Below post is David Sofer’s 2011 response to an article “Does A Harvard Education Help You Win Baccarat”

Sir,

Many thanks for the information.

Here is what I have to say about this.

This is a very cynical age we live in, some even call it a “neurotic epoch” of history. Everybody questions everybody’s intentions, it’s the way it is, but it is a free world, and I have absolutely no complaints about it and would have it no other way.

And if someone wants to criticize someone else, at any level of detail or analysis, that’s perfectly okay, too, but it is up to people to weigh all of the arguments and to assess the methods and motives underlying them.

The problem with this instant analysis is that it has very little to do with how Baccarat gamblers actually gamble at Baccarat, no one does play or should play “robotically” at Baccarat or any other casino table game for that matter.

As for me, I am one of the best followers of Zuan Xin and very proud to say so, he has made a contribution to the Baccarat literature that is unparalleled, many many thousands of Baccarat gamblers across the world, many of them serious gambling addicts who lose a lot of money that nobody can afford to lose, have become Baccarat players by studying his teachings online that are available free of charge at MacauCasinoWorld.

Please see the following chart of Macau casino Baccarat winnings.

Gross revenue from games of fortune in 2005-2010
Monthly Gross Revenue from Games of Fortune in 2009 and 2010
Monthly Gross Revenue from Games of Fortune in 2011 and 2010

All analytics aside, this is an epidemic, and that is what Zuan Xin was interested in impacting. Trillions of Hong Kong dollars will be wagered in the Baccarat rooms of the world this year! And tens of billions will be lost!

You should know, that those who have actually participated in special learnings have been for the most part very happy that they did, it is a large commitment of time and effort to conduct a special learning properly and that is why tuition has to be charged. Everyone that inquires is urged first to study harder and more rigorously, most never contact us again, and that’s what we want. Special learnings are not an ongoing business.

The Baccarat Great Learning, “Baijialedaxue” in Chinese, is constantly misunderstood to be a “system” and it is not that at all. What Zuan Xin did was reveal the deep underlying mathematical structure of a game that both the Baccarat casino professionals and their casino gambler “customers” generally believe is a game of luck with no underlying mathematical structure.

Attached please find the classic saying of one of the Asian “gods of gambling” Dai Zilang to that effect, also an article that was published by Sing Tao in December 2007.

Those who practice “best quality discipline” using the “Baijialedaxue” of Zuan Xin play very carefully and very conservatively after selecting the shoes that they will play very diligently, this is what Zuan Xin teaches, in the same way Edward O. Thorp used his “Beat the Dealer” approach to Blackjack very carefully and very conservatively.

I would close by advising you that the large casino companies all employ “mathematical consultants” who have torn apart every table game that you see on the casino floor from virtually every mathematical angle and brought about the implementation of countermeasures against any and every approach that conveys even the possibility of advantage play.

Zuan Xin has never claimed that he developed a “system” that can be played “robotically” and defeat the casinos at their most important and most profitable table game of Baccarat, but for the many many thousands of followers of his Baccarat Great Learning worldwide, the Baccarat playing field has been leveled.

I think Oscar Wilde once said that the cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, all of us should remember that, we should question people’s intentions when there are grounds for that and full understanding underlying such grounds, but there is no virtue in cynicism for cynicism’s sake.

Thanks again for writing in to me, and I hope that these comments have been helpful for you.

As our Baccarat master Zuan Xin said, “Be a player, not a gambler!”

Best regards,

David Sofer