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- Q:M1 How is Baccarat played?
-
- Baccarat is a card games that is usually dealt from a shoe that
- holds 6 or 8 decks of cards. Two hands are dealt by the house
- dealer, the "bank" hand and the "player" hand. Before the hands
- are dealt, the players can bet either on the bank hand or the
- player hand, or on a tie. Winning bets are paid 1:1, but a 5%
- commission is charged on bank bets. Tie bets are paid 8:1. Once
- a bet has been placed, there are no opportunities for the player
- to make decisions -- both the bank hand and the player hand are
- dealt according to fixed rules.
-
- A game of baccarat is started by dealing two cards for the player
- hand and two cards for the bank hand. The object of the game is
- to be dealt the hand with the highest rank. The rank of a hand
- is determined by totalling the ranks of the individual cards.
- Tens and face cards are counted as zero, while all other cards
- are counted by the number of "pips" on the card face. No
- baccarat hand can have a total greater than nine. If a card is
- added that would give a total greater than nine, the hand rank is
- adjusted by subtracting 10.
-
- According to the rules of baccarat, the player will stand if the
- first two cards total 6, 7, 8, or 9. An eight or a nine is a
- "natural", and is an automatic winner if the other hand has a
- lower total. If both hands are eights or both are nines, then a
- tie occurs and neither side wins. If neither hand is a natural,
- then cards might be drawn before the game ends. If the player
- hand totals 5 or less, then a third card is drawn for the player
- hand and the player will stand regardless of the total. The
- banker stands when holding 7, 8, or 9, and always draws one card
- when holding 0, 1, or 2. For other banker totals, drawing is
- determined by the rank of the player hand, according to the
- following table:
-
-
- Bank 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 <- player hand rank
- --------------------------------------
- 9 s s s s s s s s s s
- 8 s s s s s s s s s s
- 7 s s s s s s s s s s
- 6 s s s s s s H H s s
- 5 s s s s H H H H s s
- 4 s s H H H H H H s s
- 3 H H H H H H H H s H
- 2 s s s s s s s s s s
- 1 s s s s s s s s s s
- 0 s s s s s s s s s s
-
-
- When baccarat is dealt from 8 decks, the probability of a banker
- win is 45.86%, the probability of a player win is 44.62%, and the
- probability of a tie is 9.52%. The house edge on "player" bets
- is about 1.24%. Winning "bank" bets are charged a 5% commission,
- resulting in a 1.06% edge on these bets. The house edge on "tie"
- bets is about 4.9%.
-