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Baccarat is one of the easiest games to play with little or no skill. Baccarat is played at a table using a fixed set of rules for both the player and dealer. Players simply wager on which of the two hands of cards adds up to or comes closest to 9.
- Two cards are dealt for both the player and banker and depending on the initial cards dealt, a third card may be drawn. The winner is the cards whose total is closest to 9.
- The game is played with up to eight decks of cards. Each numbered card less than 10 is worth its face value and tens and face cards are worth zero. The player makes no decisions on drawing because it is done by the set rules. Other than placing the bet, there is no thinking required on the players part.
- Play begins by the players betting on either the "player", "banker", or "tie". After all bets are down, the dealer gives two cards each to both the player and banker positions. The winning hand is the hand whose total is closest to 9. A two card total of 9 is called a natural and cannot lose. The 8 is the second best hand and is also called a natural. If both player and banker are dealt identical hands, it is a tie and niether bank or player wins.
- If neither hand has a natural, the player's hand is always the first to be played, followed by the dealer. If the first two cards total five or less, another card is drawn. If they total six or seven, no furthur cards can be drawn. No more than a total of three cards can be drawn for either hand and when both hands have been played out, the total closest to nine wins.
Trends and Streaks
Every baccarat table will have scorecards and pencils for you to keep track of the outcome of every hand. Most players carefully analyze their scorecards and try to spot trends and streaks. A common streak play is to play the last winning hand. For example, if the bank just won, bet on the bank hand. If the players hand just won, make a bet on the player. This way you you are placing your bets on that hands streak and may want to slowly increase your bets but come back down when it loses. It is not uncommon to see streaks up to 15 or more on the same hand. However, keep in mind that counting cards in baccarat is not advantageous.
Tie Bet
Tie bets payoff is 8 to 1 but is a bad bet because of the house edge of over 14% compared to just 1% on either banker or player. Make it part of your playing strategy to never places a sucker bet on the tie.
One and Six Decks
The less decks the game is played with the better it is for you. You will only find one and six deck baccarat online. The house edge on a 6 deck game is the same for banker and player but the tie bet increases to 14.44% compared to 14.01%. In a single deck game, The house edge for banker drops to just 1.01% but raises the house edge on player to 1.29% compared to 1.24% on 8 deck games and raises the house edge on tie bets to an astonishing 15.75%!
Mini Baccarat
A number of casinos have installed a smaller version of the baccarat game played on standard blackjack-sized gaming tables. It is played by the exact same rules, but lacks the accoutrements of the formal version. The table is staffed by only one dealer who is responsible for handling the cards. The layout, however, conforms to the regular baccarat table and each of the seven seat positions correspond to a number and betting box with spots for banker, player, and tie. The limits are lower and usually range from a $2 to $5 minimum, up to $500 maximum. Lacking the formality and large group of players, mini-baccarat is played fast and is a good place to learn how to play.
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