October 13, 2020 1:55 AM PDT
With European appeal and all the glitz and glamour, baccarat can be a little intimidating at first. However, behind the tough exterior, you’ll find a decent card game with only three possible outcomes per hand. In fact, there’s little to no skill required to get started.
Like most table games like Blackjack, baccarat uses three to six standard 52-card decks which are shuffled together and placed in a dealing machine called the ‘shoe.’ Playing the game is as simple as it can get.
Despite what it might sound like, the croupier does all the heavy-lifting, including dealing out the cards from the shoe. All you have to do is place your bet, sit back, and let the fall of the cards decide your fate.
First things first: you have to wager using chips/tokens/checks on the Player hand, Bank hand, or make a tie bet.
The croupier will then deal out two cards to the Player (also known as the Punter), and two cards to the Banker, all of them face up. The goal here is to guess which hand has a count that’s as close to 9 as possible.
● Cards 2 through 9 carry their face values.
● Each of the Tens (10s) and Face (also called Court = J, Q, and K) cards has a numerical value equal to zero (0).
● Every Ace card counts as 1 numerically.
The values of the two cards are added to determine the worth of each hand. If the Player has 2 and Q, for instance, then the hand is worth 2 points. If the Banker has 3 and 5, the hand’s value is 8.
If the total of any hand is more than 9, the count is adjusted by deducting 10 or by dropping the sum’s first digit. Therefore, if the hand’s two cards are 9 and 6, the total comes up to 5 and not 15.
Each hand can hold up to three cards, and there are rules specified by the casino on whether the Player hand or Banker will receive a third drawcard. Most house rules dictate that a Player must stand when the count is 6 or 7.
When the Player hand is worth less than 5, a third card is drawn. If the count is exactly 5, the Player can either stand or call for a third card.