Flute Player

One of the things I find myself doing using Avant Dernier in baccarat is to only bet on the dominant color on it’s turn. For example, say the shoe is running 57% Banker, therefore I ignore the Player bets and just bet Banker when it’s turn comes up. This helps to slow down the pace of the game.

At least for me, when I’m stressed out or upset, I don’t eat or sleep well. The upside is I usually lose a few pounds.

I’ve mentioned it before, but when I watch documentaries on World War 1, and World War 2, I am watching images of people that are all dead (well certainly all the WWI people are and probably 99% of the WWII folk too). It’s really not that long ago, and yet it is. Entire generations gone forever. Just their images on film remain.

The horrific photographs of the dead in WWI (including women and children) is only diminished somewhat in it’s impact by the film being in black and white and often poor resolution. The truth is that tens of millions of people were slaughtered in these wars. Mankind at it’s worst.

If you’re a man, don’t talk to women dealers at the casino – they might get the wrong idea. Even if you think you’re just being social, some women dealers may interpret any exchange as inappropriate. Probably shouldn’t make eye contact or look at them either. Just let them deal the cards, nothing more. Or better yet, avoid the tables with women dealers completely. Unfortunately, such is the current atmosphere surrounding the male gambler in America’s casinos.

I’m heavier than I’d like to be. Since I started keeping track in 2007, I’m up about 10 pounds. I know what the likely cause is — beer, bread, chips, pizza and too much of it. When I cut down on these things, my weight drops. Simple as that.

There a lot of good documentaries now on diet on Netflix and Amazon Prime. The big takeaway from most of them is to watch out for sugar, vegetable oils and processed foods in general. For years I’ve been pretty good about avoiding sugar, but vegetable oils was not something I paid much attention to. Now I’m making an effort to avoid those foods that use any oils other than olive, coconut or peanut. No canola, safflower, cottonseed or vegetable oils if I can help it.

I went into the casino last night and from a distance saw someone I preferred not dealing with. Ended up leaving rather than risk the encounter.

Last night I used the Rada tomato knife, but not on a tomato. I used it to cut a big brown onion and was amazed at just how easily it did the job. Because it’s so thin and small it feels almost surgical using it, but it really worked great. However, I’m probably going back to my 5 inch Analon Santoku because I prefer crunching through the onion with a blade rather than drawing through it.

In talking with baccarat dealers, I invariably find myself promoting Avant Dernier and Last Bet systems as rational responses to an irrational situation. Choice of Banker or Player for each hand being strictly dictated by the shoe, not guess work. In so doing, each system affords the possibility of capitalizing on streaks (or jumps, as is the case of Avant Dernier), when the shoes line up with the systems — something impossible to do by guessing.

For people trying to use either Avant Dernier or Last Bet to choose their baccarat bets, the trick is being able to determine which kind of shoe they’re dealing with. This sometimes can be particularly difficult at the beginning when only a few hands have been played. However, at some point for many shoes it becomes obvious that they either have a vertical or horizontal bias. For vertical shoes, betting the Last Bet is the logical choice. For horizontal shoes, Avant Dernier.

Windy day and I’m sneezing my head off. The pollen/allergy season has arrived.