Card Counting the Panda 8 Side Bet in EZ Baccarat

My faithful guinea pigs, I have a task for you. I just wrote up a page on counting a side bet in EZ Pai Gow Poker. Please have a read and give me your comments and corrections.

Card Counting the Panda 8 Side Bet in EZ Baccarat.

Thanks!

Yikes, another shot across the bow...

Quote: Paigowdan

Yikes, another shot across the bow...

Pandas are such inviting targets.

Such aggression on display here.....OMG!
Anyway. some notes:
1. I assume two-man team play will be required because one will count the Dragon and the other the Panda. I don't think they'll get far, except to act as shills for the game.
2. Because all card ranks affect the value (with 9's being heavilty weighted), it might be possible to have trigger counts earlier in the shoe than the last deck of the 8-deck shoe.
3. We would appreciate and love to see count distributions at various shoe penetration depths.

Dan, to count this game you would divide the running count by the number of decks of unseen cards to get the true count. When that is 11 or more then the odds swing in the player's favor.

Agreed, I was shocked that Dorothy could be so graphic.

Yikes #2 - 11 days ago (on Oct. 9th), some hack at "discountgambling.net" came up with a similar/same system for Panda-8 bet counting.
See: the other guy
It's is not official until Mike's paper hits.

Quote: Paigowdan

Yikes #2 - 11 days ago (on Oct. 9th), some hack at "discountgambling.net" came up with a similar/same system for Panda-8 bet counting.
See: the other guy
It's is not official until Mike's paper hits.

I see the "other guy" makes the bet at a true count of 13, while I'm at 11. He also claims it is less profitable than I do, with 20% expected units won per shoe, while I am at 24%.

For what it is worth, Eliot Jacobson, who did the Dragon 7 analysis, agrees with my results.

Quote: Wizard

Dan, to count this game you would divide the running count by the number of decks of unseen cards to get the true count. When that is 11 or more then the odds swing in the player's favor.

Yes, I know, but I was curious as to the TC curve/distributions at various shoe depths:
416 cards remaining: TC=0 (fresh shoe ready to be dealt)

363 cards remaining: TC > 10 probability = x.xxxxx% (if all 32 9's in the shoe were exhausted in the first deck played out from the shoe, assuming the other cards fell at normal ratios, the TC would be 18, and you'd have 7 decks of 7.43% advantage to play out with it rising. Obviously, this would be a very rare scenario, but what are the > 10 count occurances/distributions at various depth points in the shoe? The divergence to > 10 at various shoe points is of interest...)

down to:

14 cards remaining (last hand): TC > 10 probability = x.xxxxx%

Quote: Wizard

Agreed, I was shocked that Dorothy could be so graphic.

You should see these people at the tables when they're steaming their losses!

Quote: Paigowdan

Obviously, this would be a very rare scenario, but what are the > 10 count occurances/distributions at various depth points in the shoe? The divergence to > 10 at various shoe points is of interest...)

Well, at any depth the most likely count is 0. Perhaps I'm not understanding the thrust of your question.

Mike,
The count will always average to zero overall.

This issue pertains to WHEN WILL the shoe get hot, on average, for the Panda-8 bet - when it does do so....

The count on a fresh shoe ready to deal is also zero, and rises or lowers - diverges - at various rates into "hot shoe" or "cold shoe" areas at various shoe penetration depths....what is the statistical behavior of hot and cold shoes?

The question concerns the frequencies of diverging from a zero TC at various shoe depths:
1. At 416 cards remaining (zero decks played) the count is 0, and the probability of the TC > 0 is also 0.00%
2. at 312 cards remaining (6 decks left to play), what is the probability of a TC > 10 occurring? 0.05%?
3. at 208 cards remaining (half-way through the shoe), what is the probability of a TC > 10 occuring?
4. at 156 cards remaining (three decks left in the shoe), what is the probability of a TC > 10 occurring?
5. at 104 cards remaining (two decks left to play from the shoe)
6. at 78 cards remaining?
7. at 52 cards left to play?
8. at 22 cards remaining?

Baccarat side bet counts rise and fall in a less linear fashion than BJ counts; you are more likely to have a BJ hot shoe at 60% depth into the shoe than in Panda-8 or Dragon counting...

This will answer some questions as to:
- when to expect the iron get hot, on average, if it occurs in a shoe deal?
this is informative for both sides of the fence...

Dan, I ran a simulation of the Panda changing the cut card location from "14 cards + burn cards" to "40 cards + burn cards," an increase of 1/2 deck. In Mike's analysis, he determined that a counter would win approximately 0.238 units per shoe betting the Panda in the 14 card case. My analysis shows that a counter would win 0.105 units per shoe betting the Panda in the 40 card case. As far as the frequency goes, a player makes a Panda wager 3.15% of the time in the 40 card case compared to the 4.61% frequency in the 14 card case. My opinion is that the Panda is not an attractive opportunity in the current version of the game, but if you really want to add a layer of protection, just add 1/2 deck to the cut point.

Dan, I did not implicitly answer those questions in my analysis. I just had the simulation make the bet at a TC>=11 and let it rip for hours. Basically, the deeper into the shoe the more likely the counter is to bet the Panda, but I don't have any specific numbers. I could write additional code to get at that information, but I don't see how it would help the player.

Quote: Wizard

Dan, I did not implicitly answer those questions in my analysis

Ahem....but that's what I hooked onto, in all honesty...

The bet does seem hard to take down.
The additional info might help the player in the sense of determining whether or not a Bac shoe could be "Wonged," or jumped onto when it is hot.
But if it is the type of bet where it can only get hot at the tail end of a shoe, then it is not really Wong-able.

In the POV of game protection for an operator/distributor, the general inability of the Panda-8 bet or the Dragon-7 bet to get hot before the last 50 or so cards before the end-of-shoe point allows the operator to cut off the last deck of an eight-deck shoe to make Baccarat operationally uncountable.
Granted, such an action (lowering penetration) would alienate some players (generally AP's who are a threat anyway), but would make the game safe in terms of game protection.

Casino BJ players are used to fairly shallow penetration; Bac players may be different. Still, cutting off 40-52 cards from an eight-deck shoe seems very deep by BJ standards.

Quote: teliot

As far as the frequency goes, a player makes a Panda wager 3.15% of the time in the 40 card case compared to the 4.61% frequency in the 14 card case.

Eliot,
When I play EZ Bac, I put a $1 bet on both the Panda-8 and Dragon-7 100% of the time: if I hit a streak, then they are both paying out in quarters (green chips), and I leave with hundreds. I do the same on PGP with the Bonus and Insurance bets with nickels. If the shoe or deck is out of balance and is giving off these "outside" hands, I Am Collecting as a gambler - - and not as an AP card-counter looking for the 0.00083765% of an advantage point, thinking that'll do me any real good.

If you spend you workdays in the gaming industry as a human calculator, you'd be a fool after a certain point to spend your "night-time gambling time" to do petty math instead of to really gamble when hitting a table.

Let's put it this way: if you go to the opera, you don't go to scrutinize and to edit the punctuation marks in the Librettos. You go to listen, to absorb, and to enjoy, and to see if you experience something enjoyable. If you are editing a Libretto during an Opera production, you simply do not "get" opera. Same here.
In this regard, Gaming Mathematicians really don't get "Gambling" because of the Advantage Play focus - as it exists for Casino Operators and their players, because it is play, and not work, per se.

If you are actually doing mathematical WORK at a Baccarat table at 9 P.M. at night at a strip casino while out on a date with a blond bombshell, you don't get table games either and propbably won't win on such a short session due to variance. Doing this, you will not "score" on either end of the action in front of you. To successfully count, you need teams almost the size of casino operators, and working 24-7 like they do, to grab the 0.07% edge.

And I guarantee you, this makes NO sense to a mathematician who cannot take off his calculator hat after work, to actually play a game as a human who is "just playing a game - in order to just play a game..." If you work when you play, then you are taking your work out of the office, which is a mistake when you play. The work was done long ago....If you've done your daytime work, then you leave it at the office, - and your nighttime play is winning. Both Mike and Eliot make their real money from their daytime math work, and not from "counting math" work at any table.

I honestly believe counting or AP is dead. If there were a window to open, it'll exist for a microsecond, - with the real money to be made on game protection and Internet activity. By the time most games hit the casino floor, most are reasonably perfect, and any problems can be fixed by adjusting a cut-card on a shoe, transparent to operations anyway.

When I gamble, I don't sweat or chase mathematical fractions, because I don't chase on the math either. The math work is already done, and was done with by the time I hit the tables. I play table games that I had designed the math and game protection for, and I play EZ Pai Gow as play, - not as work, strategy or peeking fellow players' cards or "counting" or otherwise. Two weeks ago I took down my own game at the Cannery so hard I almost got heat from the floor. I thought they were going to call Gaming to ask, "Can he DO this??!!" When I got home, my wife took the money and went shopping on Spring Mountain (Las Vegas' Chinatown). All fine with me in my life. Three days ago I again played my own game and had my head slapped off. I left broke, thinking, "At least I increased the casino's table hold on a very worthy game..." Didn't worry about it either, and so I never viewed my table game action as "Math Work;" indeed, I refuse to do so. I went to play: I won some, and lost some. I NEVER saw the 2.54% house edge, it was - as usual - either a $300 profit leaving a winner, - or 0.00%, at -100.00% loses, blowing my allotment.

I Never worried about that - or thought of it in a fashion of: "how can I beat this game by some sort of mathematical trickery!" - UNLESS I am doing game protection work to seal the leaks, and to leave the winning and losing to variance, which gamblers perceive as "luck of the night."

This is because I know there are guys like me closing the math loopholes in the daytime, so when I win at night, it is actually because of a variance window that I ALLOW to happen because I didn't worry about it, or worrying about the 1.784% HE on the main bet, or the 6.3256% HE on the Dynasty Bonus bet.

Because if I get dealt Five Aces and leave $4,000 up on a $100 buy-in, that's not a 0.07% player edge that I struck when the "card-counting iron was hot."
That's a 4,000.00% profit - when the math said I was supposed to be up +0.07% - or down -2.1%, what have you. And when I lose my entire buy-in, that's a 100% loss, not a 2% loss. Buy in for $500 and leave with $0, that's a 100% loss. If it were -2.1% or so, I should leave the table hours later with something like $490.

If there is a loophole in a game, and teams hit that table, the hold might be down for a while before a repair order is in, - much shorter if there is any noise on the Internet. If the fix requires chaning an errorneous paytable or moving the cut card up a few hands in the shoe - then bang - it gets done. If the game is fundamentally unviable, it gets pulled, that simple. And the only loss is the dissapearance of a few grumbling casino cheats or AP's or shot-takers - or whatever you want to quibble about calling these characters, but this so-called loss is a true gain in the eyes of the gaming industry - except in the opinions of the shot-takers or APs themselves. And of course my position might be considered outrageous to some at this forum. Exposing table game problems for address is okay; advocating it as a productive and ethical use of a person's time in this world is another matter.

Personally, I do not think Panda-8 or the Dragon-7 is statistically countable outside of the last few hands of the 8-deck shoe on some occasions, and if it were cut off by a cut-card placement at 52 cards out to address it, I think it would keep people playing and gambling on it cleanly - as they do other games - as a "night on the town" - instead of shot-taking and AP-ing and looking for the fantasy easy money at the end of some rainbow. This whole search for the "free lunch" from a commerical casino product is as futile and as ethically unviable as it can get, and shouldn't be a goal. That it was pointed out was good, however.

Quote: Paigowdan

Yikes #2 - 11 days ago (on Oct. 9th), some hack at "discountgambling.net" came up with a similar/same system for Panda-8 bet counting.

"Hack" is an awfully strong term, given that, among other things, he has calculated a precise optimal strategy for Ultimate Texas Hold'em and some fantastic known-card analysis of other games. He definitely knows his stuff. Just sticking up for the guy as I love his blog ;)

Quote: CRMousseau

"Hack" is an awfully strong term, given that, among other things, he has calculated a precise optimal strategy for Ultimate Texas Hold'em and some fantastic known-card analysis of other games. He definitely knows his stuff. Just sticking up for the guy as I love his blog ;)

I agree. His is an outstanding and very underrated site.

Quote: CRMousseau

"Hack" is an awfully strong term, given that, among other things, he has calculated a precise optimal strategy for Ultimate Texas Hold'em and some fantastic known-card analysis of other games. He definitely knows his stuff. Just sticking up for the guy as I love his blog ;)

He is very good at what he does; it is because of what he does I had used that word in my biased position, not how well he does it.
A safecracker can be an Ace; but he's still a safecracker, and not a doctor or judge. He has a limited scope of the wider Gaming industry. Some of his stuff on advantage Pai Gow was a little too extreme and unfeasible, performing an analysis of the cards out during a deal.

hi, wizard

the probability for natural tie shown in the : https://wizardofodds.com/baccarat/baccaratapx5.html is 0.017871.

However, from my calculation the probability for natural tie always = 0.03574

Any comments ?

Quote: Paigowdan

He is very good at what he does; it is because of what he does I had used that word in my biased position, not how well he does it.
A safecracker can be an Ace; but he's still a safecracker, and not a doctor or judge. He has a limited scope of the wider Gaming industry. Some of his stuff on advantage Pai Gow was a little too extreme and unfeasible, performing an analysis of the cards out during a deal.

IMO: Elliot, Wizard, Charles, Mr. CasinoTableGames, Stacy, Stanley, Cindy and Stephenhow (discountgambling.com) are experts in Gaming Industry. Panda was invented by a dealer and Panda Express is far from Chinese food.