progressions are useless and you might as well flat bet.

This is because they assume all cards, whether Bac or BJ, are random, which, in fact, is seldom the case.

They assume random cards cannot be beat while, in fact, whether Bac or BJ, random cards are actually the easiest to beat.

They assume there is no such thing as Casino Strategy.

They assume there is no such thing as Casino Shuffle Technology.

They assume there is no such thing as Casino Rigging or Tampering or card fixing.

They are innocents with no conception of the black world of casinos.

They need to stick to class rooms and stay away from the real world of casino gambling.

Here is my stance on the subject of flat betting vs progressive betting.

Flat betting is only best if you intend to lose. Any shoe you win flat betting, you would have won a whole lot more progressive betting.

Losing shoes are limited by our stop loss.

I don't intend to lose!

I would like to take a little aside here to totally convince you that negative progressions is the only way to go.

I had a very heated 25 year running argument with the traditional BJ card counting world when in my first book, NBJ, I recommended a 3 bet negative progression only for Third Base NBJ. First Base NBJ, BTW, does not use progressions. It uses Advantage Betting: a low bet and a high bet. You bet your low bet when you don't have an advantage and your high bet when you are expecting tens - same as card counters do.

This argument became so heated that there are still remnants of it all over the internet.

So OK, the card counter finally finds himself in a high + count situation. So he makes his high bet. His odds of winning are very slight because the dealer has just as much chance of drawing a 2 ten 20 in a high count as the player does. In fact the dealer's chances are even better because Basic Strategy itself makes tens gravitate to the dealer.

So OK, the counter loses his high bet and his count goes up even further. So what does he do? He makes a higher high bet! Well, God damn it - that is a PROGRESSION. They are doing the exact same thing they condemn me for doing. Not only do they not grasp basic BJ mathematics - they don't even grasp basic English. It is no wonder that none of these card counting gurus actually play casinos. They are too busy raking in money from lemmings.

Here's the thing: There is a place for Advantage betting and there is a place for Progressive betting.

NBJ First Base uses 2 to 1 Advantage betting because we pretty much know when we are going to get a first card ten which raises our odds to 74%.

But in the more common Third Base NBJ we use a 3 bet progression. We go from 123 to 134 to 146 in a good 3rd base game which works best with random cards. (New cards)

Why? Because at third base our cards are most like the dealer's because she gets both of her cards right after we get both of ours. Therefore we STRONGLY tend to trade wins and losses with the dealer. We STRONGLY tend to win every other hand. Win one, lose one, win 2, lose 2, etc.

So think real hard about it: When you are winning every second or third hand, what do you need to be betting. Yep, a 3 bet negative progression. Especially a 146. I usually work my way up to a 146 in the first ten minutes in a good BJ game. Once there I can make more money every shoe than a top traditional card counter makes in a year.

Now let's transfer this logic to Baccarat:

In BJ no expert argues against the fact that perfect Basic Strategy has a hit rate of only 43%. And that's on a good day. On Saturday night with max clumping your hit rate can easily be only 20%. So the first thing NBJ does is get your 3rd base hit rate up above 50%. At 43% you can't successfully bet a 3 bet progression. But above 50% a 3 bet progression suddenly becomes the strongest way to bet.

Well in Baccarat the normal hit rate is already 50%. Our side selection methods - followinjg trends - gets us above 50%. Above 50%, progressions are the best way to bet. They often save the day when our hit rate is below 50 %.

A lot of man years of research went into this and there is no doubt whatsoever: Progressions are the surest way to win in Baccarat - just as they are the surest way to win in 3rd base NBJ. I don't care what anybody says. I know from 30+ years of research and play. I'm going by real world experience. They are going by some book they read written by somebody who doesn't even play.