Usually online baccarat variants were quite monotonous. But this has changed with Baccarat Gold Series launched by Microgaming at its online casinos. Microgaming Baccarat Gold offers the customary elegant casino setting. It also offers more authentic card dealing animations, additional bets and roadmaps. Roadmaps are charts used by players to try and predict the outcome of the next hand by recognizing patterns. Baccarat Gold Series is live at Microgaming online casinos like River Belle, Platinum Play, All Slots and Roxy Palace.
The basic game play remains the same. Microgaming Baccarat Gold is played with a stack of eight decks. Each new online hand is dealt from a complete stack. The player can bet on the Player or the Banker. He can also bet on the Tie bet. The Player and the Banker hands are dealt, automatically following the third card rules. Players who are interested in knowing these rules will find them listed in the Rules, but they will not be called upon to make third card decisions. The Player bet pays out even money. The Banker bet pays out even money less a 5% house commission. The Tie bet pays out 8 to 1. An advantage in Microgaming Baccarat Gold is that in the event of a tied hand, the Player or Banker bet is returned provided no Tie bet had been placed. Microgaming Baccarat Gold introduces the Banker Pair and Player Pair bets. These bets win if the Banker or Player is dealt a pair as the first two cards. The bets pay out at 11 to 1.
Microgaming Baccarat Gold has been made more interactive by allowing players to peek at the cards of the hand they have bet on. The mechanisms employed for this simulate the rituals actually employed at land casinos. The hand that the player has bet on is first moved to the player. The player can peek at each card using the cursor to lift the corner of the card. Then the cards are turned over by clicking on the Squeeze button. The exposed cards are returned to the playing area. Some players like to rotate the cards before peeking at them. In Microgaming Baccarat Gold if the player moves the cursor over the cards then arrows are displayed. The player can rotate the cards he wants by clicking on the appropriate arrow. After that he can peek at the cards and turn them over.
The outstanding feature of Microgaming Baccarat Gold is the set of roadmaps. The roadmaps are detailed and varied representations of the basic outcomes taken from the history display. In the Microgaming Baccarat Gold history a Player win is marked with a blue P, a Banker win is marked with a red B and a Tie is marked with a green T. These are marked continuously from top to bottom. The Big Road is the most commonly used roadmap. It uses the same color scheme as the history chart. The first outcome of a session is marked in the first row of the first column. If the outcome of the next hand is the same then the same indicator will be added below in the same column. Thus the markings are made in the same column till a different outcome is obtained. Then a new column is started with the indicator for that outcome. The Big Road helps to perceive cyclic patterns in the outcomes. It needs to be clarified that history charts and road maps are intuitive tools and have no mathematical or logical basis in making predictions.
