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Baccarat True Believers vs. Con-Artists

Discussion in 'Baccarat Forum' started by Frank Kneeland, Jan 12, 2022.

  1. stephen

    stephen Active Member

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    The person who tells knows it not and the person who knows tells it not.
     
  2. Frank Kneeland

    Frank Kneeland Active Member Lineage to Founders

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    I understand where you're coming from, but I think you're looking at worst case scenarios. The advantage counting gives you is the ability to alter your strategy. Imagine you get dealt a 12 which is a very weak hand. There's a good chance you'll bust if you hit. If the count is HIGH then you're better off letting the dealer catch the tens and hope they bust. If the count is LOW you're going to want to hit and try to improve your hand.

    It may not seem like a big deal but it is enough of a difference to alter the return of the game.

    Some counters are so good they know every card that's out of the deck.
     
  3. Frank Kneeland

    Frank Kneeland Active Member Lineage to Founders

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    It's not really necessary to know the sequencing. Just two 5's missing out of a single deck game is enough to alter the probability of the dealer or player wining by 2% in the players favor. If you know the probability of a certain card coming up is higher or lower due to their being more or less of them in the deck is sufficient to gain an edge.
     
  4. Frank Kneeland

    Frank Kneeland Active Member Lineage to Founders

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    BJ is much harder to beat with the new shuffling machines. No argument there.
     
  5. porky

    porky Active Member

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    I got to thinking about it and since you wanted percentages.... I'll say 100% of all "system developers" and gambling advisers are con men. I have never read a system that works consistently. If you don't think they know its shit really?

    Every suit has 13 cards...

    bank draws on helps hurts no effect
    0 9 0 4
    1 8 1 4
    2 7 2 4
    3 6 3 4
    4 5 4 4
    5 4 5 4
    6 3 6 4

    Sooo 42 help 21 hurt and 28 have no effect. 42 heping to 49 hurting or no effect on the hand.

    Why would 5 or 6 ever draw a fucking card...... because its not in the banker favor.....

    That's why you end up calling for low cards or monkeys.... The drawing rules do not in effect cause a bigger banker advantage.
    Yet the first thing out the mouths of so called experts in always bet on bank...
    I know I've stated in a previous post college professors can't agree on the math of the games. Some has said that the drawing rules have no effect on an 8 deck game....That would make sense because if all you had to do was bet bank the casino would be belly up in day....

    Sooo I would say that all writers and system sellers are 100% full of shit.

    Exception: There are a few that got in when certain video poker machines could be beaten. But, by the time the information made the rounds the machines were disappearing.

    The other is the dice setting books / instructors...yes it worked and now the game has changed because of it... If you got in early...OK... but now....And yes I know there are people will say it still can be done.
     
  6. Frank Kneeland

    Frank Kneeland Active Member Lineage to Founders

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    100% BS. Wow that's dark. Of the 20 or so VP pros I hung out with I still know three that are plugging away. They all complain that it's harder and harder to find edges. BTW: it took almost 25 years for the info to "make the rounds" as you said. Progressive VP generated good incomes for about 40 people in LV for nearly two decades. The team owners were pulling down a mil a year.
     
  7. porky

    porky Active Member

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    Frank that is the typical gambling author response. Sorry its right up there with other players at the table have no effect on your winning and losing.. Sorry they do... And when you get burned because of thes players I think back to that line.. The edge NO I CALL BULLSHIT!
    When counting and in good counts I would look at IF I was hitting 1 out of 3 hands and run a mini martingale... Is an edge hitting 1 out of 3.... You can do your math and edge all day long but you can't change the order of the cards.l

    Funny story I was at next to last position with a friend at the 2 posistion. I would nod if she needed a hit. This is one of those occasions where I lost 20 hands in a row. She won almost every hand and upped her bet. She had one of those helpful table mates next to her telling how she was doing everything wrong while he was losing. I had to leave at the 20 hands even though it was only 100 bucks because I can't just take a beating for the sake of it.
    She colored up. She tried to give me some of her winnings. Told me that she felt bad she kept winning while I was losing and coaching her.
    Of course I didn't take any of it and told her thats gambling. She then said I wish that guy would have shut up....lol
     

  8. jbs

    jbs Well-Known Member

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    Computers have proven that how others play have no long term effect good or bad, on your play. Yeah on any given hand it can. Had a guy at 3rd base once play wrong and it caused me to WIN, not lose, a $1000 double down hand. Had he play it right, I would've lost. So your argument is wrong.
     
  9. porky

    porky Active Member

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    First....Computers don't do any thing other than the function of the machine. The program is what would be used. And who programs it and with what parameters?

    Maybe thats a little to much for you.....You won a stupid bet once by a dummie doing the wrong thing and won. Good for you your right.....My argument must be wrong....lol
     
  10. Frank Kneeland

    Frank Kneeland Active Member Lineage to Founders

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    I'm not really sure why you are hung up about the order of the cards. I agree you can't know the order exactly, but you can know if there are more or less of them left in the deck.

    Let's take a purely imaginary example: Let's say you had to draw an 8 to win a hand. If you know that there are four 8's left in the deck you might want to draw. If you know there are NO 8's left in the deck then you'd be silly to bet on an 8 being drawn when there aren't any left--it's impossible.

    Why is it necessary to know the order?

    All you need to know is the likelihood you might get an eight. If there's a bunch of them that chance is higher. If there are less of them or none of them that chance is lower or non-existent.

    Imagine a roulette wheel where the odds remained 36 to 1 but they blocked off every number that came up until half the numbers were no-goes and then reset the wheel. Very quickly the chance of an active number coming up would be greater than 1 in 36 and you'd have an edge. This is how card-counting works. Of the top of the deck all things are equal, but the odds change as cards are used and can no longer be drawn.

    In the early days of BJ my buddy Gary Ford was a dealer at the DI. They let him play nickels after work to practice card counting so he could better spot them. One night at the end of a deck he got dealt a hard 17. He looked at the dealer and saw there were only two cards left in the deck and said "hit me twice". He knew the only remaining cards were a 3 and an Ace. After getting 21 on drawing two cards to a hard 17 the pit boss said, "now you're just showing off. Go home. You're good enough already and we need you for a double shift tomorrow."

    I must say that it's very odd that the most provenly beatable game in casinos is the one with which you are having issues. It's such an easy concept to understand. If the dealer is going to bust on a 10 and there are a whole bunch of them left in the deck that's better for the player. If you need the dealer to bust and all the tens are gone that's worse for the player.

    Again why would you need to know the exact order?

    Isn't it enough to know the chance is 80% that they'll bust?

    We have a major disconnect somewhere. I'm happy to try to figure out where.

    Sure you'll still lose 20% of the time...I'm good with that.
     
  11. Frank Kneeland

    Frank Kneeland Active Member Lineage to Founders

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    The tendency is see correlation between action and result and for some odd reason negative results are more salient to the human mind. If as a result of someone on first base playing badly caused you to win 70% of the time and lose only 30% of the time it still irkes us that this a-hole is screwing up our play. Even though the net effect is positive the event gets logged as a negative.

    It is a quirk of human cognition where actions outside our control caused by other people rule the day. We hate that!

    Even if the first base player only caused you to lose 5% of the time, the loss of perceived control would cause people to dislike them.

    Reality is not the issue here.
     
  12. Frank Kneeland

    Frank Kneeland Active Member Lineage to Founders

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    The analysis software that the BJ pros use can account for bad play by other people on their table. So far as I know even 20 million hand runs confirm that their mistakes do not effect the overall return of the game.

    It's worth noting that if their bad play involves drawing when they should have stood pat it can actually improve the odds as more cards seen gives the counter more information on the remaining cards in the deck.
     
  13. Frank Kneeland

    Frank Kneeland Active Member Lineage to Founders

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    The best analogy I can come up with the sum up the effect of card-counting requires a theater of the mind analogy.

    Imagine you bet someone on the deal of a card and won anytime it was a black suit and lost every time it was red. If you played down to the last card before shuffling you’d break-even forever. If on the other hand you shuffled and split the deck and re-shuffled after going through half the cards things would not be so consistent. It would however still be an even expectancy game. No one should win and no one should lose.

    Now imagine you had the opportunity to remove two of the red cards and could play the latter version of the game where you only got to draw to half the deck before re-shuffling. You wouldn’t always win, but overall there are more black cards than red cards. Some days you might still lose, but overall the odds would be in your favor. It’s completely possible that even with the two red cards missing an unfavorable shuffle would put all the red cards in the half of the deck you used. Overall all and over time the discrepancy would favor you coming out ahead as it's more likely to have a cut with all black cards.

    If you get paid on black and they get paid on red, more black than red is an edge for you. It can be hard to see and there are no guarantees but the edge is there. It's undeniable.

    Well that's not true, plenty of people deny it all the time.
     
    Last edited: Jan 14, 2022
  14. porky

    porky Active Member

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    OK Frank.....I think you actually believe what your spouting..... If its the easiest game to win in the casino....Why would a major really large casino have dang near an entire floor of BJ tables? I guess their wanting to give their money away..... That particular casino stopped two friends of mine in the same month at different times. The first was a counter. He reached 3000. Yep that was all.... told him he could play any game but BJ. He didn't argue. The second... Same amount 3000 he was not a counter and had a fit with them because he had lost more than that in the month.... He wanted to know if they would make good on his losses.....Basically sorry about your luck...
    Why does this matter? The acceptance of the AP garbage has given the casinos the right to stop any winning player at any time and its accepted. When losing no one cares. Thats why they get away in alot of casinos with big bets... The majority lose..Not 20% of the time but the majority of the time. Thats why there are so many tables..... Simple observation nothing more mothing less.....But a computer told me...give me a break...
     

  15. Frank Kneeland

    Frank Kneeland Active Member Lineage to Founders

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    I think I understand your viewpoint. There are other factors that we haven't discussed yet, but I have to go for the day.

    I'll leave you with a funny story. I was invited to play a BJ tournament at the TI in Vegas. On the way there my host said I'd been barred from playing BJ at the TI but was welcome to play anything else including their good progressive that I played at least once a week.

    At this time I had only ever played BJ once before and I didn't know how to count. I had a published book on progressive VP and a radio show on AP gambling and they were just fine with me playing VP at their casino. LOL.

    While I don't know for sure I think the BJ surveillance people googled my name and it came up associated with the BJ hall of fame people I'd had on my show and they assumed I was in some way connected with them.

    Anyway, so I was barred from BJ without ever having played it but I was allowed to play the thing I was better at...:)

    Those casinos don't always make good decisions.
     
  16. Frank Kneeland

    Frank Kneeland Active Member Lineage to Founders

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    Addendum: What made the TI good is it went up on all the play the bar got even if people were playing a game other than VP. Some idiot could come in a play video BJ or a slot and the VP progressive would climb with no chance of them hitting the JP.
     
  17. Mickey Crimm

    Mickey Crimm Well-Known Member

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    Yes, it's fifty-fifty whether the player or the dealer gets the blackjack. But when the dealer gets it they get paid only even money. When the player gets the blackjack he gets paid 3 to 2. Repeat the situation a hundred times and the expectation is the player should be around 25 units ahead of the dealer.
     
    Last edited: Jan 14, 2022
  18. Mickey Crimm

    Mickey Crimm Well-Known Member

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    Help me out here. If the banker has won 10 games in a row should one bet on banker because banker is hot....or should one bet on player because player is due to hit?

    Conversely, if player has won 10 in a row should one bet player because player is hot....or should one bet banker because banker is due to hit?

    Any advice helps.
     
    Last edited: Jan 14, 2022
  19. SPIKE

    SPIKE Well-Known Member

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    Why would you ever bet against a streak when you can bet with the streak and only lose once. Bet against it and you can lose a bunch of times. The same with any streak in any game. You know this, why are you asking. Nothing is ever due.

    Any advice helps.

    I need some advice on riding in boxcars. Are they really as noisy as everybody says they are?
     
    Last edited: Jan 14, 2022
  20. Junket King

    Junket King Well-Known Member Compulsive Liar

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    So there was a BJ game where all the cards were dealt in the shoe??? amazing..

    OMG, because players can't see round corners and can't predict streaks, FFS.

    Hello Mickey and welcome back to this forum, you ain't missed much...
     
    Mickey Crimm and Nathan Detroit like this.

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