The Casino And Poker Site

By A. Awwad

Baccarat is played in two places in a casino. It is played on the floor of the casino and it is played in an ornate room with formally dressed dealers. The difference in the game is who deals the shoe. On the floor, the dealer handles the shoe at all times including the dealing of the cards. In the room game the shoe is passed from player to player. The shoe stays with the player as long as the bank wins the hand. When the player wins the hand the shoe passes to the next player for them to deal the cards. My friend told me this angle for playing in the room. Watch the shoe to see if any player seems to hold on to it longer than the others. Watch for the player who deals tie hands when they are running the shoe.

He told me this tale of how he scored a large tie bet when he noticed that this one lady always seems to deal a tie while she had the shoe. He decided as the shoe passed to her to bet the tie progressively when she dealt. He started with one $100 chip and lost the bet. He then put $300 on the tie and lost. His third bet was the table max on the tie of $500. Before the hand was dealt the pit boss was asked by my friend how much he could bet on the tie. He was told $500 dollars. He made the bet and the whole table was intent on the hand being dealt.

At the game played in the room the player with largest bet on player handles the players cards and always turns their cards over first. On this hand the lady player running the shoe turned over her hand in her excitement to see how the hand was going to come out. The croupier stopped her and made her set the cards under the corner of the shoe. The table groaned, as the cards were a natural nine. The player sat stony until the croupier asked for the player’s hand. The player’s hand was also a natural nine. The table erupted and the let out a cheer said my friend. He added he would have never made the play if he had not noticed that this lady dealt a lot of ties. Up until this play, the most he had bet on a tie hand was $40.

A word to the wise, watch the shoe and see who is lucky with it. Play off of their luck.

By A. Awwad

Counting cards at Black Jack is a learned skill and frowned upon by casinos. In fact if they think you are doing this and winning they may bar you from playing Black Jack in their facility. What is card counting and why are the casinos leery of players who can count cards? There is no way this could be considered cheating, but a player who is good at this method is treated like a cheater.

The reason the player is feared who can do this with skill and discipline is simple. It puts the odds in the player’s favor. The house edge in the game is destroyed when the deck is rich in face cards. The odds for the rest of the shoe will remain with the player to win more bets than the dealer due to the fact that he can wave off hitting a card on a break hand. The dealer must hit any hand lower than soft 17(ace and a six). A rich shoe in face cards means the dealer has a higher chance of busting their hand.

There are several good books on this method of play, which are easily found on the Internet or in any bookstore for gamblers. The idea is to count the shoe down by keeping track of the cards as the dealer shows them. You know how many face cards are in a six-deck shoe and how many cards are under six not counting the aces. When the low cards are at minimum and the high cards have a numerical advantage the shoe favors the player. How out of line the shoe is in high versus low cards will determine how much the shoe favors the player. When this situation is present, the player raises the size of the bets. One of the ways the card counters have defeated detection is to have another player on their team actually make weird bets, but always increasing them when the shoe is favorable. One team even used a team member with the alias of the mad bomber to show up at an advantaged table, make a few bets and leave. This team used this ploy for a long time before they got caught.

Card counting was terrific, when the casinos dealt a lot of single deck games. The shoe dealing has made card counting much harder to do effectively. If you are willing to take the time to learn this method of play, be advised that if you are good at it you will be caught eventually, but up until that time it is possible to win consistently.

By A. Awwad

Las Vegas and its casinos have always been an inspiration for filmmakers looking to inject excitement and intrigue into their movies. One of the most famous movies with a Las Vegas backdrop is 1960’s ‘Ocean’s Eleven’, which sees the members of the original ‘Rat Pack’ – Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis – planning to rob five of the top casinos in Vegas in just one night. Things go according to plan – at least until after the heists…

‘Ocean’s Eleven’ was remade successfully in 2001 by Steven Soderburgh, who cast George Clooney in the leading role of Danny Ocean and Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Elliott Gould as gang members, amongst others. The 2001 version updated the storyline while still putting across the same glamorous image of Vegas as in the first movie.

Nicolas Cage visited Las Vegas in 1992 for his film ‘Honeymoon in Vegas’. This comedy tells the story of Jack Singer (played by Cage) who decides to wed his long-time partner Betsy (Sarah Jessica Parker) in Vegas. However, when they arrive, Betsy is spotted by a high-stakes gambler who decides he wants to spend a weekend with her. He engages Singer in poker games in an attempt to wrestle her from him. With Cage acting his best as the love-struck bridegroom, James Caan as the sinister gambler, and a number of parachuting Elvis impersonators, ‘Honeymoon in Vegas’ offers plenty of laughs.

Matt Damon is Mike McDermott, one of the world’s best poker players in the 1998 film ‘Rounders’, who has given up the game in order to concentrate on finishing law school. When his old friend Worm (Edward Norton) is released from prison, he persuades McDermott to return to the game in order to pay off some bad debts he’s accrued. McDermott consequently finds himself playing in a series of poker games where the stakes are forever increasing and the tension is forever building.

Finally, a list of casino movies is incomplete without a mention of the 1995 Martin Scorcese movie ‘Casino’, which is considered by many to be the definitive casino film. This tells the true story of Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein, a mobster who moves to Las Vegas and becomes the operator of the Tangiers casino. Robert De Niro makes the lead role his own, as Rothstein copes with marriage to a drug addict (played by Sharon Stone) and friendship with Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci), a fellow mobster slowly spiralling into a world of violence.

By A. Awwad

The French claim to have invented Baccarat as it is similar to Chemin de fer, which was imported from France to England. The Italians also claim the game as it was invented by an Italian by the name of Felix Falguierein in the middle ages and played with a deck of Tarot Cards.

A famous Vegas gambler, Tony Renzoni, brought the game to the Dunes in late 1950s and the American version was born by combining the European version with Chemin de fer. He had imported it from Cuba before the island was taken over by Castro. As with other venues where the game is played, the original baccarat was played only by gamblers with large bankrolls. This was further accented in the States with the movies of James Bond as Chemin de fer was played in the movie to suggest a game for high rollers. The basic change in the American version is the casino acts as the bank.

In the Baccarat rooms in most fancy land casinos, the game is roped off and the minimum bet can be quite high. The croupiers are elegantly dressed and the stakes are very often in the thousand of dollars per hand. Casinos have also found that the general public likes the game too, so they deal it as a table game in the main casinos. The limits are much lower, but the game is played the same except the dealer does all of the dealing. In the room, the shoe passes to each player after the current player-dealer loses the shoe because the bank lost.

The game is a simple game of two or three cards to the player hand and the dealer hand. The cards are dealt and if either hand is a natural nine or eight, the hand is over. If the hands tie, there is no losing hand by either the bank or the player. Each player at the table can bet one of three bets. The can bet the tie, the player hand or the bank hand. The tie bet pays eight to one and the other two possible bets pay even money with the winning bank hand charged a commission of five percent. The secret to winning Baccarat play is to catch a run on either side of the shoe. For this reason, most players keep track of the winning hands on a scorecard provided by the house. A run of four or five wins on one side or the other is not uncommon. Runs of over ten or twenty hands are also seen every now and again and are a shoe following betters dream come true. A better who follows the shoe is one that bets the side that last won the hand. Players who try to buck a trending shoe can lose a great deal of money very quickly by always being on the losing side of the hand. A player could also play a run of flip flopping bets if the shoe is going back and forth between the player and the bank. These are ample reasons to make a player keep accurate track of how the shoe is playing.

Tie Hands

Tie hands can present a different type of problem for the player. A shoe could have very few ties and another shoe could be exploding with tie hands. One rule to follow is to not bet a tie hand until the first tie is dealt. One scheme that has worked in the past is to count the hands from the tie and if they are multiples of three a tie bet may be warranted. A small increase in the bet can be used in this scenario. If a player captures a few tie hands during the play of the shoe, the profit from this shoe should be more than the losses. In the Baccarat room, keep note of players who seem to deal a tie when they get the shoe, it may not happen on the first deal, but if they have shown this tendency, it could well be worth a small increasing bet. This author did that one night and was rewarded consistently by one player-dealer.

Do not be afraid to play in the room if the stakes are within your betting budget. Baccarat players are well taken care of when playing in the room. The play is more fun and you can play off other players luck when they deal from the shoe.

Some players are good for several bank wins in a row while others cannot seem to get past the first or second hand. Watch how the cards are working when each player is given their turn at dealing the shoe. Gambling is nothing but a series of trends that ebb and flow. Like life, some times things go well and some times they do not. Baccarat is a very trending game and a player can take advantage of the shoe tendencies.

Conclusion

Baccarat has a very low house edge and is very easy to play as the only thought process is to decide where to place your bet. By being aware of the flow of the shoe, small betting trends can be played and little parlays can be won. Tie hands can be captured after the first one shows. Do not fight a trending shoe, as it will cost a great deal of money before you are right. This is one game that the house is truly a little frightened by as they cannot change a losing shoe and start over until the shoe is completed. Some of the biggest losses casinos have are at this game. A fearless better can take a small amount of money and grow it to a sizable amount in just a few shoes. Tie hands can be devastating to the house since the tie pays eight to one. Find a tie play plan that works for you and stick with it for the playing session.

By A. Awwad

In any type of game, strategy is an important part of winning. Adapting to the differences in each game, understanding the importance of position and realizing that knowledge is essential are three main parts of Texas Holdem strategy. There are many different approaches to strategy, but if a player uses these three key parts, then they should discover they have a winning strategic approach.

Adapting to the differences in the game is an important part of strategy. Not every approach works in every situation. A player that finds, during the course of the game, that another player is picking up on their strategy may need to change their style a little to throw the other player off. Being able to make quick decisions and being flexible with game play is also part of adapting. Adapting is relevant in every game, every time Texas Holdem is played. A player who does not adapt will find keeping up a winning strategy is difficult.

Understanding the importance of position is most relevant to the game of Texas Holdem than any other poker game. Texas Holdem is based on the fact that the position a player is in has great influence over that player’s game. Position is based on literally where a player sets during the game. The ideal position is to have a player on the right side that bets often and high. On the left side a player wants someone who does not win often. This ideal position sets the player up to win big more often. It is also a good position to be the last player to act. This allows the player an advantage of seeing the other players’ actions and the ability to get basic information about their hands. Position can often times mean the difference between a bad game and a good game.

The biggest advantage to a winning strategy is information. A player who keeps themselves informed throughout the game will have the best odds of winning. A strategy that includes observation and the gathering of information sets a player up to be able to determine other players’ actions and bet accordingly. Texas Holdem is all about information and how a player uses it. A player should aim to get as much information as possible while giving little information to other players.

Strategies differ from player to player and from game to game. The idea behind a winning strategy is to be able to make it work in any game. This means being able to adapt it to the situation of the game, having a good position and gathering information. A strategy may change or be altered throughout a game of Texas Holdem. The basic structure of a winning strategy, though, is made up of the three key parts regardless of its implementation.