Baccarat (pronounced "Bah-Caw-Rah") means zero in Italian. Although it is often associated with classy James Bond types in tuxedos, playing for big stakes, the game itself is quite easy to learn. It's a table game you use cards to play it. Unlike Blackjack, it is impossible to overdraw in Baccarat. The most important thing to know is whether you are betting on the Player, on the Bank or on Tie in every online casinos.
Betting on a Tie is not really recommended because it decreases your odds of winning. Baccarat, like most casino games, is a game of chance and relies completely on then luck of the draw. Unlike games like poker with multiple hands played, there is no key strategy, bluffing or serious decision making in Baccarat. All you must decide is which hand you think will win.
It doesn't matter where you sit at the baccarat table because unlike in Blackjack you are not playing against other players or against the house. The only thing you are betting against is the cards. It doesn't matter what the other players bet on or how much they bet.
Casino Baccarat is played with eight decks of cards Jokers are not allowed. At the beginning of a new casino game or when the Cut Card in the Shoe is dealt, the dealer will shuffle all decks together and put them back in the shoe, also called "The Bank". Then he will take the first card out and the value of this card decides how many cards will be Burned (or removed from the game). If the value of the first card is a four, for instance, the dealer will take the next four cards out of the shoe and discard them in a tray next to it along with the first card. The baccarat game is now ready to play. At the beginning of the new casino game the shoe or the bank is given to the player on the right of the dealer. Each player is given the bank in turn and can hold the bank as long as the bank wins. Once the bank looses it moves on to the next player. Before the cards are dealt each baccarat player must place a bet.
The hand closest to nine wins. If the first two cards dealt count Eight or Nine it is called a "Natural" and wins automatically, unless both hands have the same value then it is of course a Tie. When nobody has a natural additional cards are drawn to determine the baccarat winner. If the hand you bet on wins you get a one to one payoff. You can also bet on a Tie where you get a one to eight payoff but a Tie is very rare, it occurs less than once in ten hands. When there is a Tie and you did not bet on it nobody looses or wins.
Value of the cards in Baccarat:
• Tens, Jacks, Queens and Kings count 0.
• The Ace counts One
• Cards from Two to Nine are at Face Value.
At first the value of the cards might seem a little odd, but it's really simple to understand. In Baccarat you always have to keep in mind that the fist digit in a two-digit number does not count. That is why the Ten, Jack, Queen and the King count 0 and the Ace only one. This is not only the case with single card values but also with the result of two cards combined. So if you draw an eight in baccarat and a three, for instance, the value of both together would be eleven but since the first digit does not count your hand counts only one.
