Smart Baccarat

I made it a point to see 21 last night, and I found it to be a bit of a bore. I guess it wasn't so much that it didn't follow the book, or even the over emphasis on the evil professor (played by Kevin Spacey).

Fundamentally, my issue is that the MIT team is just not that interesting. I promised myself I would "try" to not knit pick a number of scenes that were unrealistic in this flick. This involves such things as the lack of table limits (were those $25,000 checks I saw on the main casino floor at Planet Hollywood), or the fact that they were going to change the chips over after a minor snafu in the casino (not like the real event when MGM had to replace their high denomination chips after the infamous Tyson fight and ensuing riot). Also, they managed to not really show the "grind" involved waiting to jump into the positive situations. Quite frankly, I would have figured things would have been a bit more exciting, considering you hardly ever saw much waiting around --- or distressing positive counts that do not yield a positive cash result (i.e. variance). Don't get me wrong Bringing Down the House was a pretty good read, but I always found Ken Uston's team (Al Francesco et al) and their story to be a bit more intriguing.

That's right, the MIT Team did not develop the BP (Big Player) strategy, that brilliance was the work of Al Francesco

The scene: a Lake Tahoe casino. The cast of characters: Al Francesco, Al's brother, Al's sister, and Al's sister's husband. The Francesco family was hanging around the casino, waiting for their dinner reservation. Al's brother, a card counter himself, killed the time by playing small-stakes blackjack with bets of $1 to $5. Al was standing nearby, chatting casually with his brother-in-law. When he saw his brother make a $5 bet, Al would throw in another $100. When he saw his brother make a $1 bet, Al would hold onto his money. After half-an-hour, when the family went to go eat dinner, the pit boss begged Al to stay and keep plying blackjack.


The significance of the event was immediately apparent to Al Francesco. From the pit boss's point of view, Al had appeared as an unsophisticated tourist, barely paying attention to the game, with plenty of money to throw around, who had simply gotten lucky on a few hands. Thus was born the persona of The Big Player.

Al would go on to finding and training the best blackjack player EVER --- aka "the Roadrunner," "the Phantom," the "Mad Bomber," and "the Wandering Jew." That's right --- Ken Uston.

In 1971, Al started playing with teams of seven: six counters and one Big Player. Al recruited the team members and taught them basic strategy and Lawrence Revere's Advanced Point Count system. When they were ready to play, the counters would sit at different blackjack tables, each one counting the cards and making small bets. When the count was favorable, the counter would signal the Big Player, who would come over to the table and bet big until the count turned against him, and then walk away. Like Al Francesco in Lake Tahoe, the Big Player never appeared to be anything other than a wealthy, unsophisticated tourist who happened to get lucky. In this way, Al Francesco's teams won millions of dollars over the course of a few years.

One of the blackjack players recruited and trained by Al Francesco was Ken Uston. To the dismay of Al and the other team members, Uston revealed their secrets to the world in his 1977 book The Big Player. The publication of Uston's book effectively spelled the end for Francesco's teams. Many of the team members hated Uston after that, but Francesco refused to carry a grudge.

Virtually all of the most successful blackjack teams that came after The Big Player was published—the Hyland team, the MIT team, the Czech team, the Greeks—used Al’s BP concept to disguise their attacks, and that approach is still being employed profitably by teams today.

Anyone interested in blackjack team play should get themselves a copy of Ken Uston's book, The Big Player. One of the most amazing stories in "The Big Player" was when Uston won $27,000 in 45 minutes at the Freemont in downtown Las Vegas. The incredible thing was that the "maximum" bet at the Freemont was $500. At one point, Uston was playing twelve hands simultaneously -- and managed to win all twelve for a total win of $6,000.

What I personally find incredible, with respect to the Francesco/Uston Teams, is that they made made millions in the early 1970's. Another fascinating read involves how Uston and his team took Atlantic City by storm in 1979 (winning $145,000 in nine days), as well as the legal battles fought by Uston, to prevent counters from being barred. "One Third of a Shoe" is perhaps one of the best gambling reads ever, though, it is rarely mentioned and it is difficult to locate copies. (of course, I have multiple copies of all of Uston's books in my personal gaming library) These efforts eventually allowed for the "open environment" in Atlantic City, and to this day, card counters cannot be barred from AC casinos.

Another more recent chronicle of card counting, You've Got Heat is a great book (in journal format) of a card counter's multiple trips to Vegas from 1999 to 2003. What is fantastic about this book, is that it follows the ongoing journey trip to trip. At the end of each trip (chapter) the author gives you his starting and ending bankrolls (and net win/loss) for the trip. A bit different than the team player (and at a much lower bankroll) it is still very interesting to see the highs and lows of advantage gambling.

One final good (recent) read on the subject is Dave Stann's book Hollywood Blackjack. This one time starving actor's very frank accounts of his journey playing Blackjack is pretty entertaining. It starts with "Chapter 1 - Fuck the Stardust." Stann gives a pretty good historical account of the game, and also spends some time discussing tournament strategy and the Ultimate Blackjack Tour.

At the end of the day, I have to say that a bit of emphasis on Blackjack is refreshing in the current poker-centric world. I'm sure that the casinos will be happy to host a new group of folks trying to beat the house. I have always said that the fact that blackjack was beatable (even though "unlikely" beatable for the vast majority of folks) was probably the best advertising a casino could ever wish for, with regard to attracting players to their properties.

Labels: al francesco, atlantic city, big player, blackjack, ken uston, las vegas, mit blackjack team

An interesting article published a few years ago by Andrew MacDonald & William R. Eadington is one of the few available that discusses high stakes baccarat.

They have a rather fascinating discussion of volatility, the law of large numbers, and fear of the unknown; and how this all relates to the high stakes baccarat business. They go on to explain "Extending this, there is about a 95 percent chance the player will end up within two standard deviations of the expected result (between 75 units behind and 51 units ahead), and a 99.7 percent chance he will end up within three standard deviations of the expected outcome (between 107 units behind and 83 units ahead)."

Upon first glance --- you figure, yeah, I knew Baccarat was not particularly volatile for the casinos... but, what many don't figure in their analysis is the often perverted (and excessive) table limits that need to be offered to the baccarat whales. While "normal" games will often have a maximum bet of $5,000 to $15,000 --- the "whale" table limits are what make it such a volatile business. (These maximum bets often exceed $100,000 per hand)

As they go on to say "Thus it is very rare that outcomes are beyond three standard deviations. However, if one unit is $150,000, the “unlucky” outcome for a casino with our hypothetical baccarat player at the two standard deviation (95 percent confidence) level would be a player win (or casino loss) of 51 units, or a rather painful $7.65 million (before expenses)!"

In addition, you have the problem with the limited number of decisions (or hands) played by the high end baccarat player. As we all know, more hands (or spins on a machine) equal less "sweat" for the house. But, with baccarat, a shoe (with only around 70 decisions) can take up to 3 hours in high end big baccarat play. This small number of hands coupled with the über high maximum bets is a volatility disaster.

"At a 1.2 percent house advantage, a maximum bet of $250,000 played for 1,000 hands will result in an expected win of $3 million but (within two standard deviations) will vary between a loss for the casino of $12.5 million and a casino win of $18.5 million in 95 percent of occasions."
HOLY VOLATILITY BAT-MAN!

We are going to continue this discussion and looking at why the RIO got out of the high-end baccarat business, when the propellor heads at Harrah's purchased the property from Marnell in 1999.

In an effort to blog on a more consistent basis; I'm going to be setting out an agenda for each week (every Sunday or Monday).

So, this week's agenda will include :

- continued discussion of big baccarat and volatility
- brief history of the RIO Casino, the purchase by Harrah's, and the end of high stakes baccarat at the RIO
- a look at the Palazzo Suites (at RIO) built for the high stakes baccarat royalty

and just in time for the new movie release, we will look at the new movie "21!"




but, take a trip back to the "original real deal blackjack team" --- yeah, NOT the MIT Blackjack Team --- but the "wandering Jew" and his crew in the 1970's.

Labels: 21 movie, baccarat, big baccarat, high stakes baccarat, las vegas, mit blackjack team, palazzo suites at rio, rio, wandering jew

a great report on Macau from civicmon Very much appreciated!

I was just in Macau last week and just wanted to give you a quick report since as the Baccarat king you'd have a heart attack if you saw Macau.

It's the game of choice, no doubt. It's known that 85% of Macau's gaming revenues come from Baccarat alone. In reality, I'd estimate 90% of all gaming tables at all casinos are Baccarat. I'm sure you're aware of the Chinese superstitions with gambling so I'll spare you the bulk of my comments but it's quite a sight.

I went to the Grand Lisboa (think the new Stanley Ho/STDM "Leaf" tower casino) and did fairly good at my game of blackjack. Went down pretty good but won most of it all back. That casino has 3 floors, effectively as the Chinese number floors with the "1st" floor actually what we call the 2nd floor, of gaming.

Baccarat is obviously king with minimums running into hundrends of thousands of HK$ and VIP rooms for parties and stuff but for the average guy, minimums are either $50/$100 HKD, so about US$7.5/$13 (US$1 = HK$7.75 at a fixed rate) I was there over a weekday night and the places weren't packed but there was more than enough business to make the place work.

The Grand Lisboa claims to offer the first craps game in Macau and Hold'em.. had two live hold'em tables with pit bosses from Australia running the games as well as one craps table. I'm unsure if the other majors have them as I never independently verified that. Typical Chinese games such as SicBo, their wonder-wheel sort of games are there but not in the sheer numbers that one finds the Baccarat tables.

There's a huge boom there but now there's arguments of oversupply. I was in the Wynn Macau which is a carbon copy of the Las Vegas property, but just smaller. Even has an Okada restaurant. There's a MGM, Crown Casino (an Aussie group) the infamous Venetian, the Sands, Pointe 16, most of the older STDM joints and a couple more (Macau "Studio City" for one) coming down the pipe. That's what is just opened now and there are already more under construction which includes expansions.

That being said, I think you'd enjoy a trip to HKG/Macau. Chinese casinos are not known to be lavish on the comps but that being said, if you got real money it can be done, however "real money" in numbers is always up for debate, just avoid the major Chinese holidays to up your chances (May 1, Chinese NY and some other time in August or October). I didn't even recall if alcohol was comped at tables as I just normally stick to water anyways. No one tried to sell me on player cards or anything, but I believe the Grand Lisboa and I know the Wynn had their own cards. Not sure about the Wynn's convertibility between their Las Vegas and Macau sites, likewise for LV Sands properties. Just watch the summers there.. imagine Orlando with casinos. It was in the low 70s F when I was there so it was really nice.

There are non-stop flights EWR/JFK-HKG and via ORD, SFO, LAX, YVR, YYZ etc. Spend a few days in HKG which is an awesome place if you never been and then a few more in Macau with some gaming and sight seeing as there's a slew of historical and culturally significant sites due to the unique heritage of the area.

Shanghai is about 3 hrs away flying from Hong Kong/Macau. There's some tricks to getting to Macau cheaper from Shanghai if you tag along on the trip itself (basically, gotta fly into the Chinese border city which can be more work than it's worth) as flights between Shanghai-Macau are overloaded with Taiwanese who are flying back/forth to Taiwan, thus the prices can be insane even at the best of times. Not sure about Seoul/Tokyo although a Macau-based charter get was supposed to fly Macau-Tokyo but not sure if that ever came about. HKG is an amazing airport inside and out, however, the train can have you at HK Island in about 25 minutes.

Macau can be done in one day as they're "turbojets" which are basically high-speed catamarans that run between a couple of HK (and Chinese) spots and back out in the evening. Tickets are easy to come by even just minutes before a launch, provided it's not a Friday or anything. Run something like every 15 min during peak times and once a half-hour in the overnight hours

One day will NEVER do the place justice if the visitor is a gambler.. Even the wife should be able to enjoy a few things there, I would think as the territory itself is pretty neat with a lot of Portuguese-inspired architecture and narrow, fascinating back streets and a nearly 500 year European history which is unparalled for anywhere else in Asia just based on it's uniqueness. The city is changing in a major way and I'm almost tempted to say that it really has turned into a mini-Vegas, it's not always all for the better. That being said, the territory was nothing more than a weird backwater until gambling hit the city and despite China closing off, Hong Kong became a world financial power.

I was last in Macau 5 years ago and it's insane how different the place is. The Wynn/MGM are on a stretch of reclaimed land called "Nape" (or, Na-Pay) which is directly opposite where the classic Lisboa is. North of there is some sort of Fisherman's Wharf complex which is designed to suck some of the people away from the Casinos but hasn't really taken off very well. The Pointe 16 is weird, it's on the opposite side of the territory directly opposite the Chinese mainland (and a very pleasant Chinese city called Zhuhai with some AWESOME food! Probably the best local cuisine on the Chinese mainland). Most of the rest of the developments such as the Venetian and some more local joints are a bit south of the peninsula proper on another stretch of reclaimed land called the Cotai Strip, between COloane and TAIpa islands (hence the name). There's a ferry that runs straight from HK direct to Taipa now although most go to the "Termino Maritimo" as it's known in Portuguese in Macau.

Weird stuff with Portuguese language there (case in point: "STOP" is like we see here, but they'll have DUI warnings in Portuguese...) but virtually no one speaks it other than the handful of Portuguese who are still there and most anyone who speaks anything other than Cantonese/Mandarin will speak English.

I stayed at a small guesthouse instead of one of the casinos but while I'm sure the service and facilities are top notch, don't expect a slew of "side activities" as Tryst at the Wynn Macau is closing (or closed, unsure the actual status) due to lower than forecast usage and aside from the usual gold-crusted rolexs and ferrari dealer, the shopping in the territory is bland at best. Most people from Macau just go to China these days as the prices are a lot better anyways.

Good deals can be had on the weekdays as well. The Macau Ferry Terminal aka "Shun Tak Center" on HK Island has a hundred travel agents who can usually give you a good deal on a room and get the turbojet tickets thrown in for free on top of that. Weekends see the obvious price rises that AC sees.

FWIW, and this is somewhat important, but HK$ are the currency of choice there. Macau has a currency known as the Pataca (usually signed "MOP") which trades at US$1/MOP 8.15 vs. US$1/HKD$ 7.75 - The Chinese RMB is just about at US$1/7RMB but the cages and dealers usually only want HKD but will change anything else into HKD to buy chips at a currency change booth. Virtually everyone outside the casinos will take HK$ at an assumed 1:1 rate but surprisingly they didn't at McDonalds when I wanted a soda and some nuggets as an entry fee to use their bathroom. So I just ran in and split Long story short: If you go, don't sweat not having MOP but get a fistfull of HK$. Most ATMs outside the casinos give HK$ or MOP, it'll ask. You can also change USD as well but MAKE SURE YOU HAVE PERFECT, CRIPS BILLS at the casinos This cannot be stated enough as they reject bills for the most minute problems. It was the source of most North Korean forged US$ which is a lot of the reason. Most moneychangers on the streets and alleys will accept the imperfect ones but they're typically not near the casinos.

In Macau, you can also bet on soccer and NBA using typical Vegas lines but there's not a lot of that going on at all. The Grand Lisboa had it.

If you really want to see an old Chinese gambling hall, the "Lisboa" is your best bet. This may be torn down in the near term but it was the original "resort" casino that the city had for 30 or so years before the Americans came in. It's everything you expect from a gambling hall, crowded tables, lots of screaming and no fresh air. It's crowded, clustered and interesting although the new casinos do have a more "fresh" appeal to them. There's a few more shadier ones out there as well from the old Stanley Ho monopoly days.

Labels: baccarat, civicmon, macau

Yep,

It's back for 2008; and even bigger and better (well, I guess we can't say better.... YET...).

First event of the season is the weekend of 26th, April.

Special thanks to the Tourney Director, Harv and the blog-master (and photographer), Bob.

Check out the new MPT Blog!

If there is anyone out there interested in joining this fun, social event --- give a shout!

Labels: atlantic city, mattress poker, poker

believe me, it's still going on now!

also, love how it was a player streak! --- no commission!

Labels: baccarat, cheating, scam, vegas