Some Baccarat Terminology Explained...
James Bond may fight the forces of evil with his expert understanding of Baccarat but chances are you might need some help. Your stakes may be a couple hundred dollars instead of the Free World, but even so, those are your hard earned dollars! So let’s help you turn them into a winning bet by understanding Baccarat a bit more.
Today we’ll be discussing dealing, calling, and the shoe.
Baccarat, like many other games, has a few variations. We have Mini Baccarat which seats a grand total of seven players. Then there’s American Baccarat which is regular Baccarat. Fourteen players at a time can play normal Baccarat and the rules for dealing and calling are the pretty much the same. There are some variations with the amount of cards in the shoe.
On a regular Baccarat table we’ll have two dealers. One dealer handles each side of the table with a responsibility to deal for at least seven people. On the other side standing across from the dealers in a small oval shaped indention stands the “Croupier” (a sort of overseer/caller). Depending on the Baccarat variation either the dealer or croupier will hand out the cards. Cards one and three are the Player’s hand and cards two and four belong to the Banker’s hand. If no winners or ties exist additional cards will be dealt. Neither the player nor dealer can decide to stop the dealing or request additional cards. Dealing additional cards is dependent on a slightly complicated formula based on your score verses the dealer’s score and sometimes the last dealt card.
To make the game easy to follow and to know if you won or lost, the croupier is in charge of calling out the results of the hand including what’s going on though out the round. Sometimes this person will also be a standalone dealer; it just depends on the Baccarat variant and casino. Having a croupier doing the calling out is a good thing because it allows you to just concentrate on betting without having to worry about complicated dealing formulas.
A “Shoe” is usually a long rectangular box containing several decks of cards. Baccarat will typically have a six or eight deck shoe. An eight deck shoe gives the house slightly less of an edge verses a six deck shoe.
Now you know about dealing, calling, and (non wearable) shoes. James would give you a slight nod of approval. Just don’t bet against him.
