Because baccarat has this mystique of being the casino game of the rich and famous, many people feel intimidated by the baccarat tables in a casino.  But in reality it is just another casino game.

My advice to those that want to start playing baccarat but are not too sure of how to break into the game, would be to start with the mini-baccarat tables.  The tables are designed to make you feel more comfortable and have less of the “high roller” element to them.  The stakes are lower so your pockets won’t burn too bad if you make a few mistakes.  Mini-baccarat is all about having fun and getting new players to play.

Or try online baccarat and then it doesn’t matter what you look like and what designer labels you are wearing!!  Start with the low stakes games and learn the trade but most importantly have fun - you will soon lose the feeling of “baccarat intimidation” and be able to hob nob with the best at the baccarat tables.

The quest for the reason behind the name “Chemin de Fer” has taken me far and wide…

… and waisted a lot of my time, to be honest, but heh its been fun!

I found a cool site that got me lost down an alley for hours, it explains everything!  But what everything said is that the name Chemin de Fer may have come from the fact that the shoe of cards, or the “sabot” moves around the baccarat table in a loop… hence the name steel road or railroad.

I’m not that convinced though, sounds like a tall story.  Others say it is because the banker changes hands and moves position around the table.  So who knows?

Anyway I had a lot of fun searching for this, learnt more about European history and am more confused than ever…

Why is there a version of Baccarat called Chemin de Fer?  How should I know?

The game was developed in France and Chemin de Fer means the railroad or steel road to be more specific.  But why railroad I dont know.  Wikipedia has a good explanantion of the history of baccarat. But it doesn’t say why it is called railroad.

Its a good question, I’ll try and find out.

If you are a newcomer to playing baccarat in the casino then you probably wonder why some baccarat players keep a record of all the results of each hand.  The answer is that they are pattern spotting.

So the next question you will ask is, “Does pattern spotting in Baccarat help me win?”

If you are superstitious then maybe.  But there is no reason why a properly shuffled deck of cards will suddenly follow some sort of pattern.  You have no way of knowing in advance what card will come, even if there have been five of the same cards in a row, it does not mean the sixth card will be the same.  If the deck is shuffled then it is a completely random process.

But try and tell that to all the experienced baccarat players!  They have even gone as far as to name some of the patterns - the shoe is “choppy” means there are alternating wins between the banker and the player; or “skip ties” is when a tie is followed two hands later by another tie.

And, that is why the casino allows them to take notes, because they know that try as they might to spot a pattern, it won’t make any difference to whether they win at baccarat.  You may as well be playing with a bunch of clairvoyants.  But dont make fun of it at the baccarat table because many take it very seriously and firmly beleive they know when there is a pattern.

Do you know “Chemin de Fer”?  It is the french word for railroad and translated literally it means the steel road, or the road of steel.  And for all you Bond fanatics or pub quiz specialists - 007 plays chemin de Fer and not baccarat.

It is more or less the same game as baccarat accept that the one of the players is banker, insead of the casino.  So the other chemin de fer players compete against the banker and the banker position rotates around the table.

The casino just lets them get on with the game and charges a small commission from each banker.  Also,under certain conditions, the banker and player who bid against the banker, can decide whether or not to draw a third card.

You can get a lot of software packages that help you develop a winning strategy at online baccarat.  Its worth checking some of them out.  I am not really into fancy software that takes the fun out of the game.

After all, thats half the fun of playing baccarat, trying to figure out what to bet and predict what will happen.  If a computer program does that for you it takes away the skill.

But one thing is that it does help you learn and develop your baccarat skills.  Do a search for online baccarat software or how to win at baccarat and you will pick out the sites that offer software.  Be wary of some of the promises that they make and be sure to check them out properly first!

After all a lot of chance and luck is needed to continuously win at baccarat.

Saw the movie Duplicity the other night.  Worth watching Julia Roberts!  It sure had me duped!  Maybe I was focusing on Julia too much…  Ok so I know some will say it doesn’t take much to dupe you Tom… but this movie sure has its twists and turns… duplicity is a good name for all the deceit and deviousness that goes on.

But what I wanted to mention, is that there is baccarat scene in the movie, for those of you that haven’t seen it.  Its not a big scene, baccarat is hardly going to play a central part in a corporate espionage movie.  Without giving away too much, this young guy gets a big payout and then starts to blow it away in a casino playing baccarat…

The image of baccarat being for rich people with loads of money continues…

I wonder how the current economic conditions are affecting the gambling industry.  Are gambling businesses suffering as a result of people having less expendable income every month?  But then they say that the sin trade does well during a recession.  This is a case of a down turn in economy vs sin trade.

When times are tough people have less money for travel, leisure and entertainment.  The sin trade always prospers in a recession - cigarettes, alcohol and gambling do well.  People will still gamble, they may just change their habits and instead of flying to Vegas, they may use online gambling more.

Las Vegas casino groups have released some of their financial results and it seems that profits are down.  As they try to reduce prices to attract customers, then their margins be squeezed.  So I suppose they are walking a tight rope between dropping prices and getting more gamblers through the door against keeping their pricing higher and getting better margin.  Tricky one!

I suppose it depends on how long the recession goes on for, because if it starts to turn quickly then those with higher pricing will prosper more as the number of gamblers increase.  However, if you drop prices one of the toughest things to do is raise them again, so when the economy turns you will struggle to raise prices.  Then again if you keep prices high, no-one may come through your door.

Looks like we’re in for a long tough ride before we get out of these stormy waters!

So you wanted famous baccarat players - how about James Bond?  If you look at some of the older Bond movies or read Ian Fleming’s books, baccarat is actually Bond’s favorite casino game and not poker as portrayed in Casino Royale etc etc..

Another famous baccarat player is Tommy Renzoni, known as the “Father of American Baccarat”.  He was a hotel or casino executive in Havana, Cuba, although some sources may give him a different job title… I’m not saying anything… you do your homework and find out for yourself.

Renzoni brought the game of baccarat to Las Vegas, when the Castro government started interfering with gambling and casinos.  He has also written some baccarat books which should be read if you want to win at baccarat - who better to teach you than the “Father of American Baccarat”.

Then there are people who have won and lost huge amounts playing baccarat like Akio Kashiwagi.  Baccarat is after all seen as a game for the rich and famous!  Perhaps the availability of online baccarat is changing that exclusive image.

The first recollection I have of gambling is card games in ‘cowboy’ movies or Westerns.  As a kid I never knew what card games they were playing but it had to be a serious game if you could lose your life or have to kill someone…

… a smoke filled saloon, tough looking, unshaven… hard drinking, ruthless heros that were always fighting, and would not think twice about killing… but was it really like this???  or did Hollywood create the image???

Lets talk about some of the famous characters of the ‘Wild West’.  There was ‘Doc’ Holliday at the O.K. Corral.  ‘Wild Bill’ Hickock… never far from the barrel of a smoking gun… he certainly created a name for himself.. a legend really! But when you are that notorious you have to watch your back, not everyone is going to like you!!

“Wild Bill” died playing poker, he was shot in the back of the head… with a pair of aces and a pair of eights… which is still known as “Dead Man’s” hand.