A Negative Progression Baccarat Study/Strategy
Posted: Sat Mar 31, 2018 8:06 pm
A Simple, Mechanical, Negative Progression Baccarat Study/Strategy
Awhile back, I downloaded a couple of FREE eBooks from the author, Lee Evans, Playing The Empire for Fun and For Profit, A Gambler’s Guide To Baccarat, Volume 1 and Playing The Empire for Fun and For Profit, A Gambler’s Guide To Baccarat, THE LONG GAME, Volume 2.
Lee is an IT Consultant and seemed to enjoy the game well, from his writing and dedication to the long run of the game. Lee’s eBooks contain the majority of live casino results, methods, graphs, strategy and general information I mention in this post. I believe his overall strategy was derived/combined from Seth Theobeau’s blog at targetbettingdotblogspotdotcom. Seth is a very sharp guy as well, IMO. Free straightforward information from years of gambling and testing. Seth lays it all out there and challenges anyone/everyone to what he calls his “Target 3 Play” method.
I am not new to the game of Baccarat (6 years) but, I don’t consider myself a pro just yet either. I’ve read quite a bit about different strategies on Baccarat and I have witnessed/played approximately six to seven hundred shoes. I have likely seen it all at the regular tables here in the Asia Pacific region (Philippines, Macau and Singapore). I have bought and utilized several systems over those years as well. None have produced any consistent and sustainable wins, in the long run, for me.
I haven’t got to read Heavy’s baccarat strategy system yet, as I am here in the Philippines. Maybe if I get back to the states this year, I’ll pick up a copy Heavy.
As far as I could tell here in the Asia Pacific region, I have not seen anyone try the following method, which I now find puzzling. I don’t really think this method is anything completely new but, just a completely different way to approach the game.
To state gambling simply and bluntly, Seth said, “Your objective is to make a steady profit, and because you know ahead of time, that in the end you will lose more bets than you win, you also know that the only way you can make money is by winning more when you win, than you lose when you lose. Psychic ability is not required.” Exactly, so true!
The following is just my take, from Seth, Lee and my own testing, on a straight forward, mechanical and realistic strategy to play the game with highly likely consistent profits in the long run. Each shoe is a different animal and depending on which way the wind blows, your results could be better or worse.
One thing I am convinced of is that you MUST play with conviction, proper BR and follow the progression betting rules; or you will never give it an opportunity to succeed. To not execute these key items is certain destruction, no matter what casino card game of choice you play.
The truth of my matter! While it really wasn’t a big sum of money and a bit embarrassing I might add, I recently destroyed my gambling BR at the craps table in about 20 months. Now to be fair to the game of craps, this was my first live learning DI experience and I did bet on myself about 99% of the time.
This bombshell brought me back to the possibilities of finding a way to beat Baccarat, with a completely different approach than I had in previous years, while I re-align some assets and slowly build my BR back. I have always really enjoyed Baccarat and it is a simple, social and easily played game.
Sadly, I decided I am going to bypass/quit the craps table for awhile, except to just stop by, visit the regulars and say hello. Well…maybe one SIA OHCM bet but, that’s it! See, I still can’t seem to resist the craps table!
OK…note that in Lee’s “The Empire for Fun and For Profit, A Gambler’s Guide To Baccarat, Volume 1”, this particular base strategy and progression was tested, selected and utilized to gradually build his BR, as to then continue to play/test with other different progressions in live casino play. This is my goal as well and I will be hitting the tables soon. I will post Trip Reports when I do.
I concluded the following baccarat strategy from Lee and Seth’s logic/trials, real-shoe data grinds of my own and my Baccarat Buster 2 (professional real world testing environment software app) software simulation testing. Also, note that many people think you have to test thousands and thousands of shoes to get an accurate accounting of a logic outcome. In Baccarat Buster 2, I found by examining shoe session analysis, after about 40 or 50 shoes, the law of averages seemed to take over and anything over that was simply redundant. It’s just my opinion. It seems the more I test, the more it just averages out to the initial few dozen or so shoes I began with.
The software has three separate real-time recorders. I would record 50 shoes on recorder #2 and 100 shoes on recorder #3. After I compared the analysis, I saw virtually no difference, over and over again. Another note; the Baccarat Buster 2 software is built upon a proprietary shuffle machine that actually shuffles, cuts and burns the cards. You can build your own independent shoes of any number of multiple decks too. It is not a RNG.
The main key item Lee and Seth mentioned was bet selection. Now IMO, here is where things got real interesting. Select either Banker or Player and stick with it (line betting)! Bold method huh?
Lee stated, “If you are relying on any kind of bet placement system you can expect your hit ratio to be somewhere in the 30% to 40% range which means you will miss about 60% to 70% of the events that are available to you. Therefore, I recommend that you pick a side and stick to it. If you like player, bet player and if you like banker bet banker. If you want to change between the two occasionally you can do that too. But be warned the more you chase individual decisions around, the higher your miss ratio climbs. There is nothing worse than looking at a tote board that looks completely fine and you realized that you have missed 10 in a row because you were always in the wrong place at the wrong time. While it is hard to do, line betting can increase your hit ratio for the events you care about to 100%. This will be really good in shoes that are lopsided in your favor where your side beats the other side by 20 points. However, it will be a bad day when the opposite happens. The good news, is that the vast majority of shoes you are likely to encounter will be somewhere in between those two extremes where the banker and player events will reach parity or will differ by up to 7 to 8 points per game. The bad news is you will never know what you are going to get when you sit down at the table.”
At first, I thought this was completely ludicrous and would NEVER, ever, have even considered this but, after testing, found these statements to be very accurate! By doing this, I quickly realized I reduced the variance created by my own crazy bet selection decisions! I tested myself against numerous shoes by trying to outsmart the bet selection results. I would estimate that roughly 60% of my decisions or more were incorrect overall. Why is it that we always seem to think we know more about outcome results than we actually do? There is no “all seeing” crystal ball except hindsight.
I remembered too that the cards are like dice, they have no memory and past results are just that, past results. Also, card counting an eight deck shoe to hone in on a few bets at the end of a shoe is ridiculous as well! Why not let the game come to you and forget about trying to second guess things??? I challenge you on this bet selection method versus ANY other method. Yes, like all methods, all are correct at some given point in time but, we are in this for the long run. Once again, let the game come to you! I think you will be amazed as I was.
With that in mind, if your bet selection is constant, all you need to focus on is a progression strategy that can withstand the losses and capitalize on the wins. A smart progression looks for a Win/Win or “back to back” wins to profit overall throughout the shoe. Simple! Win more when you win, than you lose when you lose overall, right?
Here is a great excerpt from Lee’s Volume One on a 13 step negative progression…“The rules are structured so that it takes two hands to resolve a bet. The strategy is simple, in Baccarat single events are the most common, followed by doubles, followed by triples. This betting system relies on there being at least one double at some point along the sequence. If we pass through the entire sequence of bets without a double we bust and lose. However, if we hit a double at any point between bets 1-13 we recover any loss units and show a profit. If we get a double we start the sequence over from bet 1. If we bust, we start the sequence over from bet 1. My system does both, I push when I am ahead and I push when I am behind. I push when I am ahead by letting my entire winning bets ride that is, my base bet plus my win becomes my next bet this is known as a pyramid strategy. When I win two hands back to back my base bet is multiplied by 3. However, when I lose, I only lose my base bet.”
After I tested several different negative progressions and looking at Lee’s entire test shoe data/negative progression methods, IMO, I feel the following 13 step negative progression is the best to use. I believe it is a quite popular method anyway and is easy to implement.
Now I am a bit strange and I did my suggested negative progression (after testing several methods) differently than the usual negative progressions. My next bet (on any Win) will be to parlay winnings and ADD an additional initial base bet. In other words (on any Win), 3 times my initial winning base bet, is my next bet. This extends opportunities to get me more profit on a “back to back” win, since “double” events are a little more difficult to obtain within any given shoe. It’s gambling and I wanted to find an acceptable way to gain a better ROI.
It costs me a bit more than the base session BR of 122 units if I lose though (can stretch to 214 units in a worst case scenario of {WLWLWLWLWLWLWLWLWLWLWL}). What will typically happen is that if I reach the final 36 unit level, I may be about 20-30 units over the 122 unit session BR to complete that last level’s bet. You can either just bet what you have left, STOP or go into your pocket to cover the last level, your choice always. It varies due to the amount of previous wins you may have had also. I found that just covering the last bet out of pocket usually brings home that final profit win you needed.
My Next Bet example after any Win: Say I am at the 2 unit level bet and win. My next bet will be 6 units (3X my winning base bet level), not 4 units (Parlay winnings). If my next 6 unit bet loses, I then just move to the next level of 3 units for a base bet.
Suggested Negative Progression Levels and “Back to Back” Win Next Bet:
1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 12, 15, 28, 36 Units
On any win, my next bet is 3X that winning base bet level, or you can use the parlay method. Use whatever progression (on any win) fits your style.
The following are the simple “rules” to go by:
#1 Always bet Banker or Player! Pick one and stick to it.
Naturally, with Banker, the vig is lower and it is more favored to win but, you are subject to a commission usually in one fashion or another (straight 5% commission, Super Six only 50% payout, etc.).
Lee and Seth did utilize Player in live casino testing as well. As it turns out, Lee preferred Banker and Seth prefers Player. Myself, well I am leaning more towards Banker but, I am still a bit undecided. My jury is still out deciding and looking at data.
I would be highly interested in what other people’s opinion on this is! I tend to side with Banker though, based on the card drawing rules of the game but, I HATE having to pay for it. I think that was Seth’s rub too.
Update! Well, I did just obtain another thousand real-data shoes with actual numbered results. I looked at a comparison of how the Banker “Super Six” only 50% commission affects the outcome vs. the straight 5% commission results. Here in the Philippines, we have the Banker “Super Six” 50% commission only. All in all, using about a 150 real-data shoe sampling, it basically came out even less than a straight 5% commission. Yes, I like that!
I believe I’ll now agree with Lee and utilize Banker! The overall smaller Banker “Super Six” 50% commission combined with the card drawing rules and the amount of Banker “back to back” wins I have seen, in all my test data, seems to make it worth it. Will I ever line bet Player? Sure, under certain circumstances.
#2 Do not play any side bets! You know any side bets are designed BR killer’s with a high vig.
My big temptation, in certain scenarios, is what they call the “High Tie” bet here or “UR Way Egalite Tie” is the original name it is known by. Here, you can bet a minimum coverall bet of $20, which covers all the possible Tie results (0 through 9) or just bet individual numbers at $2 minimum each. The odds differ per the numbered result (40:1 all the way up to 210:1).
Just don’t do it and resist the temptation. Enough said…
#3 Play the entire shoe! You can catch the first bet in a string of wins and you can decrease the number of missed wins.
Along with the original 13 step negative progression, I tested a 3 Loss STOP and 5 Loss STOP (consecutive Player or Banker runs), and then resume system, also. I will admit, sometimes it looks like just taking a Profit/Loss and moving on is the thing to do when long runs occur against you. Some shoes will kill you in the last 20 hands, or you will pull out a nice Profit. They are about 50/50 as I have noticed in testing.
By playing the entire shoe, it gives you the best chance at making a Profit, in the long run overall. You are going to have some losses (bust outs) but, many more wins will make up for it overall. Look at the big picture over time/multiple shoes.
OK, note that overall, in my tens of thousands of compiled real-data shoes from all over the world, Player or Banker dominate shoes seemed to be roughly 52% Player and 48% Banker. What I have seen in the casinos here, over the past 6 years, is about the exact opposite (mostly Banker dominate at roughly the same rate or more)! The shoes Baccarat Buster created seemed to lean more towards Banker dominant too. My point though is who knows really? You will get whatever you get, each and every time you play! IMO, it seems to balance out, the longer you play.
Ahhhh…but, does it really matter? I tend to think it does. Now, my Excel spread-sheet testing of random real-shoe trials shows some interesting information overall. The key thing to notice is that even though some Player results may have dominated a shoe over Banker, I STILL made a profit betting on Banker (I used the (B5) 5 Loss STOP method on these in particular)!
Just for illustration, just as it happened in the first ten real-data shoes I tested, 6 were Player dominant and four were Banker dominant shoes (something I think you could encounter quite a bit actually). All ten shoes line betting Player LOST 85 units in total (there were three bust outs on Banker dominant shoes). All ten shoes line betting Banker WON 413 units.
You won’t win line betting Banker on all Player dominant shoes but, you will win some! IMO, this kind of stacks the deck in Banker’s favor, in the long run.
Why? IMO, I tend to think and see, in most shoes, that there are typically more Banker “back to back” wins, within the 13 step progression, obviously. In the majority of my current testing data, the average amount of Banker “back to back” wins, per shoe, was 12.17 (1765 Banker “back to back” wins in 145 shoes). This 12.17 per shoe figure would usually be higher (maybe 14-15) but, my 12.17 per shoe figure included the shoes where I busted out with only very few or NO “back to back” Banker wins before busting. That brought the average down naturally. I don’t understand why there seems to be more Banker “back to back” wins in any given shoe but, I suspect it is the card drawing rules leaning towards the Banker’s favor. Incidentally, Player, in all those same shoes, averaged 9.80 per shoe. Hmmm…12.17 Banker vs. 9.80 Player per shoe.
Just in case you don’t really know or have forgotten the card drawing rules, remember these numbers: 8, 27, 47, 67. Here is what they mean.
If Banker's total is 3, and the Player draws anything except an 8, then Banker draws.
If Banker's total is 4, then the Banker draws against a Player third card of 2 to 7.
If Banker's total is 5, then the Banker draws against a Player third card of 4 to 7.
If Banker's total is 6, then the Banker draws against a Player third card of 6 to 7.
If Banker’s total is 7, Banker stays.
If Player’s two card total is 5 or less, Player draws a card, except for a Banker natural 8 or 9.
The majority of the time, Player being forced to draw a card with five or less is a huge obstacle to overcome, IMO. To me, this seems to force Player into a lot of situations where Player must have a natural eight/nine to win. Why then is Banker figured to Win more? Right or wrong, it’s just my opinion on the matter.
The entire key to all of this is one thing, Win/Win or “back to back” wins. As long as you can get a “double” win within your negative progression string of 13 levels, you will prevail. Yes, sometimes it takes balls of steel losing/betting up until the last couple of levels in a progression, but Profit is Profit! It just seems to work out in the long run.
Now I used several negative progressions in my spread-sheet. B3, I called it, will STOP after the third Player run result and wait out the run. Banker will show again but, I wait until Player shows again. After the first Player result appears again, I resume my negative progression where I previously STOPPED at before.
Another one I used for both Banker and Player (B5 or P5 I called it). It will STOP after the fifth Player or Banker result and wait out the run. Use the same rules as above to resume.
Yes, these Loss STOP methods do lose some Player/Banker winning runs in between sometimes but, I have found that I save and extend myself from any potential long Player/Banker run that will BUST you out most times, in the regular 13 step negative progression! And yes, these methods, overall, make a bit less profit because of the STOPS but, appear to be safer and give you a greater chance at playing the entire shoe. In some of my real-shoe data tests, the original method BUSTS before ending the shoe and the other methods (B3, B5 and P5), have actually weathered the storm, made it through the entire shoe and came out with a small Profit, instead of a bust out. BIG difference in results (a total BUST OUT LOSS of 122 units reversed into a small positive unit Profit)!
IMO, method B5 or P5, with the five Loss STOP, seems to be optimal for giving you the greatest opportunity to play the entire shoe. For some reason, I tend to see several runs of three a lot of the time in shoes. Starting and stopping on threes is likely not very practical. I believe that is why the B3 method lagged behind in Profit margin so much of the time. It missed too many in between Profitable runs!
Lee also stated, “I find that picking a layout with a run length of 14-15 is a pretty good balance. This is because shorter run-lengths are subject to busting more frequently and longer ones simply cause you to lose more money in long downturns.”
IMO, I disagree about the 14-15 level negative progression (especially utilizing MY progression bets after a Win). I think it is too much BR risk for the expected Profit outcome or ROI. IMO, the B5 or P5 loss STOP is a better route to take with less BR session layout.
All in all, it’s about getting as many “back to back” wins as you can in the shoe (within the 13 level negative progression)! Pick your own negative progression level and units per your own comfort level. Try the B3, B5 or P5 Loss STOP methods if you like. It’s all about YOUR gambling comfort level!
I do know this (from Lee’s tests/live casino results and my random real-shoe data testing), if you can catch a few good shoes in the beginning, it will get you off to a great start and cover your initial 122 unit session BR before a bust out occurs. Progressively, you should continue to make gains, the more shoes that you play.
You ARE going to bust out a certain percentage of the time but, in the long run, testing revealed an overall Profit is going to average out in the 20-40% range per shoe when you win. Naturally, my percentage of bust out rates differs between the different methods used. Basically, the bust outs seemed to average out, across all methods used, at about 22%. This naturally leaves an average Winning rate of 78%.
If you can live with that kind of return, for time spent and amount of $$$ at risk, maybe this Simple, Mechanical, Negative Progression Baccarat Strategy Study may work for you. I am headed to the tables as soon as my BR situation improves.
PM me if you want specific Target Betting links to Seth’s blog on Target Betting and spread-sheet results. There are some really good posts there. By the way, here is one of my favorite quotes from Seth’s blog…”It takes arithmetic to beat arithmetic.” Hahaha, you bet it does!
Here are a few more excerpts from Lee’s eBook which I think are very relative. Note most of these are condensed from Seth’s blog…
Lee said, “In a very general sense, discipline requires the mastery of several concepts and Seth Theobeau who runs the site Target Betting lays out many of them very clearly and I can summarize the most important points here:
1. Accept that luck is an irrelevance because it favors the house as much as the player and recognizes that the house advantage makes it inevitable that over time, the smartest gambler will lose more bets than he or she wins. Grasp enough math to know that if you are going to lose more bets than you win in the long run, the only way you can win any money, is to win more when you win then you lose when you lose (an objective which will require courage at times).
2. Learn the best way to play these games head-to-head which means avoiding the money traps such as tie bets and dragons which will end up costing you more money than you will gain. Be fully aware of the negative odds you face knowing that the tiny house edge enjoyed by the casino is far less of a factor in player losses than poor money management.
3. Know that winning requires a substantial bankroll (something the house knows too) and that long-term profit without risk is a mathematical impossibility. Play consistently and cautiously, knowing that what many people assume is conservative betting actually increases the house’s already favorable odds. Study win-loss patterns and see in them the simple truth that the key to winning is exploiting positive streaks in such a way that cumulative losses can be recovered in fewer bets than it took to get into trouble in the first place.
4. Never take losses personally because they are almost always temporary. Use your losses as opportunities to learn something from being beaten.”
________________________________________
Lee said in Lesson 3,
“No one can see around the corner, predicting the future is more unreliable than you think. Baccarat is fundamentally a guessing game where gamblers attempt to predict the future. Many players use different kinds of systems and methods to use past outcomes to determine future events. Yet others rely on what they feel like they know. The central problem with any system or method that relies on the past to predict the future in games of chance is the cognitive bias that sees past success as evidence of inevitability and proof that the method will be reliable for future use. However, in actual practice, the hit ratio of guessing outcomes is shockingly low and therefore worse than line betting (always betting on one of two outcomes). It should also be noted that studies of bet placement systems reveal that they don’t perform better than line betting. In my trial of trying to guess outcomes based on heuristics, my highest success count was twelve in a row. The average was clusters of 2 to 6 correct decisions separated by much larger gaps of wrong decisions. In my experience, it has been much easier to get a lot more wrong than right. On an off day, I was able to guess three out of every four decisions wrong! The mistake gamblers make here is confusing skill with luck, that is, they place too much reliance on specific cases of success which means by extension that they largely ignore the failures which if examined, would likely outpace the successful guesses by a considerable ratio. There are useful metrics in Baccarat (which I will cover later) that can be used to establish a base rate (what is known) to make better predictions which can lead to greater opportunities for success. To learn more about skill vs. luck I recommend Michael Mauboussin “Sorting the Sources of Success”. In his book The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic, Richard Epstein, a game theorist trained in physics, notes that there is no way to assure that you’ll succeed if you participate in an activity that combines skill and luck. But he does say, “It is gratifying to rationalize that we would rather lose intelligently than win ignorantly.” Luck may or may not smile on us, but if we stick to a good process for making decisions, then we can learn to accept the outcomes of our decisions with equanimity -- Michael Mauboussin. Baccarat is a game that requires zero skill to play.”
Awhile back, I downloaded a couple of FREE eBooks from the author, Lee Evans, Playing The Empire for Fun and For Profit, A Gambler’s Guide To Baccarat, Volume 1 and Playing The Empire for Fun and For Profit, A Gambler’s Guide To Baccarat, THE LONG GAME, Volume 2.
Lee is an IT Consultant and seemed to enjoy the game well, from his writing and dedication to the long run of the game. Lee’s eBooks contain the majority of live casino results, methods, graphs, strategy and general information I mention in this post. I believe his overall strategy was derived/combined from Seth Theobeau’s blog at targetbettingdotblogspotdotcom. Seth is a very sharp guy as well, IMO. Free straightforward information from years of gambling and testing. Seth lays it all out there and challenges anyone/everyone to what he calls his “Target 3 Play” method.
I am not new to the game of Baccarat (6 years) but, I don’t consider myself a pro just yet either. I’ve read quite a bit about different strategies on Baccarat and I have witnessed/played approximately six to seven hundred shoes. I have likely seen it all at the regular tables here in the Asia Pacific region (Philippines, Macau and Singapore). I have bought and utilized several systems over those years as well. None have produced any consistent and sustainable wins, in the long run, for me.
I haven’t got to read Heavy’s baccarat strategy system yet, as I am here in the Philippines. Maybe if I get back to the states this year, I’ll pick up a copy Heavy.
As far as I could tell here in the Asia Pacific region, I have not seen anyone try the following method, which I now find puzzling. I don’t really think this method is anything completely new but, just a completely different way to approach the game.
To state gambling simply and bluntly, Seth said, “Your objective is to make a steady profit, and because you know ahead of time, that in the end you will lose more bets than you win, you also know that the only way you can make money is by winning more when you win, than you lose when you lose. Psychic ability is not required.” Exactly, so true!
The following is just my take, from Seth, Lee and my own testing, on a straight forward, mechanical and realistic strategy to play the game with highly likely consistent profits in the long run. Each shoe is a different animal and depending on which way the wind blows, your results could be better or worse.
One thing I am convinced of is that you MUST play with conviction, proper BR and follow the progression betting rules; or you will never give it an opportunity to succeed. To not execute these key items is certain destruction, no matter what casino card game of choice you play.
The truth of my matter! While it really wasn’t a big sum of money and a bit embarrassing I might add, I recently destroyed my gambling BR at the craps table in about 20 months. Now to be fair to the game of craps, this was my first live learning DI experience and I did bet on myself about 99% of the time.
This bombshell brought me back to the possibilities of finding a way to beat Baccarat, with a completely different approach than I had in previous years, while I re-align some assets and slowly build my BR back. I have always really enjoyed Baccarat and it is a simple, social and easily played game.
Sadly, I decided I am going to bypass/quit the craps table for awhile, except to just stop by, visit the regulars and say hello. Well…maybe one SIA OHCM bet but, that’s it! See, I still can’t seem to resist the craps table!
OK…note that in Lee’s “The Empire for Fun and For Profit, A Gambler’s Guide To Baccarat, Volume 1”, this particular base strategy and progression was tested, selected and utilized to gradually build his BR, as to then continue to play/test with other different progressions in live casino play. This is my goal as well and I will be hitting the tables soon. I will post Trip Reports when I do.
I concluded the following baccarat strategy from Lee and Seth’s logic/trials, real-shoe data grinds of my own and my Baccarat Buster 2 (professional real world testing environment software app) software simulation testing. Also, note that many people think you have to test thousands and thousands of shoes to get an accurate accounting of a logic outcome. In Baccarat Buster 2, I found by examining shoe session analysis, after about 40 or 50 shoes, the law of averages seemed to take over and anything over that was simply redundant. It’s just my opinion. It seems the more I test, the more it just averages out to the initial few dozen or so shoes I began with.
The software has three separate real-time recorders. I would record 50 shoes on recorder #2 and 100 shoes on recorder #3. After I compared the analysis, I saw virtually no difference, over and over again. Another note; the Baccarat Buster 2 software is built upon a proprietary shuffle machine that actually shuffles, cuts and burns the cards. You can build your own independent shoes of any number of multiple decks too. It is not a RNG.
The main key item Lee and Seth mentioned was bet selection. Now IMO, here is where things got real interesting. Select either Banker or Player and stick with it (line betting)! Bold method huh?
Lee stated, “If you are relying on any kind of bet placement system you can expect your hit ratio to be somewhere in the 30% to 40% range which means you will miss about 60% to 70% of the events that are available to you. Therefore, I recommend that you pick a side and stick to it. If you like player, bet player and if you like banker bet banker. If you want to change between the two occasionally you can do that too. But be warned the more you chase individual decisions around, the higher your miss ratio climbs. There is nothing worse than looking at a tote board that looks completely fine and you realized that you have missed 10 in a row because you were always in the wrong place at the wrong time. While it is hard to do, line betting can increase your hit ratio for the events you care about to 100%. This will be really good in shoes that are lopsided in your favor where your side beats the other side by 20 points. However, it will be a bad day when the opposite happens. The good news, is that the vast majority of shoes you are likely to encounter will be somewhere in between those two extremes where the banker and player events will reach parity or will differ by up to 7 to 8 points per game. The bad news is you will never know what you are going to get when you sit down at the table.”
At first, I thought this was completely ludicrous and would NEVER, ever, have even considered this but, after testing, found these statements to be very accurate! By doing this, I quickly realized I reduced the variance created by my own crazy bet selection decisions! I tested myself against numerous shoes by trying to outsmart the bet selection results. I would estimate that roughly 60% of my decisions or more were incorrect overall. Why is it that we always seem to think we know more about outcome results than we actually do? There is no “all seeing” crystal ball except hindsight.
I remembered too that the cards are like dice, they have no memory and past results are just that, past results. Also, card counting an eight deck shoe to hone in on a few bets at the end of a shoe is ridiculous as well! Why not let the game come to you and forget about trying to second guess things??? I challenge you on this bet selection method versus ANY other method. Yes, like all methods, all are correct at some given point in time but, we are in this for the long run. Once again, let the game come to you! I think you will be amazed as I was.
With that in mind, if your bet selection is constant, all you need to focus on is a progression strategy that can withstand the losses and capitalize on the wins. A smart progression looks for a Win/Win or “back to back” wins to profit overall throughout the shoe. Simple! Win more when you win, than you lose when you lose overall, right?
Here is a great excerpt from Lee’s Volume One on a 13 step negative progression…“The rules are structured so that it takes two hands to resolve a bet. The strategy is simple, in Baccarat single events are the most common, followed by doubles, followed by triples. This betting system relies on there being at least one double at some point along the sequence. If we pass through the entire sequence of bets without a double we bust and lose. However, if we hit a double at any point between bets 1-13 we recover any loss units and show a profit. If we get a double we start the sequence over from bet 1. If we bust, we start the sequence over from bet 1. My system does both, I push when I am ahead and I push when I am behind. I push when I am ahead by letting my entire winning bets ride that is, my base bet plus my win becomes my next bet this is known as a pyramid strategy. When I win two hands back to back my base bet is multiplied by 3. However, when I lose, I only lose my base bet.”
After I tested several different negative progressions and looking at Lee’s entire test shoe data/negative progression methods, IMO, I feel the following 13 step negative progression is the best to use. I believe it is a quite popular method anyway and is easy to implement.
Now I am a bit strange and I did my suggested negative progression (after testing several methods) differently than the usual negative progressions. My next bet (on any Win) will be to parlay winnings and ADD an additional initial base bet. In other words (on any Win), 3 times my initial winning base bet, is my next bet. This extends opportunities to get me more profit on a “back to back” win, since “double” events are a little more difficult to obtain within any given shoe. It’s gambling and I wanted to find an acceptable way to gain a better ROI.
It costs me a bit more than the base session BR of 122 units if I lose though (can stretch to 214 units in a worst case scenario of {WLWLWLWLWLWLWLWLWLWLWL}). What will typically happen is that if I reach the final 36 unit level, I may be about 20-30 units over the 122 unit session BR to complete that last level’s bet. You can either just bet what you have left, STOP or go into your pocket to cover the last level, your choice always. It varies due to the amount of previous wins you may have had also. I found that just covering the last bet out of pocket usually brings home that final profit win you needed.
My Next Bet example after any Win: Say I am at the 2 unit level bet and win. My next bet will be 6 units (3X my winning base bet level), not 4 units (Parlay winnings). If my next 6 unit bet loses, I then just move to the next level of 3 units for a base bet.
Suggested Negative Progression Levels and “Back to Back” Win Next Bet:
1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 12, 15, 28, 36 Units
On any win, my next bet is 3X that winning base bet level, or you can use the parlay method. Use whatever progression (on any win) fits your style.
The following are the simple “rules” to go by:
#1 Always bet Banker or Player! Pick one and stick to it.
Naturally, with Banker, the vig is lower and it is more favored to win but, you are subject to a commission usually in one fashion or another (straight 5% commission, Super Six only 50% payout, etc.).
Lee and Seth did utilize Player in live casino testing as well. As it turns out, Lee preferred Banker and Seth prefers Player. Myself, well I am leaning more towards Banker but, I am still a bit undecided. My jury is still out deciding and looking at data.
I would be highly interested in what other people’s opinion on this is! I tend to side with Banker though, based on the card drawing rules of the game but, I HATE having to pay for it. I think that was Seth’s rub too.
Update! Well, I did just obtain another thousand real-data shoes with actual numbered results. I looked at a comparison of how the Banker “Super Six” only 50% commission affects the outcome vs. the straight 5% commission results. Here in the Philippines, we have the Banker “Super Six” 50% commission only. All in all, using about a 150 real-data shoe sampling, it basically came out even less than a straight 5% commission. Yes, I like that!
I believe I’ll now agree with Lee and utilize Banker! The overall smaller Banker “Super Six” 50% commission combined with the card drawing rules and the amount of Banker “back to back” wins I have seen, in all my test data, seems to make it worth it. Will I ever line bet Player? Sure, under certain circumstances.
#2 Do not play any side bets! You know any side bets are designed BR killer’s with a high vig.
My big temptation, in certain scenarios, is what they call the “High Tie” bet here or “UR Way Egalite Tie” is the original name it is known by. Here, you can bet a minimum coverall bet of $20, which covers all the possible Tie results (0 through 9) or just bet individual numbers at $2 minimum each. The odds differ per the numbered result (40:1 all the way up to 210:1).
Just don’t do it and resist the temptation. Enough said…
#3 Play the entire shoe! You can catch the first bet in a string of wins and you can decrease the number of missed wins.
Along with the original 13 step negative progression, I tested a 3 Loss STOP and 5 Loss STOP (consecutive Player or Banker runs), and then resume system, also. I will admit, sometimes it looks like just taking a Profit/Loss and moving on is the thing to do when long runs occur against you. Some shoes will kill you in the last 20 hands, or you will pull out a nice Profit. They are about 50/50 as I have noticed in testing.
By playing the entire shoe, it gives you the best chance at making a Profit, in the long run overall. You are going to have some losses (bust outs) but, many more wins will make up for it overall. Look at the big picture over time/multiple shoes.
OK, note that overall, in my tens of thousands of compiled real-data shoes from all over the world, Player or Banker dominate shoes seemed to be roughly 52% Player and 48% Banker. What I have seen in the casinos here, over the past 6 years, is about the exact opposite (mostly Banker dominate at roughly the same rate or more)! The shoes Baccarat Buster created seemed to lean more towards Banker dominant too. My point though is who knows really? You will get whatever you get, each and every time you play! IMO, it seems to balance out, the longer you play.
Ahhhh…but, does it really matter? I tend to think it does. Now, my Excel spread-sheet testing of random real-shoe trials shows some interesting information overall. The key thing to notice is that even though some Player results may have dominated a shoe over Banker, I STILL made a profit betting on Banker (I used the (B5) 5 Loss STOP method on these in particular)!
Just for illustration, just as it happened in the first ten real-data shoes I tested, 6 were Player dominant and four were Banker dominant shoes (something I think you could encounter quite a bit actually). All ten shoes line betting Player LOST 85 units in total (there were three bust outs on Banker dominant shoes). All ten shoes line betting Banker WON 413 units.
You won’t win line betting Banker on all Player dominant shoes but, you will win some! IMO, this kind of stacks the deck in Banker’s favor, in the long run.
Why? IMO, I tend to think and see, in most shoes, that there are typically more Banker “back to back” wins, within the 13 step progression, obviously. In the majority of my current testing data, the average amount of Banker “back to back” wins, per shoe, was 12.17 (1765 Banker “back to back” wins in 145 shoes). This 12.17 per shoe figure would usually be higher (maybe 14-15) but, my 12.17 per shoe figure included the shoes where I busted out with only very few or NO “back to back” Banker wins before busting. That brought the average down naturally. I don’t understand why there seems to be more Banker “back to back” wins in any given shoe but, I suspect it is the card drawing rules leaning towards the Banker’s favor. Incidentally, Player, in all those same shoes, averaged 9.80 per shoe. Hmmm…12.17 Banker vs. 9.80 Player per shoe.
Just in case you don’t really know or have forgotten the card drawing rules, remember these numbers: 8, 27, 47, 67. Here is what they mean.
If Banker's total is 3, and the Player draws anything except an 8, then Banker draws.
If Banker's total is 4, then the Banker draws against a Player third card of 2 to 7.
If Banker's total is 5, then the Banker draws against a Player third card of 4 to 7.
If Banker's total is 6, then the Banker draws against a Player third card of 6 to 7.
If Banker’s total is 7, Banker stays.
If Player’s two card total is 5 or less, Player draws a card, except for a Banker natural 8 or 9.
The majority of the time, Player being forced to draw a card with five or less is a huge obstacle to overcome, IMO. To me, this seems to force Player into a lot of situations where Player must have a natural eight/nine to win. Why then is Banker figured to Win more? Right or wrong, it’s just my opinion on the matter.
The entire key to all of this is one thing, Win/Win or “back to back” wins. As long as you can get a “double” win within your negative progression string of 13 levels, you will prevail. Yes, sometimes it takes balls of steel losing/betting up until the last couple of levels in a progression, but Profit is Profit! It just seems to work out in the long run.
Now I used several negative progressions in my spread-sheet. B3, I called it, will STOP after the third Player run result and wait out the run. Banker will show again but, I wait until Player shows again. After the first Player result appears again, I resume my negative progression where I previously STOPPED at before.
Another one I used for both Banker and Player (B5 or P5 I called it). It will STOP after the fifth Player or Banker result and wait out the run. Use the same rules as above to resume.
Yes, these Loss STOP methods do lose some Player/Banker winning runs in between sometimes but, I have found that I save and extend myself from any potential long Player/Banker run that will BUST you out most times, in the regular 13 step negative progression! And yes, these methods, overall, make a bit less profit because of the STOPS but, appear to be safer and give you a greater chance at playing the entire shoe. In some of my real-shoe data tests, the original method BUSTS before ending the shoe and the other methods (B3, B5 and P5), have actually weathered the storm, made it through the entire shoe and came out with a small Profit, instead of a bust out. BIG difference in results (a total BUST OUT LOSS of 122 units reversed into a small positive unit Profit)!
IMO, method B5 or P5, with the five Loss STOP, seems to be optimal for giving you the greatest opportunity to play the entire shoe. For some reason, I tend to see several runs of three a lot of the time in shoes. Starting and stopping on threes is likely not very practical. I believe that is why the B3 method lagged behind in Profit margin so much of the time. It missed too many in between Profitable runs!
Lee also stated, “I find that picking a layout with a run length of 14-15 is a pretty good balance. This is because shorter run-lengths are subject to busting more frequently and longer ones simply cause you to lose more money in long downturns.”
IMO, I disagree about the 14-15 level negative progression (especially utilizing MY progression bets after a Win). I think it is too much BR risk for the expected Profit outcome or ROI. IMO, the B5 or P5 loss STOP is a better route to take with less BR session layout.
All in all, it’s about getting as many “back to back” wins as you can in the shoe (within the 13 level negative progression)! Pick your own negative progression level and units per your own comfort level. Try the B3, B5 or P5 Loss STOP methods if you like. It’s all about YOUR gambling comfort level!
I do know this (from Lee’s tests/live casino results and my random real-shoe data testing), if you can catch a few good shoes in the beginning, it will get you off to a great start and cover your initial 122 unit session BR before a bust out occurs. Progressively, you should continue to make gains, the more shoes that you play.
You ARE going to bust out a certain percentage of the time but, in the long run, testing revealed an overall Profit is going to average out in the 20-40% range per shoe when you win. Naturally, my percentage of bust out rates differs between the different methods used. Basically, the bust outs seemed to average out, across all methods used, at about 22%. This naturally leaves an average Winning rate of 78%.
If you can live with that kind of return, for time spent and amount of $$$ at risk, maybe this Simple, Mechanical, Negative Progression Baccarat Strategy Study may work for you. I am headed to the tables as soon as my BR situation improves.
PM me if you want specific Target Betting links to Seth’s blog on Target Betting and spread-sheet results. There are some really good posts there. By the way, here is one of my favorite quotes from Seth’s blog…”It takes arithmetic to beat arithmetic.” Hahaha, you bet it does!
Here are a few more excerpts from Lee’s eBook which I think are very relative. Note most of these are condensed from Seth’s blog…
Lee said, “In a very general sense, discipline requires the mastery of several concepts and Seth Theobeau who runs the site Target Betting lays out many of them very clearly and I can summarize the most important points here:
1. Accept that luck is an irrelevance because it favors the house as much as the player and recognizes that the house advantage makes it inevitable that over time, the smartest gambler will lose more bets than he or she wins. Grasp enough math to know that if you are going to lose more bets than you win in the long run, the only way you can win any money, is to win more when you win then you lose when you lose (an objective which will require courage at times).
2. Learn the best way to play these games head-to-head which means avoiding the money traps such as tie bets and dragons which will end up costing you more money than you will gain. Be fully aware of the negative odds you face knowing that the tiny house edge enjoyed by the casino is far less of a factor in player losses than poor money management.
3. Know that winning requires a substantial bankroll (something the house knows too) and that long-term profit without risk is a mathematical impossibility. Play consistently and cautiously, knowing that what many people assume is conservative betting actually increases the house’s already favorable odds. Study win-loss patterns and see in them the simple truth that the key to winning is exploiting positive streaks in such a way that cumulative losses can be recovered in fewer bets than it took to get into trouble in the first place.
4. Never take losses personally because they are almost always temporary. Use your losses as opportunities to learn something from being beaten.”
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Lee said in Lesson 3,
“No one can see around the corner, predicting the future is more unreliable than you think. Baccarat is fundamentally a guessing game where gamblers attempt to predict the future. Many players use different kinds of systems and methods to use past outcomes to determine future events. Yet others rely on what they feel like they know. The central problem with any system or method that relies on the past to predict the future in games of chance is the cognitive bias that sees past success as evidence of inevitability and proof that the method will be reliable for future use. However, in actual practice, the hit ratio of guessing outcomes is shockingly low and therefore worse than line betting (always betting on one of two outcomes). It should also be noted that studies of bet placement systems reveal that they don’t perform better than line betting. In my trial of trying to guess outcomes based on heuristics, my highest success count was twelve in a row. The average was clusters of 2 to 6 correct decisions separated by much larger gaps of wrong decisions. In my experience, it has been much easier to get a lot more wrong than right. On an off day, I was able to guess three out of every four decisions wrong! The mistake gamblers make here is confusing skill with luck, that is, they place too much reliance on specific cases of success which means by extension that they largely ignore the failures which if examined, would likely outpace the successful guesses by a considerable ratio. There are useful metrics in Baccarat (which I will cover later) that can be used to establish a base rate (what is known) to make better predictions which can lead to greater opportunities for success. To learn more about skill vs. luck I recommend Michael Mauboussin “Sorting the Sources of Success”. In his book The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic, Richard Epstein, a game theorist trained in physics, notes that there is no way to assure that you’ll succeed if you participate in an activity that combines skill and luck. But he does say, “It is gratifying to rationalize that we would rather lose intelligently than win ignorantly.” Luck may or may not smile on us, but if we stick to a good process for making decisions, then we can learn to accept the outcomes of our decisions with equanimity -- Michael Mauboussin. Baccarat is a game that requires zero skill to play.”
