Asian tracking methods for Baccarat

Greetings. This is my first time here and I hope somebody out there can help or at least steer me in the right direction. I'm trying to get some specific information on how one goes about marking the following scorecards: Big Eye Road, Small Road and Cockroach Road. The data for marking these score cards is obtained from the Big Road score card which is just the main score card used in most casinos to track the sequential result of each hand in Baccarat. I've been able to find a small amount of information regarding how to mark these score cards but unfortunately, the explanations are more confusing than helpful. So, if anyone out there has some experience with tracking these kinds of score cards and can help I would appreciate it. Or, possibly someone has come across some web links that could explain their use in "layman's" terms.

Best of luck to eveyone,

Russ

Welcome. I seriously hope you get your information, but I fear you won't. Most people here know that the scorecards are completely useless for "tracking" bets in baccarat. There is no pattern to the cards; each is a completely independent event (with infinitesimal adjustments for card removal). I doubt they would know how scorecards are filled out. That said, I also find the rituals of baccarat interesting and would like to know more about them.

teddys:

Thanks for your reply. I do believe that there is some "method to their madness" so-to-speak in tracking the way they do on those 3 score cards I mentioned. Personally, I would just like to know what criteria is used to plot the different score cards. One of the casinos I play in Reno has the new Omni Baccarat Displays that shows the different score cards. What's really ironic is that the score cards are suppose to be an Asian creation and it seems that nobody from the Asian community will admit that they have any understanding of how they are calculated. Even the Asian pit bosses and dealers say they don't understand how they are derived or how to use them. Whether there is anything useful to be gotten from the score cards is not that important to me. It's just how they are calculated that challenges me.

Russ

I would actually be interested to see an informed answer to this question. The reason is that I have played quite a few baccarat tournaments, where it is very important to predict how the other players will bet, if you have to act first, or if it is the last hand, which is made secretly.

The vast majority of competitors in these tournaments are Asian, and keep track of the hand history fervently. All I can say is they like to ride trends. Early in the shoe, if you see a lot of one side winning in a row, everyone will bet that way. Later on they will look for alternating patterns. For example if you see BBBPPPBBBPPP, then I think they would be Banker on the next hand. I'm sure there is a lot more to it than that.

I did some searching and so far the following link has the most info on reading these charts. You need to scroll almost halfway down the page.

link

I think I found a site that provides the information necessary to decipher the code:

On the left side scroll down to the last section titled >>Lesson5 Baccarat. Start with "Roads Construction" and then proceed to Big Eye Road, Small Road and then Cockroach Road. These 3 roads are constructed from the Big Road which is just the standard score card that most people use to track every shoe decision. Every time it switches from Player to Banker or Banker to Player, you start a new column. Each section explains how each road is constructed with an accompanying score card. At first trying to figure out how to mark each score card using the explanations was mind baffling to me. Nothing made any sense. After many hours of trial and error I discovered what was wrong. Each score card is marked across the top with A B C D E F... and down the left side with 1 2 3 4 5...

The explanations that go with each road refer to "cells" in the score card. These references are misleading and will make it almost impossible to figure out what they are talking about. So everything will make sense, do the following:

For the instructions for Big Eye Road, change the reference to "A3" to "C1". Under "2. Marking the results", change the two references to "row A" to "row 1".

For the instructions for Small Road, change the two references to "B3" to "C2" and the reference to "A4" to "D1". And, again change the two references to "row A" to "row 1".

For the instructions for Cockroach Road, change the two references to "B4" to "D2" and the reference to "A5" to "E1". And, again change the two references to "row A" to "row 1.

If you make those changes the directions will make a whole lot more sense. You may have to go over it a few times before it "sinks" in. But if you stick with it, everything should start to make sense.

If anyone is still having problems understanding it, post your questions in this thread and I will attempt to help as much as I can as time permits.

Russ

I looked at that webpage you provided and am even more confused. The fact that the text is accompanied by a picture of old cowboys playing craps (?!) at what looks like the mid-'70s Imperial Palace is even more confounding. I hope you can provide a simpler explanation, and look forward to it.

teddys:

Don't pay any attention to the picture(s). Just click on "Roads Construction", "Big Eye Road", "Small Road" and "Cockroach Road" in order. There is an explanation about each road and a picture of each score card at the end of each explanation. I provided some corrections to the explanations so they make more sense. See my last post (which I have edited.

Russ

The trends in baccarat are for the most part completely meaningless.
However, most serious players will track them and look for patterns nonetheless.
If you are interested in tournament play it can be useful to know how your opponents will bet based on trends.

The easiest explanation of the trend scoring I have found is here:

Understanding Baccarat Trends Part 1

Understanding Baccarat Trends Part 2


This site also has an interestin page on how to squeeze cards
to slowly asses the value of the card by analyzing the pip pattern:

Baccarat Squeeze Play


And if you are interested in baccarat tournament play they have an excellent series on that as well:

How to Win a Baccarat Tournament

Quote: WongBo

However, most serious players will track them and look for patterns nonetheless.

Time for a serious baccarat player that does track patterns to come forward and enlighten the forum. I too am interested understanding the culture/nuances to baccarat players.

There clearly are patterns they watch, but they seem to be shoe dependent. Once the shoe is over, I think they start a new "road map". So clearly there is also a concept of how the shoe is "trending" as opposed to just how the cards are trending.

As an example, if you played baccarat with a fresh deck of 52 cards everyhand I think there would be a big backlash from baccarat players as the trends of shoe can't be tracked (even though you could still track the pattern of wins/ties)......but the patterns are meaningless and if they all know it, what gives?

What say you "serious baccarrat" players? What is the basis of the pattern tracking? Is it simply superstition like craps players not wanting anyone to utter the dreaded "seven" while at the table? Or having the dice hit a stack of chips or someone's hand at the end of the table? We all know those are meaningless as well, but it is another superstition that is out there and there are many craps players on the board that have to admit when the 7 hits after one of those incidents, we all know who/what to blame :-)

One of the first things I would do is to pick either the player or the banker and stay with it while I'm betting. I personally prefer to play on the banker because the house advantage is slightly less than the player.

baccarat betting systemWhen betting, here is the progression of betting that I take:

(1 unit is equal to the minimum table bet)

The progression of levels are correlated to the number of units that I would bet.

Here's the different levels of progression: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 30
After that, you might be coming close to the maximum table bet.

You start at level 1. For each loss, you will increase a level of progression add the previous two bets together and place that bet on the next hand. For each win, you subtract a level if you are down overall.

If you are ahead, I would place about one third of the chips that you are ahead on each bet (granted you are at least betting the minimum).

Using this system, you can usually find yourself ahead at the end of the night. Go ahead and test this system out for yourself

With so many bac players world wide, is there anybody who
wins consistently. I read that some of the Macau casinos have
as many as 800 bac tables. At a busy time 600 of them might
have dealers, but only 300 have players. Well, you say, why
doesn't the casino only open 300 tables, then. Because if they
did, only 150 would have players. Apparently the tables that
don't have players are part of the overall strategy of winning.

You see this all time in US casinos. If they have 3 tables, 2
will be busy and 1 will be vacant. Or 2 will be vacant. If the
casino closes the 2 vacant tables, nobody will play. Its that
inscrutable Asian logic.

EB, you are so right on this one!

I have also seen groups of bacc players move to the next table over (which was empty), in mass, either mid shoe or at the end of the shoe at their original table.

Obviously you may see BJ players switch tables to try and "change their luck", but in bacc, it isn't like you couldn't have won at the existing table......you just picked the wrong side each time. In BJ, there are times the cards are running so bad there is nothing you could have done.....the dealer was just going to win those hands.

A lot of players prefer to bet on Banker most of the time.
When they are observing a shoe that is obviously trending toward Player,
they will frequently "abandon ship" and move to another table so they can bet on Banker.
Also, the so called derived roads, the trend tracking below the main recording of the hands,
Will indicate whether the shoe has a lot of patterns or is choppy.
Most players prefer a shoe that has patterns or streaks to one that is choppy.
Of course the past is no accurate predictor of the future, but superstition is a tough cookie to crumble.

That card squeezing tutorial is absolutely killing me! That said, I'm also interested in the rituals of baccarat players. And the Wiz has a great point regarding predicting other players' tendencies when playing out of position in a tournament.

I actually love the card squeezing.
It's fun to slowly deduce the card value that way
and it slows the game down to a nice pace.
It takes about three times longer to play big table or midi
than the blistering pace of mini bac.
The tournament tutorials are really thorough and have a lot of accurate info.

Quote: Paradigm

I have also seen groups of bacc players move to the next table over (which was empty), in mass,.

Asian bac players have a herd or flock of birds
mentality. They need a leader and they depend
on the leader to tell them what to do. If the
leader bets banker, they all do. Whats terrible
is a table without a leader. There's a lot of
befuddled thoughts, lots of switching bets at
the last minute, confusion reigns.

Quote: EvenBob

Asian bac players have a herd or flock of birds
mentality. They need a leader and they depend
on the leader to tell them what to do. If the
leader bets banker, they all do. Whats terrible
is a table without a leader. There's a lot of
befuddled thoughts, lots of switching bets at
the last minute, confusion reigns.

This is fairly true. Most of the players do not like to bet against the lead player.
There is usually a player who is dominating the betting, either by placing the largest bet, by placing the first bet,
Or simply because he is an older man and the Chinese venerate their elders in a way that Americans do not.
Many times you will see an older man place a bet opposing most of the table, and the other bettors will change
To follow his bet.
Of course there is often a player who will push out a bet at the last minute to insure he gets the cards for that side.
That's my usual technique!

Quote: WongBo

This is fairly true. Most of the players do not like to bet against the lead player.

This is because most of them don't know what
they're doing. So they assume the big money
guy or the old guy knows more then they do.
Which, to be honest, is probably true a lot of
the time.

I was talking to a Bacc player in WA State that indicated when he plays in local card rooms, the younger generation players are more interested in the Dragon Side Bet than the main game. If they don't win the Dragon bet, they don't get very excited about winning the main bet.

Increased volatility seems to be the name of the game for the younger generation of gamblers no matter what culture they are from.

The dragon side bet is also countable to some extent,
whereas the main game is not for any practical purpose.

Counting the Dragon Side Bet

On a snowy winter night I was trapped in a poker room and 3 of the 7 players were Asian women. Somehow the subject got around to squeezing cards and as the ladies took turns demonstrating their own styles, they almost had an orgasm.

It is actually pretty exciting when you need a certain card to win and the pip pattern shows up in both directions.
You either need it to have that center pip or not.
You will see the table go crazy fanning the card, tapping glasses and ashtrays, screaming in Cantonese...