Thread: Money Management

Truth is I have been doing a lot of gambling since 1986. BJ at first and I didn't do so well. But soon I did - making small potatoes. But enough to live on and it sucked. Stress, fatigue, lousy casino environment, etc. Then finally my BJ play got restricted at my favorite casino about 10 years ago so I quit it and started studying Baccarat. I have always made money over all in Baccarat using different methods. Some of my own design, and some not. But, sorry, no big stories about making 10's of thousands of dollars. The game is a grind - like all these games though Bacc is likely the best and easiest.

My point is to show that I am a player which should give me some street cred. When I hear someone say that Money Management is part of a winning method I think - Baloney! MM has a place pschologically on a session to session basis but it does not make a negative game into a positive game. It is like saying if you quit when you are ahead you will win. That is malarky - period. I have heard that tune so many times ad nauseum.

The game never ends. It is a continuum. Whether you quit today and come back tomorrow or change tables makes no difference. It is all about W/L decisions piled up over time. The cards don't know that you left and came back or stopped for a cup of coffee! It is all one continuous game. You either have an edge or not.

Thank you for listening dear friends.

Archer

The only reasoning I can see about quitting while you are ahead, is that there are always peak periods when things are going right and peak periods when everything falls apart. It seems too often that they follow back to back.
Maybe you have some methods that the downside doesn't affect you as much.

No, I don't. I quit for practical and/or psychological reasons but it makes no difference to overall win/loss. If I am winning, or losing, and I know I am playing my last shoe of the session I may just quit before I down too much or when I break even. I don't things go back to back any more than not. Selective memory.

Acher

Originally Posted by systemhunter

The only reasoning I can see about quitting while you are ahead, is that there are always peak periods when things are going right and peak periods when everything falls apart. It seems too often that they follow back to back.
Maybe you have some methods that the downside doesn't affect you as much.

Just to be clear I am not advocating staying in every game until the end and not quitting or using stop win/loss. What I am saying is that these actions will not change the win/loss over a long period of time. There will be just as many times when quitting will hurt you as help you. I also am not saying that I stay in every game until the end.

We only play for short periods of time. If we get a big win and start losing it makes emotional sense to lock up a win or vice verse.

Is "money management" at a casino the same thing as "style" of betting, where i've heard pit-bosses say it doesn't matter which style a player uses (because the casino will get its edge anyways)?

I don't know what he meant by style. To me money management simply means stopping or starting at certaiin points to gain an advantage.

Archer

Originally Posted by garnabby

Is "money management" at a casino the same thing as "style" of betting, where i've heard pit-bosses say it doesn't matter which style a player uses (because the casino will get its edge anyways)?

I guess new players must start small, as in anything, first learning how to tread water if they even can (while letting the casinos pay for the sessions and the drinks,) then how to faster build, or manage, the actual profit. I've seen a lot of players lately looking for everything served up free and hot on a platter. (The same ones who turn right around when they don't get it, in desperation, greed, etc, to ever-higher limits, and scammers.) Start small, try to improve one's game on the go, seek out good information, look after one's self first. Invest the first few lucky wins somewhere out of easy grasp. Do it again to prove it wasn't a fluck. Above all, like any well-paying job, winning at baccarat involves both work and risk. Even the best systems will always involve both. And remember, as "sleazy" as casinos or their employees may seem at times, isn't EVERYTHING that happens at a casino just what happens in every other "walk of life". (All the ANALOGIES apply in every respect?) And in pursuing their livelihoods as professionally and sincerely as any professional gambler, aren't they just another means to an end?

Even the casinos started small. Maybe that's a better lesson to take from them, than the "money-management" (, "stop-loss", or "0-bet", etc, ) of the losses ("to lose less") advice by the "flavor-of-the-month" system already foreshadowing its own uselessnesses. Take time out, lose that "extra five pounds for once", make the adventure of one's youth. --- Slow down, what the hell difference is a couple of hundred here or there which could've been worked in over-time, or hastily bet, going to make in anyone's life? If we do only one fewer thing, won't we all finally be caught up, instead of, as an old gambler friend of mine from my childhood used to say, "running to our graves"?