Baccarat Counting Clarification Needed

/games/baccarat/card-counting

On this page, the Wizard's card counting advice for baccarat confuses me:

"Looking at this from the perspective of the Player bet, a deck rich in high cards is good. That is why it is bad for the Player bet when they leave the deck. The flip side of that coin is a deck rich in low cards is good for the Banker bet. Thus, if a low card leaves the shoe, that improves the odds on the Player and if a high card leaves, it's good for the Banker."

In the chart included on this page the effect of removal shows negative values for cards 5,6,7,8,9 for the player. This seems to be contradictory. What am I missing? Any clarification would be appreciated on why this seems backwards. Shouldn't the Player bet be more optimal when the count is positive instead of negative, since this would mean that more low cards than high cards have left the shoe?

Quote: trackmastergreg

/games/baccarat/card-counting

On this page, the Wizard's card counting advice for baccarat confuses me:

"Looking at this from the perspective of the Player bet, a deck rich in high cards is good. That is why it is bad for the Player bet when they leave the deck. The flip side of that coin is a deck rich in low cards is good for the Banker bet. Thus, if a low card leaves the shoe, that improves the odds on the Player and if a high card leaves, it's good for the Banker."

In the chart included on this page the effect of removal shows negative values for cards 5,6,7,8,9 for the player. This seems to be contradictory. What am I missing? Any clarification would be appreciated on why this seems backwards. Shouldn't the Player bet be more optimal when the count is positive instead of negative, since this would mean that more low cards than high cards have left the shoe?
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trackmastergreg,

Remember that you're counting the cards as they are removed from the shoe, but what you really want to know is what remains in the shoe.

When "big" cards (5, 6, 7, and 8) are removed, then the remainder of the shoe has fewer big cards, which is bad for the Player bet: that's why their tags are -1.

Conversely, when "small" cards (Ace, 2, 3, and 4) are removed, the remainder of the shoe has fewer small cards, which is good for the Player bet: that's why their tags are +1.

Hope this helps!

Dog Hand

Thanks so much for your quick reply! What you have said makes perfect sense. When the "big" cards are removed this is bad for the player so the count goes negative.

Here's where I get mixed up...Why does the wizard's page go on to say:

"The Expected Values by Running count table shows the best bet is on the Player for running counts of -4 or less and on the Banker otherwise."

Wouldn't the more negative the count mean that more big cards have been removed and thus bad for the player bet. What have I misinterpreted here?

Quote: trackmastergreg

Thanks so much for your quick reply! What you have said makes perfect sense. When the "big" cards are removed this is bad for the player so the count goes negative.

Here's where I get mixed up...Why does the wizard's page go on to say:

"The Expected Values by Running count table shows the best bet is on the Player for running counts of -4 or less and on the Banker otherwise."

Wouldn't the more negative the count mean that more big cards have been removed and thus bad for the player bet. What have I misinterpreted here?
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trackmastergreg,

After a bit of effort I found the reason: our peerless leader, the Wiz, inadvertently transposed the headings on the "Effect of Removal" table!

You and I have been using the EoR table from //wizardofodds.com/games/baccarat/card-counting/ found here.

But that EoR table came from the Count Adjustment table on another webpage //wizardofodds.com/games/baccarat/appendix/2/ found here.

However, the "Player" and "Banker" labels are reversed on these two tables: the appendix/2/ version has the correct labels.

Let me fix my previous answer, where now we are looking at the bet from the Banker side:

Quote: DogHand

trackmastergreg,

Remember that you're counting the cards as they are removed from the shoe, but what you really want to know is what remains in the shoe.

When "big" cards (5, 6, 7, and 8) are removed, then the remainder of the shoe has fewer big cards, which is bad for the PlayerBanker bet: that's why their tags are -1.

Conversely, when "small" cards (Ace, 2, 3, and 4) are removed, the remainder of the shoe has fewer small cards, which is good for the PlayerBanker bet: that's why their tags are +1.

Hope this helps!

Dog Hand
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Hope this helps!

Dog Hand

P.S. Wiz, please correct the EoR table headings on the wizardofodds.com/games/baccarat/card-counting/ page, and then fix the text following that table:

"Looking at this from the perspective of the PlayerBanker bet, a deck rich in high cards is good. That is why it is bad for the PlayerBanker bet when they leave the deck. The flip side of that coin is a deck rich in low cards is good for the BankerPlayer bet. Thus, if a low card leaves the shoe, that improves the odds on the PlayerBanker and if a high card leaves, it's good for the BankerPlayer."

By switching the perspective to the Banker bet in the above paragraph, you can keep the original tags for the big and small cards.

Hi, I just read this part. Wizard states: “ Level 1 Strategy: The use the Level 1 strategy, simply bet on the Player if the Running Count is -4 or less. Otherwise, bet the Banker.”

This means:
If running count (RC) < or = -4, you bets on the Player.
If RC > -4, you bet on the Banker.

But, I don’t want to bet on every hand; therefore, here is my question. What is the RC range for no betting?

Quote: aceside

Hi, I just read this part. Wizard states: “ Level 1 Strategy: The use the Level 1 strategy, simply bet on the Player if the Running Count is -4 or less. Otherwise, bet the Banker.”

This means:
If running count (RC) < or = -4, you bets on the Player.
If RC > -4, you bet on the Banker.

But, I don’t want to bet on every hand; therefore, here is my question. What is the RC range for no betting?
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aceside,

Quoting from the https://wizardofodds.com/games/baccarat/card-counting/ page to which I linked above in this thread:

"The following table shows the ratio of hands played and house edge according to what range of true counts are skipped by not betting. For example, if the player sits out when the true count is -8 to 0, then he will play 55.69% of hands and those hand he does play will have an average house edge of 0.95%.

Skipping Bad Counts
COUNTS SKIPPED RATIO HANDS PLAYED HOSUE (sic) EDGE
None 100.00% 1.01%
-4 95.12% 1.00%
-5 to -3 85.37% 0.99%
-6 to -2 75.66% 0.98%
-7 to -1 66.11% 0.96%
-8 to 0 55.69% 0.95%
-9 to +1 47.13% 0.93%
The player might also consider betting more the further away the running count gets from -4."

Dog Hand

Fantastic! Thanks very much for researching and confirming there was an error after all.

I see that the table headings for BANKER & PLAYER have now been switched on the /games/baccarat/card-counting/ page but it looks like the paragraph below it still needs updating to reverse the BANKER & PLAYER.

Now it all makes sense to me that we bet PLAYER when the count is -4 or less!

I just did some comparison. The EOR of the card 4 is about -0.00012 for Baccarat, but it is about +0.00086 for Blackjack. This means that card counting is still 7 times more effective in Blackjack. Right?

Will casinos take countermeasures against a baccarat card counter, like flat betting, backing them off or ejecting the player, or do they consider it such a minimal risk that they don't care?

I believe there is an Elliot article that estimates you could make $0.10 an hour counting baccarat. Almost all of your time would be spent sitting at a table watching and not betting.

Counting isn’t a real thing.

You can cut the house edge from like 1.25% to 1% by counting.