Baccarat Baccarat card counting

cyph

Trusted Member
CARD COUNTING

Baccarat works just like blackjack, as both are games of dependent trials.. When 'all the sevens and eights have been played, they re gone. {Near the end of the shoe, if very few sevens^and eights have
been played, one could say that tliie.deck is rich in isevens. and eights. In Getting the Best of It,jit was demonstrated that if the remaining cards were very rich in seyens and eights, it favored the bank. "Other extreme compositions were discovered that favored the player, such as decks rich in twos and threes. These conclusions suggested the possibility bfdevising a card counting system for; winning at,baccarat.

Let’s summarize thait research.

In The Mathematics of Gambling, Professor Thorp used the same analytical approach ne used for , dissecting blackjack, he looked at depleted decks. He removed different values from the decks and ran millions of hands via computer simulation to see if the different compositions helped the player or banker. This mathematical swing in advantage after removing certain cards, is aptly called the effect of removal. When the analysis was complete, the effects pf femovalrwere sp minuscule that any possibility pficburiting cards profitably seemed unlikely. Removing a single five from play in sirigle-rdeck blackjack helps the player to the tune of about 0.7%/yet the biggest effect of removal in baccarat is worth about , .01%. Removing the best card ini blackjack is about seventy times as strong as rerhoving the best card in baccarat.

Using these effect of removals, Professor Thorp i then created a card counting strategy. He tested it and concluded that the shift in advantage, like the'fcruecburit in blackjack, moves in slow motion, about 1/9 of the speed that it does in blackjack. He went onftopetform niimerous simulations of random subsets of cards with various end deck conditions. He acknowledged that advantages could bje found, but they wete too infrequent. Ih the end,

The results seemed to prove conclusively that :no practical winning strategy is possible for theNev'ada game, even with a computing machineplay ingap effect'game. i

Professor Peter Griffin, in Theory of Blackjack, devised the ultimate point count. Actually, he devised three counts: one for identifying favorable player, bets, one for banker bets; and one for ties. Even with the help of a hidden computer his conclusions echoed those of Thorp. He summarized his findings as follows:

1. With perfect play, one can reduce the casino ,edge by approximately 0.1%, still leaving the player at a disadvantage of about 1.0%. ,

if}/2. Perfect play would not help identify favorable tie bets, the best chance for making money.

|| 3. Betting only favorable situations (back-counting) the player would identify about three

;, 1 favorable bets per eight-hour shift with an average player edge of about .07%« > '

With $10,000 maximum bets, this is worth about $20 per shift.
 

cyph

Trusted Member
As you can see, although the game is theoretically beatable, it's just not very practical. You can't win any money counting cards in baccarat. Evemwifh the help of a computer, it can't be done, as a machine's sophistication and processing power is not a factor. The problem is the result of very few favorable opportunities, and when they do e?dst> they're not worth much. Technology, no matter how advanced, can't change these facts.
 
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