Rules of Baccarat
How to play baccarat
The rules of baccarat are simple, although there are several variations. These relate mainly to when the bank and players will take another card, rather than any basic differences in how the game is played.
At a basic level, baccarat is very simple, so you can get started very easily and quickly. Once you get a feel for the game though, you will realise you can have some feeling for how the game is going and try to sense which cards are likely to come from the shoe next.
Don't think this is easy though, it is a very difficult game to gain any sort of advantage by trying to count the cards and try to work out the odds of which cards will come up next, based on what has gone before. Baccarat is fast and the way face cards are counted makes it less likely you will remember which cards have been played.
Basics
You will be familiar with the game of pontoon or twenty-ones, which goes under a variety of names, such as the French equivalent vingt-et-un, or in casinos it is known as blackjack. Well if you can play blackjack, you can play baccarat.
The idea of baccarat is not to get twenty-one but to get nine, yes, just nine, from two cards or more. That sounds difficult, but the rules of baccarat make it much easier than you would think, because you can't go bust in the ordinary sense.
This is because you ignore the tens when you add up, just counting the units, or single numbers. So, if you are dealt a five and an eight, you would immediately think you were bust. Not so, though, you add five plus eight, making thirteen, ignore the ten and you have a score of three.
This is nowhere near nine, so you clearly need another card. Say you are then dealt a six, you have nine, the highest possible score in baccarat. Wait, though, although nine is the highest possible score, your hand is not the highest possible scoring hand.
The highest possible score in baccarat is a natural. This is when the first two cards you are dealt in a hand add up to nine. A natural is unbeatable. As well as a natural nine, you can also have a natural eight, although a nine will still beat an eight.
How to count the cards
The rules for counting the score of your cards are also simple. The number cards two to nine are counted at face value. Easy so far. An ace is always counted as one. Yes, that is quite easy to understand.
The next bit is a little more difficult to grasp and takes a bit of getting used to, when you are putting it into practice. All face cards and tens are counted as zero, which means in effect, you can ignore face cards.
Actually they are probably counted as ten, but in baccarat tens don't count, so being counted as ten and as zero mean the same thing.
So, if you are dealt a four and a five, you have a natural, you have won, or at worst, drawn. If you are dealt two queens, your score is zero, so you must take another card. If you draw a nine, you may win, as nine is the highest score, but another nine will draw with you, and if it is a natural nine, that is a nine from the first two cards, as we have mentioned above, it will beat your nine made up of three cards.
Now, all this is fine, it is great that it is so simple and easy to score, but what good does it do us? Well, in baccarat, it is possible not only to bet on your own hand, but you can choose to bet on the bank's hand if you prefer. So your mind is clear of calculations, assuming you can add up to nine without breaking sweat.
The benefit of this is that are free to watch the cards and the other players, get a feel for the game, how the cards are running, which will help you increase your chances of success.
Just to make it a little more difficult, in baccarat you are allowed to bet on a draw.
However, remember it is just a simple game of chance, and whether you win depends entirely on which cards come out of the shoe!
There are various rules about when the player and the bank are dealt additional cards, and these rules vary according to the type of baccarat you are playing and where you are playing it.
It is enough to say that you have no control over the cards you are dealt and whether you stick or are dealt additional cards is largely determined by the rules, so there is very little you can do to change the odds of winning or losing, so your betting strategy is all important.
And that's where the fun starts!