Old George is back, and this time I’m going to teach you all about baccarat cards. By now you know the routine, so I won’t have to tell you to sit back and relax while I share the facts with you. I hope you’ve got a comfortable chair, and something to snack on, but be careful not to spill anything on the keyboard! Now the Baccarat-Guru is ready to guide you down the path of knowledge, and show you the way to gambling fun!
The first thing I could tell you about baccarat cards is a bit about their history. Using cards to play games and gamble is something that’s been around for a long, long time. It is thought that this originated in Asia, where Dominoes has been a popular game for many centuries. To make the game a bit easier to play, they started using paper dominoes for ease of shuffling for a new game. The four-suited decks we know today probably come from the Middle-East and made their way to Europe in the late 1300’s. Back then, only the wealthy could afford cards, because they were hand-painted one-of-a-kind decks. Maybe that’s why only the wealthy were known to play many of the oldest gambling games. It wasn’t long before people were able to mass produce baccarat cards, and the French are given credit for standardizing the four suits we know, and for using the two colors because they are easier to manufacture that way. After that it was only a matter of time until card games became incredibly popular and cards were made more durable to stand up to all the handling.
As you know, baccarat is only one of many games played using cards. The other famous ones at the casinos are Poker and Blackjack. Not that this game is the same as the others, but baccarat cards are the same ones that are used in almost any popular card game. Just because it’s a gambling game, doesn’t mean that baccarat cards are any different than the ones you probably have in your own home. But one big difference is the number of cards that are used to play baccarat. In a standard game of baccarat, 6-8 decks of cards are used at once and they must all be the same brand so the backs are identical. They’re all shuffled together (I don’t know who has hands that big…), and placed in a device called the “shoe”. Is it called a shoe because it looks like one? Your guess is as good as mine. I haven’t been able to come up with any good explanation for the name. All I know is that it was introduced as a way to handle the multiple decks of baccarat cards when casinos started this practice. It does kind of look like a shoe though, doesn’t it?
Anyway, when you play this game, you’ll be using baccarat cards that are the same as in a standard deck. And just as in blackjack, each card represents a point value. Unlike blackjack though, the aces are always worth 1. All the other baccarat cards are worth their face value, until you reach the 10’s and “face cards” (the Jack, Queen and King). These cards are worth 0 in baccarat. So when you’re counting the points in your hand, you can ignore anything that’s 10 or more. The other thing about baccarat cards and counting the values is that when the amount is greater than 9, you must subtract 10 from the points in order to arrive at your total. Let’s say you get a 7 and a 9. That makes 16, but since it’s over 9, you can basically ignore the 1, and count your total as 6.
Well, there you have it. We’ve arrived at the end of another lesson on baccarat. I hope you’ve been taking notes so you can go back over what I’ve been teaching you. As the Baccarat-Guru, my goal is to share my vast knowledge of the game of baccarat and make it easy for you to enjoy yourself at the casino. Please feel free to browse through some of the other pages I have for you here on my site. I’m sure you’ll find everything you need to know right here at Baccarat-Guru.com.
