Baccarat Side Bet Counting
Quote:
“If the gambler has zero edge, then the criterion recommends the gambler bet nothing.”
If the edge is negative, you do other activities. This is ridiculous!
The correct theory for gambling is expected utility theory, as suggested by many mathematical economists.
In the intro it says explicitly “The practical use of the formula has been demonstrated for gambling”
I am not going to do this for at least a year, I still have to add Pai Gow Tiles / Poker to my website…
knowing about them versus actually making money from them are two different things.Quote: acesideI haven’t read the whole thing. Will do later. Again, I know side bets better than many above posters here do. Trust Eliot professor of side bets.
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Quote: harrisTheoretical math is cool and everything but someone should make a program that simulates being a baccarat counter over a million shoes to see the real expected gain
I am not going to do this for at least a year, I still have to add Pai Gow Tiles / Poker to my website…
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BTW, I recommend Stanford Wong's book on Pai Gow Poker. His basic strategy for PGP is a good read.
Quote: harrisTheoretical math is cool and everything but someone should make a program that simulates being a baccarat counter over a million shoes to see the real expected gain
I am not going to do this for at least a year, I still have to add Pai Gow Tiles / Poker to my website…
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The gains can be calculated out analytically. No simulation is even needed. Again, reference Eliot.
Quote: GrahamThorpQuote: acesideHow is SCORE related to side bets? Trust Eliot Jacobson Professor of side bets. He has a math degree. He knows this stuff much better.
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He obviously does not, unfortunately. No one should be taking anything Eliot Jacobson says on trust, he is simply, demonstrably wrong.
It really should be obvious there is a major problem here.
He is recommending you bet $100 on a 40-1 proposition with as little as a 1% edge, The bankroll you would need to do that betting Kelly is $400,000.
You can do the calculation yourself. You don't need to trust anybody.
To find the Kelly fraction, type this exactly into a calculator:
(40 × 0.024634 - 0.975366) ÷ 40
Which gives you 0.00025 — that is the fraction of your bankroll you should bet.
To get the win probability (0.024634) in the first place, type:
1.01 ÷ 41
And to get the losing probability (0.975366) type:
1 - 0.024634
Finally, to find the bankroll required to make $100 the correct bet, type:
100 ÷ 0.00025
Which gives $400,000
SCORE is simply the return on a 10k bankroll betting Kelly. It is designed to be used for any advantageous gambling situation.
People use SCORE to accurately assess the value of a given wager. What SCORE does very well and edge does not is adjust for risk.
In this case it clearly shows the Dragon 7, Panda 8 and most other baccarat side wagers to be a complete waste of time for card counting purposes. We should expect this. Casinos hire mathematicians themselves to run the numbers. They do make mistakes but not that often.
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"(40 × 0.024634 - 0.975366) ÷ 40
Which gives you 0.00025 — that is the fraction of your bankroll you should bet."
What is the purpose of dividing by 40? If it's a 1% advantage, you should bet 1% divided by the standard deviation. I get 6.35 for that, so my bankroll would need to be $63,500.
BR = bankroll required = Bet size *Var / ev / k = 100*40.37/0.01/1 = $403,700.
Bet size = ev / Var * BR * k
After every round, your ev , Var and BR will change, you should adjust your bet size according to the above formula in order to maintain ROR = 13.53%.
I will show the simulation results later.
Edited.
Quote: KevinAAQuote: GrahamThorpQuote: acesideHow is SCORE related to side bets? Trust Eliot Jacobson Professor of side bets. He has a math degree. He knows this stuff much better.
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He obviously does not, unfortunately. No one should be taking anything Eliot Jacobson says on trust, he is simply, demonstrably wrong.
It really should be obvious there is a major problem here.
He is recommending you bet $100 on a 40-1 proposition with as little as a 1% edge, The bankroll you would need to do that betting Kelly is $400,000.
You can do the calculation yourself. You don't need to trust anybody.
To find the Kelly fraction, type this exactly into a calculator:
(40 × 0.024634 - 0.975366) ÷ 40
Which gives you 0.00025 — that is the fraction of your bankroll you should bet.
To get the win probability (0.024634) in the first place, type:
1.01 ÷ 41
And to get the losing probability (0.975366) type:
1 - 0.024634
Finally, to find the bankroll required to make $100 the correct bet, type:
100 ÷ 0.00025
Which gives $400,000
SCORE is simply the return on a 10k bankroll betting Kelly. It is designed to be used for any advantageous gambling situation.
People use SCORE to accurately assess the value of a given wager. What SCORE does very well and edge does not is adjust for risk.
In this case it clearly shows the Dragon 7, Panda 8 and most other baccarat side wagers to be a complete waste of time for card counting purposes. We should expect this. Casinos hire mathematicians themselves to run the numbers. They do make mistakes but not that often.
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"(40 × 0.024634 - 0.975366) ÷ 40
Which gives you 0.00025 — that is the fraction of your bankroll you should bet."
What is the purpose of dividing by 40? If it's a 1% advantage, you should bet 1% divided by the standard deviation. I get 6.35 for that, so my bankroll would need to be $63,500.
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I think should divide by VARIANCE
Quote: acesideQuote: harrisTheoretical math is cool and everything but someone should make a program that simulates being a baccarat counter over a million shoes to see the real expected gain
I am not going to do this for at least a year, I still have to add Pai Gow Tiles / Poker to my website…
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The gains can be calculated out analytically. No simulation is even needed. Again, reference Eliot.
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The expected gain in his book are calculated based on a fixed bet of $100, which is not quite right.
Quote: ssho88Quote: acesideQuote: harrisTheoretical math is cool and everything but someone should make a program that simulates being a baccarat counter over a million shoes to see the real expected gain
I am not going to do this for at least a year, I still have to add Pai Gow Tiles / Poker to my website…
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The gains can be calculated out analytically. No simulation is even needed. Again, reference Eliot.
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The expected gain in his book are calculated based on a fixed bet of $100, which is not quite right.
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I do not take practical advantage play advice from anyone who is not an active and successful player. I would consider theoretical advantage play advice from a former successful player.
But I take no advantage play advice from someone who is neither.
Quote: acesideOn the wiki page of Kelly Criterion, Standard Deviation (SD) or variance does not get into the equations at all. All you need are these two things: edge and payout odds.
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The above example DRAGON 7 has only one odds (40 to 1). What if a side bet like the "Player Dragon Bonus" has multiple winning odds?
https://www.riverscasino.com/desplaines/casino/table-games/baccarat#:~:text=Dragon%20Bonus%20are%20Player%20or,1%20on%20their%20side%20wager
Quote: ssho88
I think should divide by VARIANCE
Edge/var is a perfectly acceptable approximation of Kelly. It is commonly used in blackjack because it isn't obvious how to calculate the average payout due to splits/dd's/bj etc.
With Dragon 7 the payout is always 40 so there is no need to use an approximation. Dividing by 40 is slightly more accurate than edge/variance.
None of this makes much difference however to the fact that betting $100 on every advantage is over-betting your bankroll and risking eventually certain ruin, as Jacobson actually recommends. It is very dangerous advice which is why I felt the need to speak up.
Quote: GrahamThorpQuote: ssho88
I think should divide by VARIANCE
Edge/var is a perfectly acceptable approximation of Kelly. It is commonly used in blackjack because it isn't obvious how to calculate the average payout due to splits/dd's/bj etc.
With Dragon 7 the payout is always 40 so there is no need to use an approximation. Dividing by 40 is slightly more accurate than edge/variance.
None of this makes much difference however to the fact that betting $100 on every advantage is over-betting your bankroll and risking eventually certain ruin, as Jacobson actually recommends. It is very dangerous advice which is why I felt the need to speak up.
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Thats the reason I use this formula for bet size, Bet size = ev / Var * BR * k
Here are the sim results of my old program (based on combination analysis after each round).
50000 shoes, penetration 7/8, kelly=1, no rebate, cash chip(No NN chip). Sim results shown that winning/shoe for TC and RC system is slightly lower.
Quote: acesideI've studied this matter a little more, but I still believe that I would bet $100 on Dragon 7 if this bet is allowed. Here is my reasoning. In this case, the only payout is 40, and the corresponding variance is about 37. However, the calculation for the variance=37 is based on the random betting situation, which does not apply to card counting. After card counting, you play the Dragon side bet only on 10% of all bet situations, that means, your variance will drop 90%. Therefore, the new variance will be 10%x37=3.7. Does this make sense?
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Interesting point. Let's pretend that you always bet $100 on a side bet, but 90% of the time, you choose this "null Dragon 7" bet which is always a push. Yes, you would be reducing the variance, but you are also reducing your edge. Instead of +1%, now it's only +0.1% because 90% of your bets have a zero edge to it. The Kelly calculation ends up being the same, with the 1/10 in both the numerator and denominator canceling each other out.
Quote: acesideI've studied this matter a little more, but I still believe that I would bet $100 on Dragon 7 if this bet is allowed. Here is my reasoning. In this case, the only payout is 40, and the corresponding variance is about 37. However, the calculation for the variance=37 is based on the random betting situation, which does not apply to card counting. After card counting, you play the Dragon side bet only on 10% of all bet situations, that means, your variance will drop 90%. Therefore, the new variance will be 10%x37=3.7. Does this make sense?
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I think you are talking about variance per shoe, I guess it is not quite right.
Player can go bankrupt after each round, so variance per round is more representative of the true situation ?
At or above Tc, player average edge is about 8%, and the hand potion is about 10%;
Below Tc, player average edge is about -9.3%, and the hand potion is about 90%.
If we bet flat one unit all the way, the overall edge is -7.6% and the variance is 37.
However, if we selectively bet only at or above Tc, the variance is probably 36. Using these numbers, what would be the Kelly wager?
Quote: acesideI need to revise my numbers. Consider card counting Dragon 7 using Eliot’s system. There is a trigger count, Tc.
At or above Tc, player average edge is about 8%, and the hand potion is about 10%;
Below Tc, player average edge is about -9.3%, and the hand potion is about 90%.
If we bet flat one unit all the way, the overall edge is -7.6% and the variance is 37.
However, if we selectively bet only at or above Tc, the variance is probably 36. Using these numbers, what the Kelly wager would be?
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Disagree, if bet above Tc, the variane should more than 37, I guess more than 40.
My above sim results shown that when ev > 0, the variance > 40, I am quite confident about the sim results, but I cannot guarantee it.
Quote: GrahamThorpAlso your comment is not consistent with an earlier observation in an article you wrote where you directly contradict yourself. From your analysis of the Lucky 6 side bet:
"Counting the Lucky 6 is, for all practical purposes, a waste of time. This is under the liberal pay table and shuffling rules. Obviously, it gets even worse with the stingier pay table or more shallow placement of the cut card. Counting the Dragon 7 or Panda 8 would be more profitable, but those are also a waste of time. There are much more profitable ways for the advantage player to make money."
The Dragon 7 and Panda 8 cannot be both "very countable" and "a waste of time". As it turns out the SCORE from both is cents per hour. There is nothing here of any value.
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Touche! Good post. What changed my mind somewhat is I met with the owner of a large casino, which shall remain nameless, who said they got hit hard by a team counting the Dragon 7. At the time I made my first comment I probably thought the max bet was $25. However, at $100, I think it would entice some players/teams. The advantage is there, but it's a very volatile play.
