Baccarat True Believers vs. Con-Artists

When I look back on my career I am most proud of the time I spotted something that no one else did. There was a full page of coupons in the Review Journal for the Frontier Hotel. One of them was for a $100 bonus for the next four of a kind you hit. The pros were all over it. Everyone knew it was good and everyone played it. There were other things like a buffet two, and free drinks, all inconsequential.

There was one coupon that caught my interest. It was a coupon for a free 6 out of 6 spot on keno that was good for two weeks. If you got 6 of 6 you got $500...no other pays.

When factoring in the fact that the Frontier only had about 200 live games a day, if one watched the board 24/7 for the entire two weeks they'd make .46c an hour...hardly a living wage. I tossed it in the garbage and made dinner.

About 3:30 in the morning I got up in a cold sweat thinking "I've missed something". I got up, pulled the coupon out of the trash and wiped off some chicken fat and confirmed that the coupon did not say "limit one per customer". 2500 coupons and two weeks later our team was up $48,000 on a free coupon that cost us nothing. We actually got the papers out of the garbage at convenience stores.

None of the other BIG teams in LV thought of it until they saw what I was doing.

Once they found it they killed the play, even though I advised them how to stay under the radar.

 

Gamblers greed, it's a force to be reckoned with. Never underestimate its power.
First question I always get about beating roulette is, why aren't you rich. It's why most gamblers are really losers that heart..

 

I think that same dynamic is in play in baccarat. Tell me it isn't exciting to sit at home figuring out strategies and coming up with a betting pattern that beats most shoes. You get a rush even before you try it in a casino.

I still remember the feeling I got when I cracked a formula for figuring out the perfect number to wait for on "Must-Hit-By" progressives. I was in my car at a stop light in front of the Thomas & Mack arena. The light turned green and I didn't even notice it. Suddenly people started honking at me, so I rolled down the window and said, "yeah I know it's amazing right, I got it. I finally got it!"

Took me a full 30 sec to realize they had no idea I'd cracked an equation I'd been working on for three-weeks straight. They simply wanted me to move. Here it is BTW:

 

So to all: what's your best story of excitement figuring something out that no one else had discovered yet?

 

The funny thing is I was a bit on the rich side when I was gambling. Then I kept blowing all my money on trying to own regular businesses. I had Phoenix Systems, Cerith Mobile Computing, and Kneeland Photographic. All failed and cost me a fortune. Gambling was always my stable go to income. It really is odd if you think about it.

 

I never ever lost a bankroll. I never ever reached the predetermined loss limit.

But I always closed a session after 3 losses in a row .

 

Only once did I go though my on-hand bankroll. It was at the Frontier playing 5-coin $1 6/9 JoB trying to hit a 4 of kind coupon. The coupon was good for 24 hours and paid +$100 on your next 4K. They gave them out when you cashed your paycheck.

I got of work at the New MGM, cashed my check and went to play. I went through $3700 which is all I had on me, Went home and got $2000 more and then the 24 hours elapsed and I never got my 4K or cupon LOL.

I was up $14,800 on the play overall, but sheesh...

The next month they ran a similar promo in Laughlin except it was a $150 bonus for your next 4k or RF or SF and they let you cash a check a day, rather than the 1-per week like the Frontier.

We started our own company and wrote our own checks and took em for $128,000 in a month. Oh, BTW the dude that had financed my baccarat team was the one we got to form the company. He ended up cheating us out of $4800, and we parted ways. What he didn't know is we had just hit two 3K RF's and hadn't gotten to report it yet. We were playing the 3c Jake's Jacks which were 100.2% return. So by cheating us out of $4800 it cost him $280. Now that's poetic justice.

Our team did go through 35K once at the Hilton and I had to go get more from Tom. I'd just handed him 120K from the previous months profits, so no biggy there.

 

We did not have loss limits in Progressive VP. Just played till it hit and may god have mercy on our souls.

 

Reading Randomness and then turning it into a working skill. The first time I saw it I took $60 and turned it into $3,000. I was up to $4,500 in just 30 minutes before I fell back a little and quit. It took me decades to turn it into a working skill. And included in that ( no one else of yours's ) is you. You have passed it up. So you are not very smart after all. That's OK with me too. Now if you are interviewing people here like they are little children for your attention gathering sessions then that's OK. You always come off condescending. You want to know what people's favorite colors are while wondering around on the deck of the Titanic when you should be rearranging the deck chairs like everyone else. There is something not right with you. I have never seen you give good gambling advice while you consider yourself some kind of validated gambling expert. I have been watching you manipulate people. That's your game. Are you excited yet? How many times in your life have you been discovered and you zipped away for another hole to dig in an another unsuspecting forum? You don't make sense. You can't remove your posts. They are evidence of your cultist gathering methods. Let's all cherish the presence of Frank Kneeland, gambling author and show personality. It could have been great but you don't actually have anything to share. It's always questions. Boring...

 

Actually, in this case I just thought people would like to share their exciting moments. I had absolutely no additional motive. I like stories and all the pros I know love to tell them. I have actually offered a lot of functional advice in the slot and VP threads. You probably just didn't see it. I try not to offer baccarat advice since it is not my area of expertise. Of course from my POV learning about things I don't know is far more interesting than hanging out in thread about something I did for 30-years. Been there done that, kapish?

So far as manipulating people, that was a bit of non-sequitur for me. What exactly is it you think I'm manipulating people to do?

In our private conversation I told you my area of study is Linguistic Relativity. I am very curious about how people have divergent definitions of words like "random" "luck", "winning", etc... I grew up in such a gambling bubble with only like minded people around me, the only way I can learn what other people think about these concepts is to chat with people outside my sphere. Chatting here has really helped me learn.

So far as "condescending" you're not the first person to say that. In fact I've been told I always come off that way. I am completely oblivious to what it is I'm doing that comes off that way. This has actually been something I've wanted to work on and fix for a long time.

If you could more accurately define what I'm doing that is engendering this emotion in people, I would really appreciate it and I will work to correct the issue.

P.S. You were also correct about my complete inability to read randomness. I can't even see the patterns. It mystifies me how anyone does it and it does appear that some people do.

 

Oh I guess the only thing I didn't address was this statement. I suppose I do consider myself to be an expert. I've even done consulting work for casinos and designed games. If that's not enough to be an expert then I'm not sure what your requirement would be to qualify, if 30+ years in the job isn't enough?

I must say, I'm not sure why you don't consider me an expert. I'm guessing it's because my advice doesn't apply as much to your game. If that's the case, you'll get no argument from me. I am not an expert or even neophyte at what you do.

Peace out...

 

Since Mr. Kmeeland considered himself a video poker expert I would like to ask him

a controversial question : HOB 9/6 ACE Heart TEN Heart the selection is ?

Thank You .


NS

 

Typo Jacks or better.

 

Mark Twain got rich from writing and doing speaking engagements. But he went broke thinking he was a businessman and tried to invest his money in various enterprises and they all failed. Towards the end of his life he was almost bankrupt and he had to go back on the road doing speaking engagements and traveling to Europe and he hated it but he had to do it. Always stick with what you do best. Alexander Graham Bell approached Twain to invest in his new telephone invention. With his acute sense for business Twain dismissed it as a toy and said it had no practical use. No wonder he went broke.

 

I'm just pissed off about something else and decided to pile on you. Forget about it. You really are a neat guy with tons of experience.

 

On non progressive 6/9 JoB it's correct to drop the TEN.

On progressive 6/9 VP it is correct around $1174 to start holding the TEN. However it's highly sensitive to a flush penalty which adds about $285 to the meter break.

 

Does this mean you're not willing to tell me why I come off condescending even when I'm trying to do the opposite. I'll pay for the info

~Love

 

Mt. Kneeland,

Thanks for your reply. Some are saying drop the 10 but I thought why not keep A 10. Well

My wife hit with A 10 a Royal while on a 4 day tri p at the Atlantis , Nassau.

 

I've seen this before, people who can't see the patterns even when I point them out. They can see the obvious ones like red black red black red black but the more complicated ones just don't look like patterns to them. When I look at the outcomes in roulette all I see is patterns and I see new ones all the time. There's also patterns within patterns and those are really hard to see for some people. I think pattern recognition is more of a gift then it is a learned skill. I have a friend who never took a piano lesson in his life but he can play any song on the piano that he hears. He can't read music but can play a song if he only hears it once. Spooky.

 

No it's not correct with a reset Royal. Sorry. Yes of course there will always be that time it comes in 1 in 16,215 hands, but all the lost pay pairs don't make the draw favorable overall. Remember on a progressive you do hold the ten if the meter is high enough.