Is Baccarat beatable?
The first thing you need to know is that, unlike Blackjack, Baccarat is a 50/50 game. This means that Baccarat, in the long run, has a 50% hands won rate. If you simply flipped a coin you would win half the hands over time. Commission is simply the money we pay the casino to deal the cards. It has nothing to do with the odds of the game any more than tips we give the waitress.
In Blackjack, by comparison, the perfect Basic Strategy player has only a 43% hands won rate. He must employ skill to overcome that starting deficit just to break even. Meanwhile the Baccarat Player is starting out even with a 50% hands won rate. Any skill he can impart to the game from there is profit once we overcome commission. And the way I'm going to teach you how to play Baccarat, commission is ignorable.
We can ignore commission. First, commission is only a tiny fraction of casino Baccarat profits and is only 1.25% of the money we bet. Casino Baccarat profits are about 26% of our buy in money. Yes, right! This means that the avg. Baccarat player plays worse than simply flipping a coin. Ha, much like Wall Street. He finds a way to lose far more than the odds of the game dictate.
This should give you your first clue. You should be wondering, if the avg. player loses more than the game odds dictate shouldn't there be some sort of opposite way to play that wins? Answer: YES, absolutely! It works both ways. Baccarat is, in fact, beatable. Again, forget commission. Baccarat Players, en masse, lose far more than commission in a suppossedly 50/50 game. This SHOULD be impossible. But there it is and mandatory casino Baccarat profit reports prove this very conclusively. Not even close. So yes, there is a way to win. But you'll never find it on your own. Thousands have tried and failed. So what about internet "systems"?
Internet Baccarat Systems:
This brings up the next thing you must know. Watch my lips: ALL MECHANICAL BACCARAT SYSTEMS ARE BREAK EVEN - then you owe commission. All internet systems are mechanical systems and they ALL break even. It is just a question of time. No matter how clever or sophisticated they are, THEY ALL BREAK EVEN.
That is not just my opinion. I'm sorry but that is pure and clear mathematical FACT. Any qualified mathematician will tell you this. So will all of my students. Together, they have tried EVERY system on the internet. The sorry fact is, NONE of them work. They can't. It is mathematically impossible. Millions of dollars have been wasted on worthless systems.
How and Why do Baccarat players lose far more than the game odds dictate?
In a word, because they play BACKWARDS. - just as the above would imply. They know the normal frequency of events. For instance they know that there should be a one in a row every 4 plays, a 2 every 8 plays, a 3 every 16 plays an so forth. We call that the 50% rule. Others call it random math. There should be an Opposite (when the opposite side wins) every two plays and a Repeat (same side Repeats) every two plays. Then, when an event, such as 2 in a rows, gets behind, (we call that a bias) they bet it will catch up. In other words, they are playing catch up.
WHY do they play this way?
Because they know that eventually all Baccarat "events" work out to their "normal frequency of occurrence". And because formal Baccarat training programs teach this way. There is a popular program on the internet that teaches exactly this way. And casino training programs teach this method - which should make you suspicious right off the bat. Good Grief! Do you really think they want you to win? Get real! This "catchup" approach to the game is DIRECTLY responsible for the fact that per capita casino Baccarat profits (% of drop) have gone from 3% in the early '90s to 26% today. That is nearly a 900% increase in casino profits with no corresponding change in the rules or the odds of the game. Doesn't that make you a little suspicious of the way the game is taught and the way most people play? Or do you suppose that players somehow got 900% stupider over 20 years? Maybe something in the water? Well, I've been playing this game for 30 years and I watched this all unfold on a day by day basis. I was incredulous! So, by the way, were the casinos. Baccarat went from zilch to the #1 casino profit maker virtually overnight. The very last thing I wanted to do was whatever the hell those guys were doing. So I went my own way and I have been beating this game for 30 years. But I also got barred from virtually every casino in the land. I don't want you making the same mistake I made so NOR will include instruction on how to keep from getting barred. Eventually that will become your primary concern but we've got a lot of ground to cover first.
Why is this traditional Baccarat approach Backwards?
Well, again, in a word, when you play this traditional way You will soon be wishing you had done the exact OPPOSITE. You will be playing exactly like the losers - exactly like the rest of the players at the table. And they lose to a seemingly impossible 26% in the very game that has the very best starting odds in the whole casino. 50/50 plus 1.25% commission. God! You litterally have to know how to lose at that uncanny rate. It should be impossible. But, I'll bet that you KNOW by now that it isn't - especially if you've been playing one of those "can't lose" systems you bought on the internet. God help us!
Common sense suggests that we play this traditional catch up approach. It SEEMS right. But Baccarat is one of those cases where common sense leads us astray. 26% astray! Yes, all events eventually work out to their normal frequencies of occurrence. But the key word is EVENTUALLY. Over MANY shoes. Over SINGLE shoes (that's the way we play this game) normal frequencies strongly tend to go further away from normal. They don't catch up. I can GUARANTEE you have never seen a shoe where all the events worked out to their normal frequencies - NEVER! Math simply doesn't know that it is supposed to break even every 72 plays. Math plays by its OWN rules - not yours. You are playing BACKWARDS. You need to learn how to play FRONTWARDS. It makes life a hell of a lot easier! Then Baccarat will start making sense to you. You need to stop playing AGAINST biases and learn how to play WITH biases. THEN you will start seeing that Baccarat, in fact, really does offer the best odds in the whole casino.
Look, any seasoned player KNOWS that there are Streaky shoes and there are Choppy shoes and there are Neutral shoes. Yep, they KNOW that but then proceed to bet directly against what they KNOW because that is what seems natural and everybody else is doing it. Watch my lips: EVERYBODY ELSE LOSES! And they lose at impossible rates. Forget what people SAY they do. Profit reports don't lie. People do!
OK, that said, what you need now is a simple systematic and conservative way to recognize and play biases. That brings up NOR. Oh, and one thing NOR is, it's conservative. It never bets more than 5 units and most shoes, not even that.
Ha, somebody sent me yet another system just yesterday to critique. I see in his first shoe he is already down -12 units in the first column (first 20 plays) and as if to add insult to injury he's now about to make a 14 unit bet. Look, what does -12 tell you??? It tells you you are playing STUPID. What is the LAST thing you want to do when you are playing stupid? Make a big bet! What, are you nuts? That sort of thing is fine for your kitchen table play or for fooling around on your computer. But in a real casino with real money, it's suicidal! I graded that one as trash.
You know that Norcross guy? The one making all those Republicans sign those pledges? Well, I want you to sign my pledge right now.
"I'll never again make a bet that could put me down more than 8 units." Sign that! Suppose all the casinos suddenly had to give back all the money anybody ever lost over 8 units. Think of how many winners that would create!
OH, and about that 14 unit bet back there: When you get into this, I'll be showing you how to judge systems. We use PA Player Advantage. That's the same as ROI Return on Investment. But one factor you look at is highest bet vs avg score. You always want your score to be several times your highest bet. 4 to 1 or 5 to 1 is good. That guy ended up with 1 to 1. That really sucks!
Who is E. Clifton Davis?
I am a 71 year old retired college Math Professor with a 160 IQ. I wrote the first Baccarat book ever written long before the internet was invented and have self published 14 Bac and BJ books including NBJ. I lived in and played Atlantic City, both BJ and Bac full time for 3 years durring the Kenny Uston era and played with him many times. But unlike Kenny I never had a losing day in those 3 years of full time play. I think that A.C. record still stands today. I was high money winner in the World Baccarat Championship. I have been teaching Bac and BJ for 25 years. I caused controversy on the internet by calling card counting a scam - which it is and has been ever since the casinos came up with multideck BJ with the cut off card. So I have many very vocal enemies on the internet. I once challenged the card counters to a duel and 5 actually showed up. We played. They all lost at the same table I won big time. I am the only instructor I know of who puts his money where his mouth is and frequently plays along side his players.
I have conducted some 300 Live public exhibitions in BJ and Bac throughout the US, Canada and the islands without ever losing a single one. Perhaps the most infamous was Taj 1 and 2 wherein both times I won $10,000 within a half hour W/O betting over $200 at the same $100 BJ table.
But here's the thing. Unless you were at one of these events for all you know I could be Joe Schmo from Alamo. Such is the internet. Anybody can be whoever they want. It never occurred to me that I might be needing to prove all this one day. In fact I didn't realize at the time that is was all that unusual. So, when guys said to me prove it, I was left scratching my head. So on my last exhibition I invited an unknown outsider along to be your eyes and ears. Dave is a professional Math head. On his own blog after thorough study he declared Bac unbeatable and went on official record saying so. You couldn't ask for a more qualified skeptic to be your eyes and ears. Dave wrote a very thorough report complete with photographs. To read Dave's outstanding report go here:
http://imspirit.wordpress.com/2011/0...field-trip-ac/
Are you back?
Sure, any skilled Baccarat player can win six shoes in a row perhaps even at 4 different tables in two different casinos. But any Bac or BJ expert will tell you it is impossible to do this while achieving a 26% overall P.A. Ha, maybe for card counters who can't seem to make 0.5% P.A. but, not for NOR it isn't. I played right by the book! Now you know!
What is this 26% P.A. exactly?
P.A. or Player Advantage is money won divided by money bet. All of those card counting books, sites and movies are about trying to achieve a 0.5% P.A. To me, that is waitress tips. To put this in perspective, my 26% PA means that I bet a total of 211 units to make 55 units. Meanwhile, a perfect card counter, IF he could hit his target 0.5% PA and he also bet a total of 211 units, he would make a total of 1 unit profit where I made 55 units. Ha, so did Dave! Like I said, waitress tips. But I don't call card counting a scam becuse you do all that work for pocket change. I call it a scam because you go through all that work and headache to play perfectly and you end up losing anyway because casinos have known exactly how to beat card counting for 25 years. THAT is why card counting is a scam. Don't let anybody tell you different. I KNOW - They don't. They are victims of Hollywood and scammers. If you want to play BJ, learn NBJ or 0 Prox or WCB. Card counting hasn't worked in 25 years. But NOR is a whole lot easier.
The dream:
I don't know about you but I have had this persistent dream since I was about 5 years old: Wouldn't it be the neatest of things to have the ability to beat casinos at will. I'm interested now in people who have that same dream. I spent my entire life devoted to this pursuit. Yes, I worked normal jobs and such but I never lost sight of this all consumming goal - this destiny. I worked at it relentlessly. By the time of my first step into a real casino in about 1980 I literally felt at home - like I somehow already belonged there - like I had finally met my calling face to face.
My first realization was that I knew a lot more about what I was doing than they knew. "They" meaning the casino professionals - the dealers and the pit bosses. Day 1 was a little hilarious but by day 2 I was already in my groove. I won from then on. All of the practice paid off. But through experience I was to get better and better at my new found life - a life that I felt made for.
You know, my Dean, who was also my boss and also my very best friend was with me those first days. We had some great times that trip. But in the end he said Ellis we love having you at the college but we are keeping you from your calling. You are the best at this I ever saw.
Sure, it was tough to quit the college. I had many friends there plus they paid me excellent wages plus I had just won Most popular prof on campus. Back then a college professor could retire a millionaire with guaranteed wages the rest of his life. But the day finally came when I looked at the hard numbers and quitting the school was in my best financial interests. So, I made the plunge and never looked back. The rest is history. The next year I made two thirds of a million dollars. Yes, some of us college profs make good money - but not that good. It was a good decision!
Why do I do this?
So here I am, 71 years old. I outlived my entire family. I live alone. Now I play mostly vicariously through my players. So I have a stake in it. I want you to play well. I have all the money I want or need. I'm not in this for the tiny bit of money. But guys my age need a hobby - something to keep us going. I think I play both these games better than anyone on this earth. I'll never live long enough to prove that so I want you guys to do it for me. Do you have that same dream? I did it. I made my dream come true. So can you!
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2012 nor camp genting!!!
Thread Starter: coreHi Guys, I will make NOR CAMP GENTING this year. This is a gathering event where all NOR players will share, play, have fun together. There will be lots of pros here. WG ( NOR Singapore ), D ( Modified Maverick Master ), and many more. We will play live together for 28 days. Stay at...
E. Clifton Davis 02-05-2012, 07:52 AM