A.P Heat

Earlier this week I met at length with executives from one of the corporations that back wagers in California card rooms.  In anticipation of these meetings, I wrote this blog article. The main topic of these meetings was advantage play: what is possible and what they can do about it.

(flim′flam′) noun 1. nonsense; rubbish; humbug (ref. Webster's New World Dictionary)

California has two types of entities that offer casino table games. There are the Native American casinos that operate Las Vegas-style games. The gambler who visits these casinos will find a full slate of card-based table games that play in every way like the same games in Las Vegas and elsewhere.

I have long avoided the subject of baccarat mythology on this blog. I am a seeker of scientific truth. As substitutes for truth, fiction, story telling, anecdotes, false memories, mythology and outright lies frustrate me.

Casinos around the world are getting hit by advantage play teams involved in various schemes that allow them to predict when Aces and ten-valued cards are likely to be dealt. When I searched the literature for the edges possible from this type of play, I was surprised to find that these numbers are not publicly available.

Baccarat insurance is a side bet that players can make during the play of a hand of baccarat. This side bet is really an aggregate of sides bets, some of which can be made based on the first two cards exposed, and some of which can be made later during the play of the hand. Each of these side bets has its own separate wagering rules and payout.

In this blog post I covered the basics of advantage play against the Lucky Pairs (LP) baccarat side bet. After looking around a bit, I found that several “live-play” online casinos offer LP. It is easy to use perfect play against live-play online LP.

One of my informal rules for this blog is that I don’t consider ordinary blackjack card counting (BJCC). Any easy Google search reveals myriad resources that give the minutia of every aspect of BJCC. At least three generations of APs have dedicated themselves to this game. For my purposes, the question is: how does BJCC stack up against card counting blackjack side bets?

Lucky Pairs (LP) is one of the names given to the non-proprietary baccarat side bet that simply pays 11-to-1 for a dealt pair. The player can wager on either or both of the Player or Banker side to be dealt a pair. This wager is also available for blackjack (player only), with varying payouts depending on the number of decks used.

One of the great heroes of casino game analysis is Edward O. Thorp. He is best known for his seminal work, Beat the Dealer, originally published in 1962.

I confess, I am at least 20 years older than the oldest “millennial.” I’ve experimented with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, but find them too intrusive on my privacy. The social networking I do consists of contributing to a few old-fashioned message boards and keeping a blog.

House of Cards Radio is an interview program hosted by poker and gambling expert Ashley Adams.

Recently a reader "Rob" wrote an extended comment to this post explaining his opinion that casinos are "the enemy." Rob made some points that are core to many AP's defense of their "enemy/evil" maxim towards casinos.  I am going to take this opportunity to respond to Rob's arguments, as well as the "casinos are the enemy" doctrine, directly in this post.

You (Rob) wrote:

The “Easy Six” (ES) baccarat side bet pays 6-to-1 if either the Player hand or Banker hand wins on six points, or if a tie occurs on six points.  Otherwise, the ES wager loses.

I first considered if the Dragon 7 baccarat side bet was susceptible to a card counting methodology in mid-2011 when it was exclusively a proprietary side bet owned by DEQ that was associated with the commission free baccarat variant EZ Baccarat.