Dear Mark,
Since the Banker bet in Baccarat is slightly more favorable than the
Player hand, what are your thoughts about sitting at the game and
continually making Banker bets? Also, what do you think of tracking
play by using a scorecard? Larry L.
Yes, Larry, the Banker hand is a bit more likely to win than the player
hand, and for that reason the house takes a 5% commission on winning
Banker wagers. Even in spite of the added commission, the house edge is
still lower with a Banker wager at 1.06%, opposed to 1.24% on Player
bets. Therefore, if the house edge is lower on a Banker wager, you
should bet it every time, right? Yes, Larry, mathematically you should,
but according to some readers of this column, their take is different.
When in a past column I advocated just betting the Banker hand and
dismissed scorecards figuring the numbers support the Banker bet as the
statistically better wager, even if the difference is ever so slight,
many readers wrote in describing that form of gaming action as just
plain BORING, enough of them for me to take note to what they're
saying. Does anybody really want to sit down at a Baccarat table and
bet the Banker hand all night long, trading the fun of gambling for a
minuscule statistical gain? Probably not. There is a "fun factor"
to
guessing, and betting consistently on the Bank hand is akin to watching
paint dry.
So, with both wagers having such a low casino advantage, you really
can't go wrong betting either way.
As for scorecard use, most casinos do offer Baccarat players a
scorecard for tracking the Player and Banker wins. Many Baccarat
players believe various methods of tracking Player-Banker patterns
predict future outcomes. Unfortunately, there is no statistical basis
for the notion of finding predictable patterns in a shoe of
well-shuffled cards.
Nevertheless, even if there is no advantage to doing so, keeping score
does add some excitement (once again, that fun factor) to the game of
Baccarat, and lately even I started the practice of jotting
B-B-B-P-B-P-P-B's on a Baccarat scorecard, wearing my patented
omniscience grin and pretending that scribbling P's and B's makes
me
all the more clairvoyant.
Dear Mark,
Would a Q-K-A-2-3 ever be considered a straight in poker? Melvin H.
In a straight, the ace can rank either high or low, depending on the
card sequence. The ace is low in the sequence A-2-3-4-5 and high in the
sequence 10-J-Q-K-A. You cannot use the ace to wrap a higher sequence
with a lower one, as in your example.
Dear Mark,
If two players have a Full House, how is the winning hand decided? Is
the player with the highest pair the winner, or does the winner have
the highest three-of-a-kind? John B.
For starters, John, let's break down the Full House hand; a
three-of-a-kind and one pair. Three-of-a-kind is three cards of the
same rank, such as three kings. The higher-ranking three cards always
win against another three-of-a-kind hand. Three aces would be the
highest obtainable three-of-a-kind hand; three deuces the lowest. One
pair is any two cards of the same rank, two kings for example. The hand
with the higher-ranking pair always wins against another hand of one
pair. If both hands have the exact same pair, the highest-ranking
unmatched card in the hand determines the winner. If the
highest-ranking unmatched cards tie, the next highest-ranking unmatched
cards are compared, and so on, and so on.
As to your question, the Full House (again, three of a kind and one
pair) with the highest-ranking three of a kind wins against the other
Full House.
Gambling quote of the week: "The gambling known as business looks
with
austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling." Ambrose Bierce
(1842-1914)
