Macau 澳門小游

[chin]

Some very colorful fireworks by the French team.

[chin]

The blue ones were nice. But I probably under-exposed these pictures.

[chin]

After the fireworks show finished, I walk back from the second location back to Grand Lisboa by the bridge. It was a nice 40 min walk, and I think I may have found a better location to take firework pictures in Macau. See the marking on the map in #61.

However there were 2 small problems with this location. First the bridge is mainly for motor traffic and the pedestrian space is less than 1 meter wide and just enough space for tripod. When I walk on the bridge, there were many time passing vehicles zooming by only 2 feet from me.

The second small problem was the time required to walk to the right spot on the bridge. That means need to budget at least 20 min just for the walk.

[wongyan]

The French firework is very stylish, very elegant.  I wonder if the color shown is 100% matching the color of the nake eyes.  I felt the colors are "colder" than usual fireworks!!!

[hangchoi]

These pictures are nice enough to be a post card already....


Yes...I like the French team more...it looks simpler in style but it has a finer and good colour contrast.

[chin]

Wongyan, my monitors were color calibrated, and the pictures look quite OK. I have the color calibration device in the office. You can borrow it to calibrate your monitor.

The Japanese ones were flashier, and the general impression from people around me and my family was that they like the Japanese one better. Only when looking at the pictures then I found the French one are also quite unique.

And don't forget, when I take pictures of the Japanese one, it was really my first time so the timing, etc.. may not be very good and missed a few good ones.

[wongyan]

Wongyan, my monitors were color calibrated, and the pictures look quite OK. I have the color calibration device in the office. You can borrow it to calibrate your monitor.

The Japanese ones were flashier, and the general impression from people around me and my family was that they like the Japanese one better. Only when looking at the pictures then I found the French one are also quite unique.

And don't forget, when I take pictures of the Japanese one, it was really my first time so the timing, etc.. may not be very good and missed a few good ones.

I've tried both my old monitor at home and my dell laptop.  Still the color is colder than I expected.  Sounds I need a better monitor and then borrow your calibration kit.

[chin]

I've tried both my old monitor at home and my dell laptop.  Still the color is colder than I expected.  Sounds I need a better monitor and then borrow your calibration kit.

Then may be you percetion of coolness is different from mine. 

[chin]

The only reason that I can think of about peeking and rubing the card is.......to increase the excitement of the game...sometime you may hear they say something like "三邊". Merely an emotional movement. Anyhow, Baccarat is the most "fair" game in casino, as far as I know.

About the slot machine, there will be no fun at all if they do that....

I am reading a book about casino table game design, and came upon some interesting tidbits about baccarat.

1. House Edge. The book did not list the actual house edge of baccarat, but did imply that the house edge in this game is small. The author of the book mentioned this site, and I found a house edge table in the below link. You make notice that in Blackjack, the house edge seems very small, but that's assuming the player playing perfect strategy. Any deviation from the perfect strategy means more edges to the house!
http://wizardofodds.com/houseedge

2. Drop & Hold. In casino management terminology, Drop is the amount gamblers changed from cash to chips, and Hold is the percentage of Drop retained or won by casinos. Hold is a function of all of the following - house edge, speed of play, stake sizing, etc... In baccarat, the hold is actually on the low side of around 10% (vs around 12% for blackjack and 20% for roulette.) However, the Drop of baccarat is very large. In Nevada in 2009, the number of baccarat table is only 1/15 of that for blackjack, but generated 70% as much Drop in the 12-month period. In the same period, craps has twice as many tables as baccarat but only generated 40% as much Drop as baccarat. So per table profit in very large in baccarat. (Note these are only Nevada numbers.)

3. Characteristics of Baccarat.
- "The players are highly superstitious"
- For the Asian markets
- Baccarat players are generally more upscale. (I don't quite understand this point, perhaps he meant the larger average bet amount?!)

None of the above concepts are really new, but it's still interesting to see concrete numbers and research from people in the industry. So yes baccarat is more fair than other casino games, but on average players are betting sufficiently large amount in this negative edge game such that they loss just like any other suckers.

[q]

3. Characteristics of Baccarat.
- "The players are highly superstitious"
- For the Asian markets
- Baccarat players are generally more upscale. (I don't quite understand this point, perhaps he meant the larger average bet amount?!)

By "more upscale" I think the author may mean Baccarat players tend to be richer than the average player of other games.