Baccarat Strategy

Baccarat is a popular card game played at casinos, and usually occupies a playing area, separate from the main casino floor. Due to the high stakes at play, security and privacy are thereby ensured. It comprises a Banker, or 'Banco', and a Player, or a 'Punto'. This also gives rise to an alternative name of the game, namely, Punto Banco. This is a simple game in which there can be only one of three results - Bunco, Punto or Tie (also known as Standoff).

Playing Baccarat

The objective of Baccarat is to form a sum total of eight or nine out of the two or three cards that are dealt out. Cards are dealt out face down. Cards from numbers 2 till 9 are worth their face value, while 10's, Js, Qs and Ks are worth zero, and aces equal one. Cards are dealt out simultaneously to the banker and to the player. The hand with the highest score wins.

Game of Chance or Choice

Baccarat is a game that actually leaves no scope for chance. It is all about making a bet and winning.

• Betting on the Player's hand and winning fetches an amount equal to twice the amount that was bet.
• Betting on the Banker and winning also ensures twice the amount with a commission of 5% subtracted.
• Betting on the Tie and winning earns you nine times the amount that you had bet, while betting on the Tie and not winning gets you your bet back.

Strategizing Despite the Odds

Despite the bleak opportunity posed by the game to apply strategies to win, some Baccarat systems have emerged, mainly as tools to earn proceeds from their promotion and sales. They defeat the purpose of the game in the sense that Baccarat was never meant to be played with any systems or strategies applied to the method of playing described in brief, above.

One of the game strategies for betting is the Martingale system, within which the amount of the bet is doubled each time a game is lost. On betting on a winning hand, a profit worth the initial bet can be earned. This strategy is groundless as it requires a game with no betting limits and players with limitless resources. Another strategy is pattern watching, which entails recognizing patterns in the game. At times, sheets of paper with grids are handed out to players to mark the patterns. Often, Baccarat players look for tables that are playing with smaller number of decks. This, as it turns out, is also a falsehood since lesser decks imply more odds on the Tie.

One must, however, remember that Baccarat is a game of chance and strategies to make the odds favorable are a hopeless plausibility.