Baccarat & Mini-Baccarat Quick Tips

This article serves as a mini-education offering strategies, rules and a brief outline of the game delivered in quick informational bites.

1) You bet on either of the two hands to win-Banker or Player. 2) Additional wager is the Tie Bet. 3) The house edge is under 1.5% with strategic play. 4) All number cards, 2 through 9, count as their face value or the number of pips on the card.All 10s and face cards count as 10. Aces count as 1. 5) No hand can be worth more than 9. 6) To quickly determine the value of a hand greater than 9, simply use the last digit of the total number-e.g., use 9 for 19, 0 for 20 or 7 for 17. 7) An average shoe will deal about 82 hands

Strategy:

8) It is important to remember that no hand is too bad or too good to win initially, because the count can change with the third card, if one is required. 9) One decision: bet Player or Banker hand. You bet on either of the two hands to win. 10) Avoid the Tie Bet as it has a 14% casino advantage. 11) Mathematically, the Banker hand has a slight edge over the Player hand, because of the third card rules. 12) Bank will win 38 times, Player 36 wins, and 8 ties (about every 10th hand). 13) Banker hands win more because the bank stands on a 7, 8 or 9. 14) Alternatively, Player stands on 6, 7, 8 and 9. Bank can draw on a 6 where player cannot. 15) However, the casinos have come up with a solution to this Banker advantage. They charge Players a 5% commission each time they bet on the Banker hand and win. 16) Card-counting basics are as follows: Cards more favorable to the Banker hand are 9-8-10-J-Q-K. 17) 4-3-2-5 are Player favorable cards. 18) Ace, 6 and 8 are neutral; no favor for either hand. 19) Bet Player when there is a higher ratio of twos through fives in the deck 20) Bet Banker when there is a higher ratio of high cards in the deck. 21) Try Mini-Baccarat, especially if you are a low-limit or novice player.

The only difference between mini-baccarat and the full-size version of the game is that, in mini-baccarat, all hands are dealt by a dealer--not the players.

A final Quick Tip: I suggest you print out this Baccarat mini-education for future use.

Gayle Mitchell More about author This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.