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Casino
Baccarat games is the spiritual opposite of games
like craps, roulette, and blackjack. It has no pretense
of player control, no psychological room for being
crafty, smart, or skillful. Bettors have three options;
none involve how the contest is played. The result
is purely karmic. Baccarat is a symbolic measure
of a person's luck. Consider the following pop culture
examples:
James Bond, agent 007 (Sean Connery), was winning
handily at European-style baccarat, chemin de fer,
when the world first saw him in Dr. No. Bond predictably
trounced a beautiful and aristocratic female opponent,
Sylvia Trench (Eunice Gayson). When she upped the
stakes, he said, "I admire your courage, Miss..."
She responded, "Trench. Sylvia Trench. I admire
your luck, Mr..." And he delivered the immortal
line, "Bond. James Bond."
John Gage (Robert Redford) was losing at baccarat
in the movie Indecent Proposal when he asked Diane
Murphy (Demi Moore) to play with him "for luck."
Casino Baccarat pronounced its verdict on both characters.
She promptly lost an additional $100,000 of his
money. It was the more amiable and ostensibly plebeian
craps that broke the rules of the universe and gave
them $1 million.
Casino Baccarat in real life plays like a tarot
reading. Perhaps that's because the game was originally
played with tarot cards. It came from Italy during
the Middle Ages and was a big hit with sixteenth
century French nobility.
These days casinos promote baccarat's mysterious
and portentous image with velvet ropes, crystal
chandeliers, and high table limits. A minimum $25
to $100 per hand is common. That's too bad because
baccarat is a lot of fun, and the house edge is
slim. Mini-baccarat is a low-stakes version with
identical rules for winning and losing. It can be
fun too, but as you'll see the game is less about
the rules and more about presentation.
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