High Limit Rooms and Midi Baccarat in Vegas

Although I'm a relative low-roller (I generally try to keep it to $15 tables or lower), I think the high roller lounges look really cool. Two questions:

1) I saw this article: http://www.vegaschatter.com/story/2010/5/12/142418/146/vegas-travel/Where_to_Go_Whale_Watching_in_Vegas
Can any of the Vegas folks vouch for whether someone really can just walk into the high limit rooms and discreetly people watch, as this article suggests?

2) Is there anywhere in Vegas where you can play true midi-baccarat (players can squeeze cards) for a reasonable min ($25)? Parx Casino in PA offers it at that level, and I'll be out in Vegas later this year and was wondering. Of the few casinos that still seem to have big baccarat, I assume no one in Vegas offers it for under $50-$100 min.

Yes. You can go into any high limit room. I've been into most. My favorites are Bellagio, Wynn, Venetian, Casesars, and now, Aria. You will get a few strange looks if you are dressed funny, and the occasional dirty eyeball, but I've never been asked to leave. Some even have buffets set out for the players that you can partake of if you feel daring.

Don't know about the bacc minimums, sorry.

Indian casinos seem to have tighter rules for high
limit. You can wander around the slot area, but
they'll bug you if you hang around the table games,
the players don't like it at all. If you stand there for
longer than a couple minutes, a host will ask you
what you want.

LV Hilton Baccarat room has midi where you can squeeze the cards, at green-chip limits during the week at least, if I'm not mistaken (I usually play big table). Hilton Baccarat room is actually my favorite place to play in Las Vegas, or has been since the Stardust closed. I tried to find a picture of the room online, but the only one that I could find was lit weirdly to the point where the room looked different than it should. The walls looked yellow (they are white), and the live trees that line the walls just looked like black cones.



Most midi tables will let you touch and squeeze the cards, in my experience. And, yes, as others have said, high-limit rooms are open to anyone. I've occasionally encountered really shabby looking guys betting four or five hundred a hand, or playing high-limit slots at a hundred dollars a spin (on two machines at once, naturally).

Can someone please explain what is meant by squeezing and ripping the cards? And why would anyone want to?

During my first trip I wondered into a high limit room somewhere, I forget where it was exactly. I realized as asoon as I saw the limits, though. Well. there were no people playing, and only one table manned by a dealer (it was around noon). I looked around a bit, then left.

The idea is to turn over the card as slowly as possible, so as to prolong the suspense and add a degree of excitement to the game. So players will very slowly bend the corners up or squeeze the card until it flips over or whatnot. And then if you're not happy with what you got you can demonstrate your frustration by tearing the cards up and even, should the mood strike you, eating them, as I've seen done. The card antics are kind of like the Baccarat version of all the ritual and superstition at the Craps table, really.

Quote: Nareed

Can someone please explain what is meant by squeezing and ripping the cards? And why would anyone want to?

No, there is no explanation for such childish behavior, other than perhaps all those rich people are trying to slow down the rate of play but keep the comp rates high. Cards are bent, folded, mutilated, spindled and in one notable case, consumed. Its enough antics for a week's worth of sit-coms.

Are people really yelling "blow/hit" like the movies suggest?

Quote: gog

Are people really yelling "blow/hit" like the movies suggest?

They yell "Monkey! Monkey!" a lot. I, however, saw no monkey. False advertising if you ask me! ;)

Thanks.

Quote: heather

The idea is to turn over the card as slowly as possible, so as to prolong the suspense and add a degree of excitement to the game.

I see. So if I were to just flip the cards over, how long would it take for the other players to chase me off the table? :)

Quote:

The card antics are kind of like the Baccarat version of all the ritual and superstition at the Craps table, really.

I thought it was something like that, I just dind't know exactly what. It seems common in gmabling discussions to assume knowledge of all sorts of obscure terms. I know discussions on VP seem to be written in code :)

Quote: heather

LV Hilton Baccarat room has midi where you can squeeze the cards, at green-chip limits during the week at least, if I'm not mistaken (I usually play big table). Hilton Baccarat room is actually my favorite place to play in Las Vegas, or has been since the Stardust closed.

I never visited the Stardust baccarat pit before it closed, but I've seen pictures and it looks like it was a pretty cool place. Since you play big table, I assume that's a black chip (and up) game at LVH, right?

Thanks for the information about the LV Hilton, I'll definitely have to check it out. The LV Hilton casino always seems to have an old-school charm to it, like it was forever stuck in the late 60s/early 70s but they never let the floor get too shabby. If it's $20/$25 mins, I'd be willing to buy in for $200-$300 just to have a bit of fun. I used to be against green-chip BJ/baccarat, until I realized playing $10 craps with odds isn't that much less money wagered.

Quote: silversonic2006

I never visited the Stardust baccarat pit before it closed, but I've seen pictures and it looks like it was a pretty cool place. Since you play big table, I assume that's a black chip (and up) game at LVH, right?

At the big tables, yes, black chip. But you can sit ten feet away and play midi and have essentially the same experience.

Quote: silversonic2006

The LV Hilton casino always seems to have an old-school charm to it, like it was forever stuck in the late 60s/early 70s but they never let the floor get too shabby.

That's exactly what I love about it! The beige-and-gold felt is pretty cool, too; almost looks like it's inlaid with metal. That and I've always had the best relationships with their hosts. I really feel like they go out of their way there. The Baccarat room staff have always been great, too (something I really liked about the 'Dust).

Quote: heather

The idea is to turn over the card as slowly as possible, so as to prolong the suspense and add a degree of excitement to the game.\

I can't describe to you how much I hate this
aspect of the game. The few times I played
it, I wanted to strangle some of the Asian
players. They slow the game to a crawl with
their childish antics, like going thru all the drama
is somehow going to change the spots on the
cards.

By squeezing the cards you can get -some- info about the cards, but not everything. For the Asian high rollers, THIS aspect is the excitement of the game, and the very reason to play.

Taking it away would be like taking away free booze at the tables in Vegas.

Quote: thecesspit

For the Asian high rollers, THIS aspect is the excitement of the game, and the very reason to play.

They even carry it over to mini-bac and it drives me nuts
there to. I like games that move right along, that aren't
slowed down because some players have to make a
melodramatic kabuki play out of every hand.

Quote: EvenBob

They even carry it over to mini-bac and it drives me nuts
there to. I like games that move right along, that aren't
slowed down because some players have to make a
melodramatic kabuki play out of every hand.

I agree that some players really drag it out too far. However, I think being able to handle the cards does bring the fun factor that being able to shoot the dice in craps does. And in craps, like in midi/big baccarat, players drag out dice setting way too much. People just need to be reasonable.

One of my biggest pet peeves with blackjack is that some dealers make it into a hyper-speed game. At least in craps and baccarat, the pace is a bit slower (AC mini-baccarat is a lot slower than BJ). IMHO, I can more easily justify playing at a $25 baccarat game than I can a $25 BJ table for the speed reason.

The casino tracks the BJ dealers performance where the emphasis is on number of hands dealt. I doubt the Baccarat dealers are judged on that, the casino judges the Baccarat Table on the bottom line ... and since they are often wealthy players, the casino doesn't care how many new packs of cards they need or what the antics are like. Just one extra black chip on the felt because some numskull enjoys his antics will pay for the entire night's card bill.

" Can someone please explain what is meant by squeezing and ripping the cards? And why would anyone want to?"

One cold snowy night in Blackhawk, most everybody left on the last buses at 11pm. When the last 2 tables were combined, there were
10 players, 2 dealers, i shift boss. I was the only non-Asian in the room. I learned a lot about immigration that night. How much some guys had to pay to bring their families over, how if immigration had a hard-on for you, it was practically impossible, And the best immigration lawyer in Denver had 2 names, one Asian and one Chinese. I also learned that night that Golden Baccarat would flop in Colorado. 2 of the players were female and when someone mentioned baccarat might be coming to Colorado, they became excited.
Talking about squeezing the cards, how long it might take to peek etc, I thought one or both might have an orgasm. But then someone said it would be a digital dealer and not live cards. Both ladies gave sounds of disgust and went back to playing poker.
Both ladies are rocks in the poker world and I have never seen them so animated, before or after that conversation.

No one mentioned tearing up cards, but who hasn't had that thought.

Squeezing along the long edge to check whether it is a possible natural 8 or 9 combination is most popular, in my experience.

Aces, deuces, and treys have no pips across the long edge. Fours and fives have two pips. Sixes, sevens, and eights have three pips. Nines and tens have four pips. Face cards have a horizontal line.

Only these combos offer a chance at a natural hand:

0 across and 2 across (5 points to 8 points)
0 across and 3 across (0, 1, 7, 8, or 9 points)
2 across and 2 across (0, 8, or 9 points)
4 across and 3 across (5, 6, 7, or 8 points)
4 across and 4 across (0, 8, or 9 points)
line and 3 across (6 points to 8 points)
line and 4 across (0 or 9 points)

Duplicate post.

Another to peek is to look at the short edge.

Aces have no pips, deuces and treys have one pip, and fours through tens have two pips. Face cards have a horizontal line.