The idea of this baccarat method is to place small bets with the prospective of big return. 1, 3, 2 and 6 are the units that you need to bet in four hands. Let’s say that on the first hand you place a bet at the amount of £1. If you win, you will have secured a profit of £1. On the second hand you would increase your bet by £2 and place a bet of £3. If you win once again, you will have secured a profit of £4 and on the third hand you need lower your bet by £1, and place another bet of £2. If you win once more, you will have £4 on the table (previous bet as well as the winnings) and on the next hand you add an additional £2 more resulting in a total bet of £6.

If the forth bet wins, you will have £12 on the table, £10 of which is profit. If you lose one of the hands, you must begin again from £1.

From this strategy the maximum amount that you may lose is £2 each time you try. If you lose your first bet, you will lose £1. If you have a loss on your second bet, you will lose £2. If you win on the first two hands but lose the third one, you will have a profit of £2. If you lose the forth, you will break even.

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For example, if the last four results were Banker, Player, Player, Banker then you should bet on the Player, which was the second to last in the chain. Alternatively if you had Player, Banker, Banker, then your bet would be on Banker.

The principle idea behind this system is that you want to try to catch a streak of wins on either the Banker or Player. We recommend that you ignore Tie bet wins as the chances are so low compared to the other two types of bet.

This system is extremely simple but it does have a high success rate at creating winning periods due to this it has remained popular with veteran Baccarat players.

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Despite Baccarat being a game of chance and not a game of skill, there are some baccarat tips which will benefit you.

Baccarat Tip # 1

Most casinos will offer you the chance to bet on a Tie – this is without a doubt the worst bet at the baccarat table. The casino has an advantage of 14% on a Tie bet, yet the tie bet pays only 1:8. Admittedly some casinos do offer 1-9 so that is slightly better, but still not a recommended bet.

Baccarat Tip # 2

If you play baccarat in a real, brick and mortar casino and choose to bet on the banker; ensure you have the money to the casino’s 5% commission when you wish to leave the table. The commission is due when you leave the table.

Baccarat Tip # 3

Baccarat is a definitely a game of chance, not a game of skill. The secret to winning in baccarat is to stop playing while you are ahead. If you decide to stay on the table and to gamble, in the long run the likely return of the baccarat game will catch up with your short run luck, as a result you will never walk away a winner.

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The remaining two bets, the Banker and Player, are parallel to each other in terms of odds, but the payouts vary, the Banker bets, when won, usually incur a 5% tax, you can now start to see where the casino makes some of its money in the game of Punto Banco.

However, a bet on the banker is still the bet that offers you the highest odds of winning. Your chances of winning a Banker bet are 44.61%. Therefore this makes a Banker bet the best baccarat bet for the gambler to make – even though the casino will charge you a 5% commission on winning banker bets.

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The strategy itself is fairly basic, it involves the use a chart which indicates how to play certain hands, including “hard” hands, “soft” hands, and pairs, based what the dealer has by taking into consideration the card that is showing. Simply by following these diagrams loyally, players are able to reduce the house’s advantage from 8.9% to a half of a percentage. This basic strategy has helped thousands of players across millions of hands.

How to Use It

In order to get as much out of this strategy as possible it must be used consistently and correctly. The choices that this strategy indicates have been mathematically shown to be the best out of all possible alternatives, any deviation from the chart will, over time, decrease your winnings even if, in special occasions when a decision against the chart works out for the better.

Consistency is vital to this strategy as it is based entirely on odds and probabilities. It does not guarantee that the player will win every time. There are going to be times where following the strategy seem to produce consistent losses. For example if you stand on 15 against a dealer’s 4 and get beaten three times in a row, it may be appealing to dismiss the chart as nonsense. Examples like this will, in reality occur, simply due to how odds work. Over a span of time, it will bear itself out. If you stick on a 15 against a dealer’s 4 a thousand times, you will be victorious over more hands than you are not. Too many players desert this strategy, either in whole or in just in part, due to an unlikely sequence of events in the short term, and as a result end up losing more in the long term.

Correct usage is essential. For this, there are only two basic things to remember:

1. Make sure the chart matches the version of blackjack you’re playing. The chart is designed from an eight-deck game in which the dealer stands on 17. If you apply it to a single-deck game in which the dealer hits a soft 17, it will not be as effective.
2. Use the chart for the whole hand. A common fallacy is that this strategy tells you what to do for your initial hit, and after that it’s up to you, this is not the case. Every choice should be consulted against the chart. If you’re dealt a 13 against a dealer’s eight, the chart indicates to hit. If you get a two, you’ve a 15 against the same eight. Check the chart again! You’re supposed to stick fifteen against an eight. Follow the chart until play is finished, when you stand, double, or surrender the hand.

Some casinos do not permit players to carry a chart to the table, you’ll need to memorize the chart, and this is simple enough, it will happen naturally over time by practicing.

Using the chart

The numbers displayed across the top represent the Dealer’s up-card, and the player’s hand is shown down the side. The decision you should choose is found where the row and column intersect.

Decisions are represented letters – “H” for hit, “S” for stand, “DD” for double down, “P” for split, and “R” for surrender.

–          H/P means split if you are permitted to double down afterwards, if not then you should hit.

–          H/R means surrender if the casino you are playing at allows you to do so, if not then hit.

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All a player is required to do is to keep track of a running total which indicates whether the rest of the shoe is favourable, by a rather straightforward method which is accessible to a person of normal intelligence. The running total, also known as the “count,” indicates to the player when to amplify his bets when the deck is in his favour or decrease them when it is in favour of the house.

Is This Cheating?

The art of counting cards it is discouraged by casinos, which have achieved in showing the practice in a negative light to the point that many players believe that it is against the law. Where it is acceptable for casinos to do so, they will happily eject a player who counts cards. This is all a marketing campaign by the casinos to dissuade players from making the smart bet.

Cheating, by definition, is an interference which offsets the odds. A cheater may plot with the dealer, modify equipment, and use sleight of hand to increase his wager or swap his cards after the deal. The card counter, on the other hand, simply watches occurrences which are visible to any other player at the table under normal circumstances. When the ordinary course of events happens to turn in his favour, he simply makes the best of it.

This does not infringe on the rules of the game or alter the situation at all, any more than a sports punter who reflects on the past performances of a team prior to placing a wager for or against them.

Card counting does not guarantee a victory. Even in circumstances where the deck appears to favour the player by a large amount, the order and value of the cards continue to be random. Irrespective of the “weight” of the deck, the cards fall as they may. There is a greater likelihood of winning in some situations, and the card counter will increase his wager consequently nevertheless the possibility of losing is always there.

For these reasons, casinos have failed in their efforts to lobby for legislation against card counters. The practice continues to be completely legal. In places where a casino is allowed to refuse service to anyone, card counters are keenly pursued, ousted, and banned from the premises. To put it simply, the house does not want to serve a punter who stands a good, or even chance of winning.

How Card Counting Works

A popular saying is “chance has no memory”. This saying is often used to deter players from taking an interest in the previous outcomes since history offers no advantage. In the majority cases, this is true.

For example, a coin could land on heads five times in a row; this does not mean that the next toss is more likely to be tails; this is due to the fact that each toss is an independent random event. There will still be a still 50/50 possibility of heads or tails on the sixth toss. The same holds true for most casino games.

However, blackjack is an exception to this rule since the outcome, is random, but not totally independent. Once card has been dealt, it cannot be dealt again, its nonexistence from the remaining deck affects the probability of the outcomes of future hands (until the cards are shuffled).

If all four kings come out of a single deck in the initial hand dealt, it completely guarantees that no others will be dealt until the deck is shuffled. If two kings came out in the initial deal, it doesn’t ensure the kings will not come out as players hit their hands, but it does make it 50% less likely. This is what card counting is based around.

Numerous mathematical models have been run to determine the exact effect which removing an individual card has on the deck. Their results are shown to the right. As a general rule, the removal of low cards favours the player, while the removal of high cards favours the dealer. It’s also vital to keep in mind that this is the effect per deck. In a six-deck game, six fives are needed to be dealt before the remaining deck is altered by 0.64% in the player’s favour.

At a glance, the concentration of high cards in the deck doesn’t seem to matter, as they are just as likely to be dealt to the dealer. However, consider these factors:

1. A player is paid a 50% bonus when a blackjack is dealt, and loses only the original wager if the dealer receives blackjack.
2. A player is permitted to double down on a low or soft hand, and usually does best when dealt a high card.
3. A player may surrender any hand that they don’t feel will win, releasing half his original wager.
4. The player may stand at any time, while the dealer must hit to 17 or bust. A bust is more probable when there are more high-value cards in the deck.

The Rewards of Counting

As with any other player, a card counter will not walk away with a large amount of winnings every time. Simply due to the fact that the order of the cards is forever random, and because there is an equal chance of a decent hand being dealt to either side of the table when the count is high.

Basic strategy by itself lowers the house’s edge to around half a percent, and after a shuffle, the card counter has no advantage. From here, the balance moves to the player by about half a percent times the count (the “true count,” which is explained later).

On average, a player who combines basic strategy with card counting will have a 1% advantage over the house over the course of each shoe, meaning he will lose a little less and win a little more than a player who just uses basic strategy.

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The Basic Technique

It is not essential, as some believe, to keep track of every single card that has been dealt. While it would be useful to know the precise number of each card which remains, it is not required and beyond the capacity of the typical (or even somewhat intelligent) player to do so. Card counting relies on an approximation of the value of the cards that have been dealt, as a suggestion of the ones that remain to be dealt.

This guide is based on the High-Low counting system, in which two, three, four, five, and six cards are valued at +1; seven, eight, and nine are 0 and all ten-value cards and aces are valued at -1. There are numerous other counting systems are available, but the High-Low system is one of the simplest to follow, and suitably effective in practice.

In this system, low cards “add” to the count while high cards “subtract” from it. This is due to the fact that the removal of low cards from the deck increases the amount of high cards left to be dealt, and vice versa. A larger proportion of high cards in the deck favour the player.

Keeping the Count

To keep the count, a player needs to make a mental note of the cards, as they come out of the show, and keep a running total in mind. One technique of doing this is to note the value of every card as it is upturned and keeping a constant tally of the total:

While this is valuable as a training method, the physical behaviours one displays while doing this, constant eye and head movement during the deal, is a very clear signal to casino personnel that the player is a card counter.

A safer technique is to monitor the value of each hand as it is played, it is common for players to watch as others play their hands, logging the total value as a player’s cards are collected:

Using this technique will allow the player to focus on other things while the cards are being dealt. A hand of two high cards has a net effect of -2, two low cards with a high card, +1, a high and a low hit with a high -1, a blackjack is -2, etc.

It needs slightly more practice to learn to count cards a hand at a time as a pose to one-by-one, but it will eventually become second nature, so the work involved in learning this system will result in less effort to use it in an actual playing situation.

Counting in Multiple-Deck Games

Because the count is an approximation of the amount of high cards left in the deck, it must be altered depending on the number of decks that are in use. The running count keeps track of the circumstances, the number of high cards compared to low ones, remaining in the deck. In other words, if four kings are dealt from a single deck, none remain, but if four are dealt in a game using four decks, twelve remain.

The simplest way to approximate the “true” count from the running count is to divide the running count by the number of decks used in the game. A running count of +8 is worth +8 in a single-deck game (8/1), but +4 in a two-deck game (8/2), +2 in a four-deck game (8/4), and +1 in an eight-deck game (8/8).

A more precise method to approximate the “true” count involves dividing the running count by the number of decks that wait to be played. If the running count is +15 in an eight-deck game, but two decks have already been played, the true count would be +2.5 (+15 divided by 6 remaining decks), and +5 (+15 divided by 3 remaining decks), when five decks have been played.

Wagering based on the count

To put it simply, you should up your wager when the count is in your favour and decrease it (or leave the game) when it is not.

The simplest system for doing this is to increase your wager one unit for every value of the true count. Once the deck has been shuffled, bet one unit. If the count rises to +2, wager three units (one plus two). If it drops to -1, bet zero, sit out for a round. If it drops lower than -1, continue sitting out or leave the table.

While this is mostly sound advice, a player who frequently sits out hands may be asked to leave the table in order to allow others to play. Additionally, a player who changes tables frequently, winning small sums at each, will swiftly be identified as a counter and asked to leave the casino altogether.

In order to maximize your playing time, and lower the risk of being detected as a counter, it may be required to stay in the game at a one-unit wager, even when the deck is in favour of the dealer. While this costs some profits, it will enable you to stay in the game, and the count will be changed with the next shuffle.

Common sense is required. If you’re approaching the end of a session, or if the count drops to an appalling level with plenty of rounds waiting to be dealt before the next shuffle, there may not be sufficient time or opportunity to recoup the losses you’ll sustain by waiting for the count to turn. Walk away, and come back later.

Insurance and Even Money

In most situations, insurance and even money are sucker bets; a 3:1 payoff on a 30.7% chance gives a 2.6% edge to the house. But, since the odds of an unknown card being a ten-value card increases around 0.5% times the count, these bets become almost fair when the true count stands at +5, and shifts in favour of the player when the count surpasses that level.

Since the majority of players decline these side bets, taking them (particularly after constantly refusing them in the past) may draw suspicion. To stay in the game, and on the site, it may be sensible to pass on these opportunities, or to take advantage of them only once in a while.

Alterations to Basic Strategy

Basic strategy is based on the likely results from a freshly-shuffled deck; it should be altered based on the count. Try to keep the following adjustments in mind:

When the count is +5 or above

• Take insurance and even money
• Stand on 12 against a deuce or a three
• Stand on 15 or 16 against a ten
• Double 8 or 9 against a five or six
• Double any soft 13 to 16 against a six or lower

When the count is +10 or above

• Stand a 14, 15, or 16 against anything
• Double any soft hand less than 19 against a six or lower
• Double 8 or 9 against a four
• Double 10 against a ten
• Double 11 against an ace
• Split fours against three, four, five, or six
• Split fives against a four, five, or six
• Split tens against a five or six

When the count is +15 or higher

• Double a soft 19 against a six or lower
• Double any hard hand less than twelve against six or lower
• Split tens against anything less than a nine
• Split fours, fives, and sixes against anything less than a seven

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Consistent Wager System

This is the most popular money-management system used. Players bet a fixed amount on every hand, irrespective of the results of the previous hands. By doing this, the player will, in the long term, lose no more that the house advantage against the player, if the player is following our basic strategy this is less than one percent.

In the short term, for one 90-hand period (45 hands per hour for two hours), the player is mathematically likely to lose one more hand than he wins and as a result finish “down” a single unit for the total session. However, because statistics don’t bear out in the short term, the player will more often be “up” or “down” a modest amount differing on the order in which the cards happen to come out of the shoe.

In the long run however, these slight wins and losses will total out. Across the course of thousands of hands, the mathematical probability of losing less than one percent of all hands played shows.

Another benefit of the constant wager method is that it does not involve a large bankroll which some of the other money management system do. Because the amount bet only rises when the player elects to split or double down, a player can begin the session with 20 betting units (20 times the amount of his consistent wager) and anticipate lasting the whole session. However, improbable “losing streaks” do happen, this is why lasting the entire session can be believed, but is not certain.

Lastly, some people argue that the consistent wagering method is not a “method” at all. A player either wages analytically (following to a defined method) or at random. While the amount bet does not differ, as in other methods, it is still planned and implemented according to a strategy.

Martingale System

The Martingale system arose in eighteenth-century France as a technique for making money at red/black, even/odd, or high/low wagers on roulette but it is also used on Blackjack.

The Martingale system is very straightforward; it is one of the easiest systems to learn, aside from the constant wagering scheme. The player begins at a single betting unit, and then doubles the amount following each loss, once the player has one they return to the original betting unit. For example, if a player loses one hand, they then place two units on the next hand, should he win, he wins back the previous loss and stands one unit ahead. This is shown in the table below.

Straightaway, you can see the downside of using this system – it requires a large bankroll. Following a player’s sixth loss, they must wager 32 betting units, and after two more losses, 128 units. This is made even worse if a hand is doubled or split. This sum can be daunting to players. In order for it to be successful in the long run, players have to have a large bankroll and buy in at a low-limit table.

Despite this, this method is effective, so much so that the rules of the game were changed in an attempt to defeat it. Table limits were brought in to defeat players who used followed this method with huge sums of money. The table limit is usually 1,000 times the table minimum, this means that a player using the Martingale system will not be able to recover his losses after the tenth loss, at which point he would be required to wager 1,028 units.

However, this does not make the system invalid. Not only can the player upgrade to a high-limit table if a streak of ten losses does occur, there is less than a 0.01% chance of such a streak taking place.

Nonetheless, there still few players with the bankroll or the strength to closely follow the Martingale as losses increase. This is why numerous different systems were developed from Martingale, these include systems where the amount the player increases the wager are decreased. Two of these offshoot systems (Oscar’s Grind and Labouchere) are shown below.

Oscar’s Grind

Oscar’s Grind is based around playing hands as a series, with the aim of finishing each series with a net win of at least one betting unit. It’s much more conservative than Martingale because the multiplication in wagers is not as striking and does not occur as often. Like Martingale, the player can finish ahead if he has the firmness and bankroll to play each series to its eventual successful end.

The player begins with a single unit, if the first hand is won, the player earns a one-unit profit, and that series ends.

If the player loses the hand, the wager remains the same up until another hand is won, at which point the wager increases by one unit. This continues until the player wins enough hands to recover all previous losses, and come out one unit ahead. At this point the next hand is considered the beginning of a new series.

Below is an example of a series which endures for a dozen hands:

In this sequence, the player wins 5 out of 12 hands this is slightly less than the expected number but finishes with a one-unit gain. If the player had been using the consistent-wager, they would have emerged with a net loss of two units; the Martingale player would have finished with a net gain of five, however they would have needed to bet eight units on a single hand.

There are, however, two disadvantages to Oscar’s Grind. First, it is possible for a player to become “locked” into a very long grind. Whereas Martingale provides an instant recovery at the first win, this system may require a loser to win a number of hands before recovering all previous losses—and not to stop playing until the recovery has been made. Second, keeping track of the net balance over a long series of hands requires considerable concentration. The wagering system may become a distraction from playing basic strategy, and will almost certainly conflict with the ongoing math the player must concentrate upon to implement advanced strategies.

Labouchere

The Labouchere system directs the player to alter their bet based on the result of the previous hand, escalating after losses and lowering after wins, but following a rather more complex equation.

Firstly a sequence of numbers is chosen (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), the wager is decided by the sum of the first and last digit (in this case, 1+6 = 7). Should the hand be won, the first and last numbers are taken off (2,3,4,5) and the following wager is once again the sum of the first and last (2+5 = 7). If the hand is lost, the total wager lost is added to the end of the series (so the new sequence would change from 2,3,4,5 to 2,3,4,5,7—so the next wager is 2+7 = 9). Once all the numbers have been exhausted, the series is ended.

As with Oscar’s Grind, the player should see each series through to its end, and may become “locked” in a very lengthy series in which large losses are endured before its eventual (profitable) finish.

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