Baccarat count based betting

On my upcoming Vegas trip, I would like to give baccarat a shot. While everyone is into trends and stuff there, I would like to make an informed decision when to bet player or banker. However the system must be simple and easy enough to be fun. Here is what I came up with:

If any of you computer and baccarat nerds could run a simulation on the combined house edge, I would really appreciate that!

Card values from 1 (ace) to 4 are worth their value as a negative number (easy enough):
A = -1
2 = -2
3 = -3
4 = -4

5 and 7 equal 3 points each
6 equals 4 points (this part needs to be memorized):
5 = +3
6 = +4
7 = +3

All other values are ignored.

Keep calculating a running count. Divide by the number of decks remaining in the shoe.

By default, bet banker. While your result above ("true count") is 6 or higher, bet player instead.

[If you do run a simulation, is switching to player at TC of 5 the better variant? Thanks!]

There is an app you can install for your smart phone, can't post the link, just google "baccarat card counting app" by pegi 12

You could clandestinely use it in live play, or play around with it, say remove all the small or high value cards and you'll notice the expectation hardly changes. There has been enough chatter - articles over the decades showing counting doesn't work with Baccarat.

Quote: CyrusV

There has been enough chatter - articles over the decades showing counting doesn't work with Baccarat.

Read my post again plz. We are not talking about AP or a positive expectation here.

The point is to switch to the player bet, when its house edge becomes lower than the banker bet. The switch happens around 1.14 %. The idea is to develop a simple way to find that point.

I understand, apply a count and when certain conditions are met bet the Player, no positive expectation expected. In reality betting the Player based on high card depletion never happens, as the app I mentioned above proves. Install the app remove all the high cards, press calculate, betting Bank is always recommended. Even it you did deplete the high cards to such a degree (in your case, apply values and a count, don't see the difference), which you can do with the app, you wouldn't see such a condition at the tables.

I believe you are incorrect. I played through 2 shoes and both times the player bet HE went below 1% at some point (while banker went up accordingly).

Also, if you look at my count system, the TC of 6 isn't that hard to reach:

Just assume 4 decks left, with 2 extra 5,6,7 each removed and 2 more A, 2, 3 still in the deck

Running count: 32 - True count: 8

That example doesn't seem that much out of the ordinary to me...

Edit: In the above case: Player HE: 1.06%; Banker HE: 1.23% - bet the player!

I tested out your counting strategy this weekend in a live casino. Most of the shoes I played it was in reversed. High count was favoring the Banker instead and negative counts were favoring the player. Any suggestions?

Quote: Canyonero

On my upcoming Vegas trip, I would like to give baccarat a shot. While everyone is into trends and stuff there, I would like to make an informed decision when to bet player or banker. However the system must be simple and easy enough to be fun. Here is what I came up with:

If any of you computer and baccarat nerds could run a simulation on the combined house edge, I would really appreciate that!

Card values from 1 (ace) to 4 are worth their value as a negative number (easy enough):
A = -1
2 = -2
3 = -3
4 = -4

5 and 7 equal 3 points each
6 equals 4 points (this part needs to be memorized):
5 = +3
6 = +4
7 = +3

All other values are ignored.

Keep calculating a running count. Divide by the number of decks remaining in the shoe.

By default, bet banker. While your result above ("true count") is 6 or higher, bet player instead.

[If you do run a simulation, is switching to player at TC of 5 the better variant? Thanks!]

Canyonero,

I just recently saw this post and decided to use my Baccarat simulator to answer your query.


I simmed 10-million shoes of 8D Baccarat with 13 cards cut off and one more round after the cut card. Using your tags, I calculated the TC distribution and the number of Banker, Player, and Tie wins for each TC from -10 to +10. I then calculated the EV for each of the three bets, assuming the usual values of Banker pays 0.95:1, Player pays 1:1, and Tie pays 8:1. Here are the results:

TC	TCDist	Banker	Player	Tie	TC%	EV(B)	EV(P)	EV(T)
10	65,887,581	30,126,823	29,575,801	6,184,957	8.086%	-1.450%	-0.836%	-15.516%
9	10,552,654	4,832,895	4,727,016	992,743	1.295%	-1.287%	-1.003%	-15.332%
8	13,227,922	6,058,109	5,922,600	1,247,213	1.623%	-1.265%	-1.024%	-15.142%
7	15,363,271	7,038,060	6,875,675	1,449,536	1.885%	-1.234%	-1.057%	-15.084%
6	19,481,657	8,927,560	8,713,768	1,840,329	2.391%	-1.194%	-1.097%	-14.982%
5	23,540,430	10,787,928	10,525,104	2,227,398	2.889%	-1.175%	-1.116%	-14.842%
4	30,305,664	13,888,887	13,547,616	2,869,161	3.719%	-1.165%	-1.126%	-14.793%
3	37,000,744	16,956,225	16,536,360	3,508,159	4.541%	-1.157%	-1.135%	-14.668%
2	48,453,029	22,218,114	21,641,351	4,593,564	5.946%	-1.102%	-1.190%	-14.676%
1	61,570,805	28,228,884	27,491,011	5,850,910	7.556%	-1.094%	-1.198%	-14.475%
0	94,112,811	43,151,735	42,011,185	8,949,891	11.550%	-1.081%	-1.212%	-14.412%
-1	70,824,112	32,485,643	31,600,205	6,738,264	8.692%	-1.043%	-1.250%	-14.373%
-2	62,506,191	28,674,509	27,874,635	5,957,047	7.671%	-1.014%	-1.280%	-14.227%
-3	47,553,774	21,815,591	21,205,758	4,532,425	5.836%	-1.011%	-1.282%	-14.220%
-4	38,005,404	17,439,925	16,940,949	3,624,530	4.664%	-0.981%	-1.313%	-14.168%
-5	29,122,511	13,367,371	12,976,356	2,778,784	3.574%	-0.952%	-1.343%	-14.125%
-6	23,958,152	10,995,874	10,673,008	2,289,270	2.940%	-0.947%	-1.348%	-14.002%
-7	18,873,407	8,659,348	8,406,417	1,807,642	2.316%	-0.954%	-1.340%	-13.801%
-8	15,941,583	7,317,991	7,097,284	1,526,308	1.956%	-0.911%	-1.384%	-13.831%
-9	12,481,126	5,726,688	5,557,864	1,196,574	1.532%	-0.942%	-1.353%	-13.716%
-10	76,071,402	34,947,788	33,737,940	7,385,674	9.336%	-0.707%	-1.590%	-12.620%
Total	814,834,230	373,645,948	363,637,903	77,550,379	100.000%	-1.065%	-1.228%	-14.344%

You wanted to know the TC at which the Player bet is better than the Banker bet. The table shows that at TC's of +2 and below, Banker is the better bettor's bet; at TC's of +3 and above, Player is the better bettor's bet.

However, as you can plainly see, the Banker and Player EV's are never positive in this range, so card counting the Banker and Player bets in Baccarat will not provide a +EV play for you. Thus, the best bettor's bet in this case is not to play ;-)

Hope this helps!

Dog Hand

i don't think I could ever understand the charting and other data in the game of baccarat. Just looks too complex.

What I do is observe the other players, and just see what the smart looking Asian women at the table are playing and just follow their lead. I've won using the system here in Pittsburgh