Thread: Lead, follow, or get out of the way...

Yesterday, 05:38 PM
Savant
BaccaratForums Member
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Locally
Posts: 47


Re: private forum
I expected nothing less from you. You're little progression systems is safe again, even though I already said that I wouldn't post anymore.

"I deal in facts, not censorship/distortion..."

Yeah, right. I apologize for "wasting your time" by asking you to describe your system. I guess you're too busy censoring me to explain the facts.


Quote:
Originally Posted by garnabby
Savant,

I removed you from the proj bacc group because, as i wrote there, i think you were intentionally wasting my time.

I wrote also that, "Perhaps he will undertake his own group if he thinks that is so easy."

Thanks,

G.

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Savant,

As i said to you on more than one occasion, "You don't know everything."

Perhaps my "little progression" is safer than you think. Here's an example from the Wizzard:

QUESTION: Hi, Wizard. Let’s say I have $300 to gamble with, and can accept a 25% risk of ruin. What should I do to maximize my upside? Thanks! — Jerry T from Hertford

ANSWER: I would make the banker bet in baccarat. My betting advice would be to do what is known as a two-step progression. First, bet 1/3 of your bankroll. If that wins, walk away. If that loses, then bet the other 2/3. Again, if you win, walk. With any tie, just bet again until the bet is resolved. Here are the probabilities in baccarat:
Banker: 45.86%
Player: 44.62%
Tie: 9.52%
The probability of a banker win, given that the bet is resolved is 45.86%/(45.86%+44.62%) = 50.68%. The probability of losing both steps of the progression is (1-0.5068)2 = 24.32%. The banker bet pays 19 to 20, so you will have a 75.68% chance of winning $95, and a 24.32% chance of losing $300. June 7, 2008 . (At http://wizardofodds.com/askthewizard/baccarat.html .)

MAKES YOU THINK? A PROGRESSION, AND A ROR CALCULATION TOO.

Asfaras the math explanations of my own "expert system" (as i put it in the free private forum for the more-serious and knowlegdable) i maintained all along, and on a timely schedule, more of those (and a computer simulation) are to follow. Frankly, i likely would have had the former done by now were it not for these interruptions. (Regardless what you think of my abilities/claims, my time runs out as fast as anyone's. In fact, later today i have to spend a few hours at the hospital visiting a close friend on dialysis, etc. Believe me, if you've had asmuchas i to do with that you'd know how to have a good time too. This summer, for 2 months, i'll be on the road playing my game. Except to finish my own work beforehand; and to check in now and then later, i shall be quite happy for the time away.)

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Secondly, wrt your lingering questions about using only the non-tie game outcomes (when betting only player/banker)... i already answered those in some detail.
Maybe in furthering that i may clear up also some more concerns of yours regarding standard deviation, etc, and by the end of this note also demonstrate some basic math competency.
Here's your reply to the question by Squirtle about the SD for baccarat:

04-24-2009, 11:33 AM
Savant
BaccaratForums Member
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Locally
Posts: 47


Re: Calculator: Risk of Ruin
Quote:
Originally Posted by Squirtle
I don't get what amount are you suppose to put in for "standard deviation"

Here are the win rates and standard deviations for the main bets in baccarat:

Code:
BET WIN RATE SDBanker -1.06% 0.93Player -1.24% 0.95Tie -14.36% 2.64
Be aware than any game with a negative win rate will have a 100% risk of ruin no matter how you vary your bets.

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Yes, also that information is quickly found at the Wizzard's site. I had advised Squirtle to check back to the thread which gave rise to the ROR calculator here. Because i simply do not have time to do all the leg-work; and because i suspected there was more to be learned from the players actually using it (, including Archer, who has undoubted played more baccarat than most of us put together. For someone with as limited theoretical training, no one has done as well w/ it.) As you already figured out, i don't put too much weight on things like comps, SD's, and z-scores but only because those things won't make a losing game a winner, in my experience not really. Does the average 9-to-5 worker person do his ROR calculations before going to work? Of course not; and neither do i like to hear a bunch of losers "trying" to bring on their bad luck by talking about it. Certainly i realize the end need somewhere for ANY sort of mathematics; but if one has to always be up against a (RO-) ruin, which is a subjective thing anyway (different for each, and rightly so), then perhaps as i said in the private forum, one ought not be playing for one's livelihood.

To the point, why eagerly debate in ever-more detailed math the sorts of paths generated by the losing odds you listed above? How about figure out methods to (regularly and convincingly) change those for the good? (The "relevant" books just aren't getting the job done.)

But anyone who already has, or fiddled with that, has already re-calculated new SD's, etc. You didn't, Savant, right? I was hoping Archer, or someone else with more table-experience than many of us combined might have at least made some basic conclusions there,as did i above. I could find no web functions for these particular SD calculations, probably because like for the odds, the ones above were more that likey just exactly simulated over a wide sample group of "actual" results. Here's the math at the site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casino_game i used for my approximating functions afterward:

[edit] Standard deviation

The luck factor in a casino game is quantified using standard deviations (SD). The standard deviation of a simple game like Roulette can be calculated using the binomial distribution. In the binomial distribution, SD = sqrt (npq ), where n = number of rounds played, p = probability of winning, and q = probability of losing. The binomial distribution assumes a result of 1 unit for a win, and 0 units for a loss, rather than -1 units for a loss, which doubles the range of possible outcomes. Furthermore, if we flat bet at 10 units per round instead of 1 unit, the range of possible outcomes increases 10 fold.

Therefore, SD (Roulette, even-money bet) = 2b sqrt(npq ), where b = flat bet per round, n = number of rounds, p = 18/38, and q = 20/38.For example, after 10 rounds at $1 per round, the standard deviation will be 2 x 1 x sqrt(10 x 18/38 x 20/38) = $3.16. After 10 rounds, the expected loss will be 10 x $1 x 5.26% = $0.53. As you can see, standard deviation is many times the magnitude of the expected loss.The range is six times the standard deviation: three above the mean, and three below. Therefore, after 10 rounds betting $1 per round, your result will be somewhere between -$0.53 - 3 x $3.16 and -$0.53 + 3 x $3.16, i.e., between -$10.01 and $8.95. (There is still a 0.1% chance that your result will exceed a $8.95 profit, and a 0.1% chance that you will lose more than $10.01.) This demonstrates how luck can be quantified; we know that if we walk into a casino and bet $5 per round for a whole night, we are not going to walk out with $500.

The standard deviation for Pai Gow poker is the lowest out of all common casinos . Many , particularly slots, have extremely high standard deviations. As the size of the potential payouts increase, so does the standard deviation.

As the number of rounds increases, eventually, the expected loss will exceed the standard deviation, many times over. From the formula, we can see the standard deviation is proportional to the square root of the number of rounds played, while the expected loss is proportional to the number of rounds played. As the number of rounds increases, the expected loss increases at a much faster rate. This is why it is impossible for a gambler to win in the long term. It is the high ratio of short-term standard deviation to expected loss that fools gamblers into thinking that they can win.

It is important for a casino to know both the house edge and variance for all of their games. The house edge tells them what kind of profit they will make as percentage of turnover, and the variance tells them how much they need in the way of cash reserves. The mathematicians and computer programmers that do this kind of work are called gaming mathematicians and gaming analysts. Casinos do not have in-house expertise in this field, so outsource their requirements to experts in the gaming analysis field, such as Mike Shackleford, the "Wizard of Odds".

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Besides the slim P-B difference in odds, and the adjustments required when taking into account ties, if that's the way you or (as you claimed) most now do it, etc, i calculated:

SD (for baccarat) = (1 +/- 0.0476) X (2 or 1.95) X ( 0.4523574(+) or 0.4999536(-)) where: the 0.0476 is from the chance of a tie, at 0.0952, divided by 2; 2 is for a player win/loss of 1, and 1.95 is for a banker win/loss of 0.95/1; and 0.45... = sqr of (p X q) with ties included, and 0.49... = that w/o ties included in the P-B odds. (These SD resusts are then 0.9241 and 0.9478; and, 0.9285 and 0.9523 respectively.) From here it would be easy to adjust these numbers to new SD's derived from any better set of P-B odds.

More importantly by ignoring ties altogether (by just working over any number of P-B decided games), the higher resultant (more-easily workable) SD would also serve as a guard against an unusually low number of tie-decisions over a session of play(, when the true P-B SD would be higher then). Which of course given the higher variance of ties could and often does occur. (Or the other way.)
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CONTINUED AT PART 2 ------>

But if you're looking for something i did a long time ago, here's a post from GG at http://www.gamblersglen.com/cgi-bin/teemz/teemz.cgi?board=_master&action=opentopic&topic=828 &forum=Baccarat_Message_Board. Beyond that, and a few others like it, i don't post my own calculations because most can be found elsewhere; if, and that's a big if, someone cares.

Gilly,

The chance of the banker 3-card seven push-on-a-win is from http://www.ezbaccarat.com/ at 0.0225 (Under the math section). Therefore the expected number of such games a shoe is 0.0225338 X 80 = 1.802704. That makes sense because in a regular $5 game: 0.0117% (HE for on banker) X $5 X 72 (non-tie decisions) = $4.21 comm... slightly more than the (1.802704 - the one approx additional banker win a shoe) X $5 = $4.

[Edited by GARNABBY on 16-Apr-09 11



And for those who "can't get enough" of the mathematical diversions, may i direct you to the Wizard's own at: http://mathproblems.info/ . (And in particular to problem #11 about the coin-flip.) Seems like the Wizard, himself, is out till the fall working up more. Now that's hard-core, eh?




Here's another to do with "leaving it at the office":

gr8player,

I've done that from time to time too. Wonder why and how that happens.

I don't know if i'm up or down by it. Once i did it with a (rare) $1600 bet, and won. I noticed it before the cards came but too late to stop the dealer.

That sort of thing doesn't bug me though because i know any one or series of plays is near-random and negligible.

Over the years i've learned how to not let things bother me. Eg, "everyone" wants bigjoe's system. Whether it is a good one or not i tell myself, "Hey, most good ideas, etc, were discovered by many different persons at once; and if not later re-found by myself will eventually come up again by someone else." When working with math, etc, a lot, it's important to know how to "leave it at the office"; and not to start nagging one's self with it when ideas start becoming more like distant feelings.

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On another note, i admire your honesty. I can be up-front with others on just about anything... but perhaps i would just "disappear" like so many other posters, especially the narrative sort like yourself after a loss or two like that.

I mean your variance may seem low to you; yet very high to the casinos. In which case they're just "waiting". (As i would in their position.)


[Edited by GARNABBY on 09-May-09 17

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Suffice it to say, i'm not here for someone's quick fix. Nor will i be a cheap souce of good labor for the casinos.

In fact i more than happily often plead "no contest" to those sorts of posts/replies against myself to just let those quietly slip away; but when that doesn't happen i feel compelled to speak out. And that can be 10 X harder than it takes to start such "rumors" (of incompetence and/or insincerity) in the first place. Anyway, this is my final word on this subject. I will no longer read/reply/post anything Savant.




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Good, no snags. Not in any way proof read though. Please excuse the typos, etc. (Hope i put the right file here, and not my new "theory of everything" dream i had last night, ha.)

G.