Baccarat Strategy

Baccarat is actually an easy casino game to play. Perhaps the most difficult thing about Baccarat is figuring out how to say it. It is “bah-caw-rah”, not “back-a-rat”. When playing online you’ll be able to play at greatly lower betting limits than actual brick and mortar casinos.

There are not any real choices for players to make other than someplace they’d like to wager each hand.  All the actions during the deal are made according to an existing set of rules, so asides from someplace to wager there is little to do other than wait and see what transpires.

Initially, players have the choice of laying a bet on either the dealers hand, the players hand, or a tie.  The hand then starts with the player and dealer getting 2  cards face up.  The winning hand is the one which gets closer to a count of nine as possible, with kings, queens and jacks worth 0, and all other cards at their value (aces at 1).  If the hand total goes over nine, 10 is removed from the count.  As an example, a 7 and a 6 would total 13, which makes for a hand total of 3 after ten is taken from the total.

Wagers made on the players hand pay even money, as with the bankers hand – though a small vigorish is charged on winning banker bets.  Tie bets pay 8 to 1, and aren’t really a good wager based on the liklihood of them occuring.

Following the first two cards, extra cards are dealt as needed. When a hand totals 9 or 8 after the opening deal, it is known as a “natural” – winning with no more cards being drawn – except if both hands are a “natural”, in which case it’s a tie. If no hand is a natural, additional cards are given out to establish the winning hand based on predetermined rules.

As there are no actual decisions to be made by the player besides the opening wager, there are really no strategies that can be applied, other than potentially counting cards and betting accordingly.