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Often sought though rarely found, a good baccarat strategy is
usually considered a myth among gamblers. I happen to disagree. What I DO agree
with is the fact that any strategy that promotes itself as a system is most
likely full of false, misleading, and useless information. There are, however,
many basic baccarat strategy moves one can make to up their chances of winning.
A predominant aspect of the baccarat games played at the local casino is the
scorecard. It looks like everyone at the table is keeping track of the outcome
on each hand, and that's exactly what they're doing. These people are trying to
spot patterns and then change their own betting patterns in order to take
advantage of a streak. The casinos encourage this behavior simply because they
know it has no bearing on the outcome of the game. Chasing patterns in baccarat
is as pointless as it is in roulette.
One hand has no bearing on the next, and is never influenced by the preceding
hands. This is a simple trap that gamblers all around the world fall into at one
time or another. If you were betting on the flip of a coin, and it landed heads
up 9 times in a row, part of your brain will inevitably yell out to you that a
tails is imminent, and it's likely that the 10th flip will land tails up. This
reasoning is spurious; the chance of the coin landing tails up on the 10th flip
is exactly 50%, just as it was the first nine times. Any baccarat strategy that
makes you change your bets based on previous hands is useless and should be
completely disregarded.
So, although you will see almost everyone around you at the baccarat table
marking down numbers on casino provided cards, you should consider it personal
entertainment and think nothing more of it. Don't be fooled into participating,
it's just another way for the casino to distract you from the important parts of
the game-play. Seriously, would Las Vegas casinos provide baccarat players with
a pencil and a chart if they were really worth anything?
Another false alley in published baccarat strategy is that of card counting.
Card counting is usually associated with the game of blackjack, as it can be
quite an effective strategy when utilized properly in the right casino. It would
also appear to be a genuinely worthy strategy in baccarat, as it works off of a
similar shoe. The problem is of course the issue of used cards being fed back
into the shoe before very many have been removed (thus negating any count you
had made to that point). In baccarat specifically the problems with card
counting are a little different. Unlike blackjack baccarat does not offer
opportunities to alter your bet in mid-hand play. Blackjack offers this ability
in a number of specific situations, and so you can increase your bet if your
count changes during play. Using card counting in baccarat though offers so few
situations with an advantage against the house that the overall efforts are
worthless.
Baccarat can be considered a coin toss played with a lot of fanfare. Many people
let this oversimplified impression of the game lure them towards using a
martingale-based system. These styles of systems have you double your bet each
time you lose a hand, basing its logic on the fact that eventually your choice
will win, and if you had doubled your bet each hand that win will recoup all
losses from previous hands. This system is perfect and cannot be beaten in games
like baccarat or roulette. Because this is true the casinos have issued new
rules, which limit how much one can bet in one hand. Table maximums (and
minimums) as they are referred to, eliminate the threat of a martingale system
gambler completely. Say you bet 5 dollars on banker and lost, next bet you put
10 bucks down on banker, next bet 20, ect, and you keep loosing, it won't be
very long before you double your bet right up to or over the table maximum. In
this case of course you can't bet any higher, and your system has failed. If I
only accomplish one thing with this web site, I hope it is convincing everyone
that martingale systems are absolutely horrific techniques designed to prey on
the natural thought patterns of the human brain (the bit that thinks if a coin
lands heads up nine times in a row there is a greater than 50% chance it will be
tails on the tenth toss).
So if card counting, streak or pattern spotting, and systems are all useless
strategy for baccarat, what's a good one? Looking at the numbers it becomes
clear that the odds are always a little better when you bet on the banker. Does
this mean you should always bet on banker? In a technical sense I suppose yes it
does, but practically it would be the most boring use of your time ever if you
just sat there betting on banker all night. Pattern chasing is most often some
added fun to break the monotony that can come from a simple game.
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Baccarat Strategy- Online Casino
