My friend has opened a new Baccarat.

[The General]

He is the kind of player who wins 57 percent of the hands he plays.

He only plays PLAYER OR BANKER AND ONCE HE STARTS HE PLAYS EVERY SINGLE HAND.

THE SIDE BETs ARE NOT GOOD BETS AND are SUCKER BETS.

Stuart

Your friend sounds like he's maybe a bit inexperienced.

Some of the highest edges are found by counting and exploiting some of the more exotic bac side bets.  For example the Lucky Nines in the live game can provide a huge edge!

[The General]

Eliot Jacobson Ph.D.
Eliot Jacobson Ph.D.
6 February 2013
"Sometimes a side bet comes along that dwarfs the others in terms of its card counting vulnerability. Such was the case with the Slingo Bonus Bet 21 side bet for blackjack. When I read about the Lucky Nines (LN) baccarat side bet on the Wizard of Vegas website, I immediately realized that it might be the most vulnerable baccarat side bet I've seen. In fact, it may be the most vulnerable side bet, period. This bet pays based on the total number of nines in the first four cards dealt to the Banker and Player hands, with bonuses for suited nines. Intuitively, a simple nines count should be more than adequate to crush this bet.

There is a catch, however. This side bet is not available for ordinary baccarat. Instead, LN is the proprietary property of the Slovenian company Interblock. It is currently only available on their electro-mechanical eight-deck baccarat, as demonstrated in this video:




In this magazine article in the February, 2012 issue of Casino Journal, Interblock stated that:

“Our blackjack and baccarat games now have a new featured side bet called Lucky Aces and Lucky Nines,” O’Brien said. “This additional side bet will increase the return for the operator of an additional hold anywhere from 4 percent to 6 percent without changing original game-play for blackjack or baccarat.”

There appears to be plenty of momentum to bring LN into production.

Let’s move onto the game itself. After making a wager on LN, the first four cards of the baccarat hand are dealt. By examining those four cards, the LN wager is resolved. The payouts are:

Four nines pays 1000-to-1
Three nines, same suit, pays 500-to-1
Three nines, different suits, pays 35-to-1
Two nines, same suit, pays 16-to-1
Two nines, different suits, pays 5-to-1
One nine of diamonds pays 2-to-1
One nine, club, heart, spade, pays 1-to-1
All others lose
Here is the combinatorial analysis:



In particular:

The house edge is 8.273%
The hit frequency is 29.485%
The standard deviation is 7.209%
The following table gives the effect of removal (EOR) for each card. Note the very large EOR for nines, in particular for the nine of diamonds. Removing a single nine from the shoe moves the edge towards the house by over 3.3%. Removing any non-nine from the shoe moves the edge towards the player by about 0.38%.



The balanced card counting system I tested that gave the best return has the following tags:

A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, T, J, Q, K = +1
Any nine = -12
I tested a few systems that gave a slightly higher tag to the nine of diamonds. However, these systems did not improve on the return given by the simple system above.

The following table gives the results of using this count against LN. These results were obtained by a simulation of one hundred million (100,000,000) eight-deck shoes, with the cut card placed at the traditional location of 14 cards from the end.



An AP who wagers $100 on the LN side bet every time the true count is +4 or higher can expect to make the LN bet on 28.14% of the hands. His average edge when he makes the LN bet will be about 25.10%. The AP will earn about $574 per shoe.

By comparison, playing the Dragon side bet in EZ Baccarat, the AP expects to earn about $60 per shoe. It follows that LN returns 857% more than the Dragon side bet. The closest baccarat side bet to LN in vulnerability is the Easy Six side bet that returns about $89 per shoe.  In this case, LN returns 545% more than Easy Six. These comparisons make it clear that LN is extraordinarily vulnerable to card counting.

The most vulnerable wager in the Slingo blackjack side bet is to bet on a dealer 21. That bet pays 19-to-1 if the dealer has blackjack. Out of all the various Slingo options, this is the wager of choice for a solo card counter. The profit per 100 hands for this Slingo AP is 4.94 units. By comparison, for the AP who is targeting LN, the profit per 100 hands is 7.06 units. Given the increased game speed for Interblock's baccarat due to the automated mechanism, the solo AP will get a much better result against LN than against Slingo.

One possible way to protect LN is to decrease the penetration through the shoe. The following table gives the card counting statistics for LN for cut card placements from 14 cards to 208 cards (4 decks) using the card counting system given above. Each line in this table was created by a simulation of twenty million (20,000,000) eight-deck shoes.



As this data shows, even if the cut card is placed half-way through the shoe, the AP is still earning more from LN than from playing against the Dragon side bet. There is simply no reasonable way to protect LN by decreasing the penetration.

After my challenging experience with DEQ and the EZ Baccarat Dragon Side Bet, I decided to be proactive and contact Interblock prior to releasing this post. My tone was a bit tough and arrogant with Interblock. I’ve got to learn how to communicate this type of information up the latter in a professional manner. However, surprisingly for me, they were completely open to what I had to say."

[RouletteGhost]

Eh general. Wouldn’t call him inexperienced. He just plays in a way you don’t

But who knew? You are a baccarat AP player as well. Bringing down those dragons snowman?

[The General]

Eh general. Wouldn’t call him inexperienced. He just plays in a way you don’t

But who knew? You are a baccarat AP player as well. Bringing down those dragons snowman?

Yes I have some AP experience with the side bets and sort play "edging."

[RouletteGhost]

Please. Expose us to the lucky 9 side bet knowledge. We await with open ears

we should close the casinos?

Oh, you don’t do this already?

[The General]

Please. Expose us to the lucky 9 side bet knowledge. We await with open ears

we should close the casinos?

Oh, you don’t do this already?

It's explained in great detail above by Dr. Jacobson.  And yes, I have exploited it before.

[RouletteGhost]

Lucky 9 does not exist on live  tables I believe. Where is this side bet.

[The General]

Lucky 9 does not exist on live  tables I believe. Where is this side bet.

Sorry, but if I tell you then I've got to off ya!  You can read about more on wizard of vegas.

[RouletteGhost]

Discuss Card counting the dragon bet

A real discussion. Math

How is it done

I played with a guy in Atlantic City. He seemed to be playing the dragon bet only.

Made a ton

Rumor has it there advantage here

[bikemotorman]

General, we can agree to disagree.

General, I play Player and Banker, and Pass and Don't Pass in craps that it.

Again we can agree to disagree if you like Ellis will be glad to speak to you on the phone or in person not on this forum over the internet in the text.

Stuart

[RouletteGhost]

Ez baccarat in AC has dragon

There is supposed to be an AP to this

[The General]

Ghost you can study what's written above.

[RouletteGhost]

General. Caleb. Snowman. Baldman shaking head. Is this interblock still available?

[bikemotorman]

This is from ECD.......................Ellis Davis from his personal BACCARAT forum.


Clifton Davis



Here is the straight dope on Baccarat!

I'll post my personal story somewhere here when I have the time. I posted a little bit of it on the public Roulette Forum. You might want to take a look. Suffice it to say, for now, that even my competitors, on their own sites, say that I'm the best Baccarat Instructor on the planet. I don't blame you for maybe not believing that right off - but you soon will as time goes on. That's not what I'm here to talk about.

What I want to talk about FIRST is to give you an idea of what you are up against as a novice Bac Player: I don't care if you have been playing this game for 20 years. To me, you are a novice. The average Bac player has a 43% hands won rate - meaning they lose 57% of the bets they make. You are not going to win any money with a 43% hands won rate.

I know how the average player plays: I watch them all the time. They walk into a casino, look for the first empty seat at a table playing their stakes. Then they either bet based on their interpretation of the history of the shoe OR they follow the player with the most money on the table. THAT is exactly what you do, isn't it. That is exactly what the casino WANTS you to do. You are a guesser. Whether you are guessing based on history or following another guesser - you are a guesser. More than 99% of Bac players are guessers. Casinos KNOW that. The game is rigged against guessers! And they are held down to a 43% bet win rate. Casinos are very good at what they see as their job. Casinos admit to a 15% table take rate on avg. Actually they take out table overhead so their real profit rate is much higher. Meaning: YOUR win rate is actually less than 43%! Look, if the casinos weren't winning at 57%, they wouldn't even deal Baccarat. They would replace the Bac table area with slot machines which make even more money for the casino. THAT is what you are up against. BUT:

Look, Baccarat is a 50/50 game! It is the only 50/50 game in the casino. Yeah, I know that Mathematicians say the odds favor the casino. I'm a retired Math Professor myself. My specialty was Calculus. Among other things Calculus is the Mathematics of odds. Right, Bank has a slight edge over Player.  But nobody has EVER beat the game betting Bank only. Many have tried. Commission has NOTHING to do with the table odds any more than what you paid the cab driver to get to the casino.

After the first play of a shoe EVERY play is either an Opposite or a Repeat. The odds are exactly 50/50. So I don't care what any Mathematician tells you - they don't know the game. With more than 30 years experience, I DO! An Opposite is when the opposite side wins relative to the last hand. A Repeat is when the same side repeats. The odds are exactly 50/50. Then why do you only win 43% of the hands? Because the game is rigged against guessers! Casinos have no fear of guessers. They only fear System Players. Less than 1% of players play systems. There is a system for every shoe ever dealt that beats that shoe. Your job is to figure out which of 6 systems beats the shoe at hand BEST. AND, which betting strategy is BEST for the shoe at hand. But no, YOU don't need to figure out which system to play. Your SAP count tells you which system is best for the shoe at hand. It's like your guardian angel. You simply do what SAP tells you to do. I can teach you SAP Counting in 5 minutes. It is nothing like card counting.

But first, lets get your bet hit rate up from 43% to 50%. That is a HUGE improvement already that I can teach you right here and now. FIRST, NEVER bet Tie or Panda or Dragon. Those are casino sucker bets. Note the color of the first card dealt each hand (to Player). It is either red or black. If it is red, next hand bet Bank. If it is black, next hand bet Player. Voila! Now you are at a 50% hit rate! Now the real work begins - getting you ABOVE 50% - millionaire territory!

So, NO, you don't walk into a casino and grab the first seat. That is what amateurs do. Why to thieves rob banks? Because that is where the money is. I want you to start thinking like a bank robber. I want you to think of casinos as banks - because that's where the money is. You walk in and case the joint. Check ALL of the tote boards. I will teach you how to read them like a Pro! There is ALWAYS a best table to play. We look for the streakiest table first because those are the most profitable. If there aren't any that means the whole casino is favoring chop right now. Soo,  we look for the choppiest tote board! (the one with the most FIRST liners relative to the remaining circles) The one with the least icicles hanging down. There are many tricks to picking the best table in the casino. I'll teach you ALL of them.

Watch my lips! Baccarat is NOT about heroically white knuckling the hardest table in the casino. That is what amateurs do. WINNING BACCARAT is about finding the EASIEST table to beat and then knowing how BEST to bet it. We are not heroes. We are WINNERS! We do it the easy way. It's not a game anymore - It's a job! We are there for ONE purpose. THAT is where the money is! Do you get it? That is what separates Pros from amateurs. We have purpose and  we KNOW what we are looking for and why and what to do about it. Once you start THINKING like a Pro - you become one!

And NO, we don't drink alcohol at the table. That comes later after finishing playing for the day. Fine, reward yourself for winning. Then get a good night's sleep because tomorrow we are going to do it all over again. Playing full time, I went 3 years in AC W/O a single losing day. But then I got barred. So then I went 8 years in Tunica W/O a losing day. The high stakes hostess at Flamingo, Vegas looked up my playing record when Keith was trying to get me a comp. "Sorry, no we won't comp Ellis. Here is his play record for all 40 Caesar's group casinos. While a 'Most Frequent Player', Ellis hasn't had a losing day at any of our 40 casinos in the last 20 years. But you Keith - we will gladly comp. along with everyone else in your group - except Ellis." I couldn't have cared less. While she and Keith were arguing I won $4000 at a high stakes BJ table, 10 feet away.

So, you have 4 choices:

1.)You can try teaching yourself like everyone else in the casino. I haven't seen that work in the last 30 years.

2.) You can try learning from our free public forum. I haven't seen that work either.

3.) You can join our Beginner Private Forum @ $15 / Mo where I teach you basics along with ONE good net bet system that usually wins. You can always join the Advanced forum later.

4.) You can join our Advanced Private Forum where I teach you EVERYTHING I know @ $25 a month - The 6 best Baccarat systems and the SAP Count to tell you which system is best for the shoe at hand. Like that on line shoe I played on the public forum. That was OTB4L - one of the 6 systems, played right by the book EVERY play, every bet. Check it out! You keep getting better at this game forever!

That is all you pay. I will no longer charge for manuals. They will be posted on the Private Forum for free.

That makes ECD the lowest cost Baccarat training on the internet - yet the best by far.

Sure we will also do on line seminars to get certain points across better. But I want those seminars full so we won't charge much.

There is NO Math involved. Anybody can do what I did! It is just a question of devotion and I'm right there with you every step of the way. BTW, I often play in the casinos with my students.

Ellis

Thanks guys Stuart.

[bikemotorman]

Another test today.

Stuart