Traditional and Mini Baccarat

Baccarat is not a game that most people grow up with, but having recently been introduced to the game I must wonder why: it's fun, fast, and exciting, here's how it works.

In a traditional game there will be 15 seats each with a position on the table; each table is worked by three dealers, and the dealer will stand in between the 15 and 1 seat; the dealer is responsible for the running of the game even though in a traditional baccarat game he is not holding the shoe; as such he is usally referred to as the 'caller'.

The shoe will go from player to player, and when it's your turn to have the shoe, you must bet with the bank; if however you don't wish to deal you can simply pass the shoe to the next player; no one will think anything of it.

When you deal the cards, you pass them to the caller who will place them correctly; having given each player their two cards he will request a further card if required or simply acknowledge the victor.

So that's how the game works, it's simple right? And the betting and objectives are just as straight forward to understand.

The betting occurs after the cards have been dealt and involves betting against the bank, or indeed with the bank; therefore there are three possible options for betting each of which will be represented by a place on the table in front of you in your position; they will be marked player, bank, tie. Which ever you choose, you simply place your chips on that position. Once the hand is over, the other two dealers take care of clearing the table and paying up bets.

The aim or objective of the game is the only thing still to tell you about; the idea is to get to 9. There is a twist however in that once the value of your cards gets to 10 it returns to zero, so a 6 and a 5 is in fact only worth 1 because only the amount above the 10 counts; if you don't get to 10, for example 3 and 3, that's fine and you have a hand of six. Face cards, in a twist to their usual prowess are worth 0 in baccarat; so a pair of kings leaves you with a hand that is quite literally worthless.

Mini baccarat as the lay mans version is usually referred has a similar ethos to traditional baccarat but with slight changes, such as the shoe not passing and there being only 6 seats at the table. Usually the minimums and maximums of a mini-baccarat table are lower and therefore somewhat more affordable than the traditional table.

I was very pleasantly surprised with how easily I took to baccarat, how fun it was and how exciting; I highly recommend giving it a whirl.