Two-Person Panda-8 Co-Count
There are times when you’re at a casino with a friend, and you want to count the EZ-Baccarat Dragon-7. Normally, it’s kind of boring, and you certainly don’t need two people to do it. While it’s a good advantage play, it’d be better and a lot more fun if your friend could help with the Panda-8. I’ve posted a very complicated Panda-8 count that yields about 22% of a fixed bet per shoe. I’ve also posted a super-simple Panda-8 co-count that only yields about 9% of a fixed bet per shoe, but is meant as a single-person add-on to the Dragon-7 count.
In this post, I’ve worked out a better Panda-8 co-count that can be easily tracked by a second person. You add its running count to the Dragon-7 RC to determine when to bet the Panda. The idea exploits the common values between the two counts, resulting in a simple Panda-8 co-count. I worked this out, because I plan to use it.
Here’s the taps for the Panda-8 co-count. You add its running count to the unbalanced Dragon-7 running count, and bet when the total count is +35 or higher. You’ll get about +13.4% of a fixed bet per shoe, on an average of 3.6 bets per shoe.
| Rank | Count |
|---|---|
| Six, Seven, King, Queen | +1 |
| Trey | -1 |
| Eight | -3 |
| Rank | Count |
|---|---|
| Four, Five, Six, Seven | -1 |
| Eight, Nine | +2 |
| Ace | +1 |
Panda-8 Co-Count with Dragon-7
With the simplified unbalanced count for the EZ-Baccarat Dragon-7, it’s occasionally fun to count a shoe and find opportunities to bet $25 – $100, to try to win $1000 – $4000. But overall, counting the Dragon gets pretty boring. It only takes a second to see the value of the hand, and to update your count. Then you spend a lot of time watching everyone think deeply about their next bets. Hopefully, the count gets to +32, so you can finally make a bet.
Counting the Dragon-7 would be pretty good if you could make about twice the +EV it offers (+52% of a fixed bet per shoe). Or at least it’d be fun if you could easily track the Panda-8 as well, to add some variety to the game. (I’ve previously posted a complicated Panda-8 count and a RCmin table that yields +22% of a fixed bet per shoe.)
Well, I can’t double the EV of the Dragon-7, nor can I easily get you the full +22% of the Panda. But, here’s an ultra-simplified Panda-8 co-count that you should be able to track alongside the Dragon-7. It’s an unbalanced count, for simplicity. It only has a few taps. The few (4) taps it has are equal to those of the Dragon-7 unbalanced count. Also, these are key taps (you focus on the +2 Nines for the Dragon; it uses the same +1 unbalanced Aces; finally, the -1 Fours and Fives are easy to remember, because they add up to 9). You should be able to track your main Dragon-7 count, then quickly scan the hand for its Panda-8 value.
| Card | Count Value |
|---|---|
| Ace | +1 |
| Four, Five | -1 |
| Nine | +2 |
Starting from a running count (RC) of 0, you should bet the Panda-8 when its count gets to +35. You’ll get an average of about 2 bets per shoe (when 16 cards are placed behind the cut card), and a profit of around +9.0% of a fixed bet per shoe. It’s not a whole lot, but it’ll make sitting around the baccarat table a little more fun/tolerable. Also, it’ll give you more cred with the degenerates watching their Player lines, Panda lines, and their second bankers 🙂
Thanks to Linus B for his initial work on the Panda co-count. I greatly simplified it here for us script-kiddies.
Panda-8 Bonus Bet @ EZ Baccarat
Read all my posts on the Panda-8 sidebet.
There’s another bonus bet on the EZ Baccarat table, called Panda-8, that pays 25-1 for a 3-card player 8 win. Using the same methods as the prior posts on countable baccarat side bets, I came up with the following card count values:
| Card | Count Value |
|---|---|
| Ace | 1 |
| Deuce | 1 |
| Trey | -2 |
| Four | -2 |
| Five | -2 |
| Six | -1 |
| Seven | -1 |
| Eight | -2 |
| Nine | 4 |
| Ten/Face | 1 |
The player should bet the Panda-8 when the true count is ≥ 11. (The plot below shows the EV curve crosses the x-axis at a true count of 10.5):
Use the following running count (RC) thresholds when betting the Panda-8 side bet:
| Hand # | RCMin |
|---|---|
| 55 | 31 |
| 56 | 29 |
| 57 | 28 |
| 58 | 27 |
| 59 | 26 |
| 60 | 25 |
| 61 | 24 |
| 62 | 23 |
| 64 | 21 |
| 65 | 20 |
| 66 | 19 |
| 67 | 18 |
| 68 | 17 |
| 69 | 16 |
| 70 | 15 |
| 71 | 14 |
| 72 | 13 |
| 73 | 12 |
| 74 | 11 |
| 75 | 10 |
| 76 | 9 |
| 77 | 8 |
| 78 | 6 |
| 79 | 5 |
| 80 | 4 |
| 81 | 3 |
| 82 | 2 |
| 83 | 1 |
| 84 | 0 |
Using the above RCmin thresholds, simulations showed a profit of 22% of a fixed bet per shoe, at an average 3.8 bets/shoe.
Discount Gambling 
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