Matching Ellis’ Shadow

The ZZ pattern of Rivers–Horseshoe–Rivers–Horseshoe has now been broken with a Repeat of Horseshoe.  In my fifth session since returning from Ellis’ NOR seminar, I returned to Horseshoe yesterday and played two shoes.

When I arrived in the baccarat annex, I immediately spotted what I thought was a good opportunity: a nicely chopping pattern, high in 1s and 2s, and only 1 run of 3.  It was at a table I had eyed during my fourth session on Friday as having fairly consistent biases.  I eagerly jumped in mid-shoe to start playing chop.  There were no available seats at the table, so I had to juggle cards, chips, and elbows while balancing precariously on my toes from behind the seated players.

Unfortunately, right after I started betting, the first shoe proceeded with a few modest runs of lengths 4 and 3, and I immediately found myself in a -10u ditch after losing a 1234 progression.  It got slightly worse from there, and I hit a low of -12u.  Normally, I would’ve stopped out at -8u, but there was something strikingly consistent about this shoe, and remembering what I had learned from Ellis, I forged ahead and eventually climbed back past break-even to end the shoe at +1u, with a net Player’s Advantage of +0.98%.  Quite honestly, without the knowledge I had learned from Ellis, I would have lost this shoe entirely.  Moreover, this morning after reviewing my posted shoes from yesterday, Ellis offered more helpful tips on how to improve my play in those situations in the future.

The second shoe was a yawner;  I spotted another developing chopping bias in a new game starting at the next table, the same table I had quickly won the second and third shoes from my last trip.   Like last time, I quickly reached my target of +10u, only having to make a 3u bet once (which won), and all the other bets were 1u and 2u.  For this shoe, my net P.A. was a fabulous +40.87%.

So, with this session win of +11u, my total winnings to date after returning from the NOR seminar is +44u.   I have now matched the gross number of units I had won (+43u) while shadowing Ellis in the 5 out of 6 games I had witnessed him play in Pennsylvania and Atlantic City.

In the 5 games Ellis played, his overall net P.A. was +26.44%

In the 9 games I’ve played to match his gross score, my overall net P.A. is +9.62%.

In the 14 games I’ve played since meeting Ellis, I am up +87u  (+79.45u net) with an overall net P.A. of +14.37%.

And I’m just a novice in his group, barely beginning!

In these 14 games, I have placed 553u total bets, so the mathematical expectation of my score should be hovering around -6u.  This is on average what the casinos expected to have made from me by now, assuming I were playing a random game.  Yet in the past few weeks since meeting Ellis, I have not lost a single session (the worst one was break even), and I have scored +87u by betting ultra conservatively, essentially flat betting 1u upon each win, and increasing by 1u on each loss with a maximum bet capped at 4u.  I rarely had to make a 4u bet.

While Ellis says these results are typical of his successful BTC students, some making their livings entirely on their baccarat winnings thanks to what they had learned from Ellis, I have interacted with other members who report they are still have difficulty consistently winning.  Some have tried to use Ellis’ table selection procedures, but found they are  not consistently accurate enough to rely upon.  Others have formed their own private groups and are independently pursuing avenues apart from Ellis.

Ellis always makes himself available to help those who might be struggling, giving out his cell phone number openly to all his students.  For example, he has spent literally hundreds of hours in phone coaching sessions to help transform one of his students in Asia from a consistently losing to winning player.  If only he had the resources to spend that much time and energy personally mentoring each one of his students, perhaps everyone could also be likewise winning.

His forum does help broaden his ability to answer individual questions for the benefit of all; he does promptly and diligently respond to all questions posted, and his forum is a prolific record of the knowledge, wisdom, and tips from a master of the game.  My routine has been to upload my trip reports and scorecards after each session, and his feedback and comments help me and other members continue improving our games.

With regards to computational testing, Ellis and his student John claim to have computationally tested one of his earlier approaches and demonstrated a positive expectancy over many thousands of live shoes. They are confident the code was accurate, but since it was run on live shoes collected by BTC members who are taught only to play biased shoes, the data set may be overall biased. I proposed to independently verify their results and statistically analyze their shoe sample for signatures of any persistent bias.  I have also proposed simulating Ellis’ table selection process, if he can express them in a concrete set of definite, procedural rules.  So far, though, I have not received any data or procedures from them for such studies. If and when they do, of course, I will post the results of my analyses here.

In the mean time, my journey continues, and I am quite pleased it is solidly positive.

Shoes played:

1. P211111131212411311211131122111113
2. P4222111111213121212111