1. How To Read Baccarat
2. Reading Baccarat Patterns Pictures
3. Reading Baccarat Patterns Meaning
4. Reading Baccarat Patterns Chart

Baccarat Strategy HOW PATTERN RECOGNITION WORKS When you are trying to employ this 'pattern recognition' or 'law of averages' strategy we have been talking about in the game of baccarat, what you are looking to do is make a comparison between the actual results you are seeing at any given moment and the normal distribution of results. There’s no baccarat secret pattern or cheat. It’s just common sense and improving your chances through understanding how baccarat works and avoiding the most common mistakes. Before you play for real money, please be aware that beginners should read our ‘ How to Play Baccarat ‘ article if you don’t know the rules by heart.

Imagine dedicating fifteen years of your life to mastering the expert skills of crystal glass-making. This is the standard expected still today of the craftspeople associated with Baccarat crystal, one of history’s most acclaimed houses for glass and crystal wares. Baccarat glass has beguiled audiences for more than two centuries with brilliant beauty and expert craftsmanship. Here, we explore some of the most popular Baccarat glassware and how Baccarat continues to uphold the traditions of the company, which rose to prominence in the eighteenth century during the reign of France’s King Louis XV.

A Brief History of Baccarat Crystal

Established in 1764 as a small glassware manufacturer in the eastern French hamlet of Baccarat, the factory excelled in its early years with a focus on glassware and mirrors, but slowed in its production with the onset of the French Revolution. Early in the nineteenth century, however, Baccarat developed its own lead crystal production process that soon grew to be respected across the country, if not across all of Europe. The exceptional quality of Baccarat glass works resulted in commissions from kings to presidents around the globe such that, by the midpoint of the century, Baccarat had gained international renown.

Four Baccarat Crystal and Bronze Bouquet Vases, sold for $984 via New Orleans Auction Galleries (October 2015).

One of the factors that has contributed to the success of Baccarat crystal is that while they have developed signature styles now synonymous with the company’s tradition — such as Baccarat’s “Harcourt” line of glassware — their designers have also continued to innovate along with the trends and styles that have become popular over the years. This fluidity, combined with the expert craftsmanship behind each design, has resulted in Baccarat’s perennial popularity. From their smaller, more affordable figurines to their more substantial pieces, the legacy and allure of Baccarat crystal endures today.

Baccarat Crystal Chandeliers and Torchères

By the end of the nineteenth century, Baccarat had made a name for itself as an internationally leading designer of elegant Baccarat crystal chandeliers and torchères. A testament to this status was their commission around this time for a monumental crystal chandelier and paired horseshoe balustrade for a main hall in Istanbul’s Dolmabahçe Palace, widely considered to be one of the largest crystal installations in the world. Baccarat’s chandeliers and torchères made for exceptional illumination as the crystal facets accented the glimmering candlelight or, in the case of their gasoliers, their gas-lit lamps. These pieces also showcased the pinnacle of Baccarat workmanship as many feature intricate designs.

Image 1: Large, Sumptuous and Exceptional Chandelier with 54 arms, in lapidated Baccarat crystal
Renascimento, Lisbon, Portugal (December 2014)
Estimate: €150,000 – €200,000
Price Realized: €150,000

Image 2: A French Cut and Moulded Glass Twenty Four Light Chandelier by Baccarat, c. 1883
Sotheby’s, London, United Kingdom (January 2017)
Estimate: £25,000 – £40,000
Price Realized: £62,500

Image 3: A French Ormolu and Crystal Thirty-Two-Light Chandelier by Baccarat, circa 1900
Christie’s, London, United Kingdom (March 2015)
Estimate: £25,000 – £40,000
Price realized: £60,000

Image 4: Baccarat Ruby and Glass Enameled Chandelier
DuMouchelles, Detroit, MI (November 2017)
Estimate: $15,000 – $18,000
Price Realized: $27,500

Image 5: Baccarat Crystal 18-Light Chandelier Signed
DuMouchelles, Detroit, MI (May 2017)
Estimate: $15,000-$25,000
Realized Price: $17,000

Baccarat Crystal Vases

It is in the vases conjured by Baccarat where collectors can find some of the best variety. From opulent ormolu accents or richly etched motifs borrowed from East Asian art forms to the milky translucence of opaline glass made popular in the mid nineteenth century, Baccarat crystal and glass vases have styles that can appeal to all collectors.

Image 1: A fine pair of Baccarat acid-cameo pink-cased opaline vases circa 1870
Bonhams, London, UK (May 2010)
Estimate: Est: £8,000 – £12,000
Sold: £15,000

Image 2: Pair of Baccarat Pink Opaline Cameo Glass Two-Handled Vases, c.1870
Waddington’s, Toronto, ON (June 2017)
Estimate: CAD1,000 – CAD1,500
Price Realized: CAD15,000

Image 3: Rare vase, ‘Rafraichissoir,” La Compagnie des Cristalleries de Baccarat, ca. 1865
Koller Auctions, Zurich, Switzerland (March 2014)
Estimate: CHF5,000 – CHF7,000
Price Realized: CHF9,500

Image 4: Pair of French Acid-Etched and Gilt Decorated Pink and White Opaline Cameo Glass Vases
Doyle New York, New York, NY (June 2018)
Estimate: $1,000 – $1,500
Price Realized: $6,875

Image 5: Near Pair of Baccarat Cut-Glass Vases
Lyon & Turnbull, Edinburgh, UK (March 2019)
Estimate: £600 – £800
Price Realized: £600

Baccarat Crystal Garnitures, Centerpieces, and Mantle Clocks

Beyond singular vases, Baccarat also excelled at decorative garniture sets, centerpieces, and mantel clocks. All popular means of decorating an elegant home since the eighteenth century, these pieces further reinforced Baccarat’s skills to respond to contemporary trends while also offering breathtaking designs. Garniture sets tend to top auction results as they are more rare to find still in their entire three-piece set, however singular centerpieces are no less exceptional.

Image 1: Cristalleries de Baccarat “Garniture de Table,” Two Pairs of Gilt Bronze and Cut Crystal Sweatmeat Dishes, Paris, late 19th/early 20th century
Sotheby’s, New York, NY (October 2015)
Estimate: $4,000 – $6,000
Price Realized: $10,000

Image 2: A Late 19th century French clear, etched and frosted glass clock garniture by Baccarat
Chiswick Auctions, London, UK (December 2017)
Estimate: £4,000 – £6,000
Price Realized: £4,920

Image 3: Three-Piece Baccarat Gilt Bronze and Cut-Glass Figural Table, late 19th Century
Heritage Auctions, Dallas, TX (June 2018)
Estimate: $800 – $1,200
Price Realized: $6,500

Image 4: Baccarat Cut Glass Garniture
Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, Chicago, IL (May 2004)
Estimate: $1,500 – $2,500
Price Realized: $2,271

Baccarat Glassware

As one of the earliest fields of Baccarat’s production, glassware and stemware proved one of the brand’s most successful divisions over the years. Beyond stemware sets commissioned by nineteenth-century French kings Louis XVIII and Charles X, or the line of colorful glassware designed for Tsar Nicholas II, Baccarat also created incredibly popular styles that permeated a wider market. One of these is the iconic “Harcourt” line, which was introduced in 1841 and included a novel flat-sided design.

Image 1: Thirty-Seven Pieces of Unusual Baccarat Cut to Clear Crystal Stemware of Various Forms & Colors
Sloans & Kenyon, Chevy Chase, MD (June 2018)
Estimate: $900-$1,100
Realized Price: $21,000

Image 2: Baccarat “Harcourt” Stem and Bar Ware, 20th century
New Orleans Auction Gallery, New Orleans, LA (October 2015)
Estimate: $1,500 – $2,500
Price Realized: $6,150

Image 3: A Baccarat Part Suite of Glassware Retailed by Asprey & Co.
Christie’s, London, United Kingdom
Est: £2,000 – £3,000
Sold: £5,000

Image 4: Baccarat: A set of Liqueur Glasses & Bottles
Est-Ouest Auctions Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan (September 2009)
Estimate: ¥300,000-¥500,000
Realized Price: ¥320,000 (approx. $2,800)

Image 5: Baccarat Glassware
Marques dos Santos, Porto, Portugal (March 2015)
Estimate: €9,000 – €12,000
Price Realized : €475

Image 6: An extensive suite of Baccarat cut crystal glassware
Chiswick Auctions, London, United Kingdom
Estimate: £350 – £450
Price Realized: £450

Looking for more? Explore Baccarat crystal and glassware on Invaluable now.

Everyone plays any given casino game in the hope of winning money. You might say it is a bit of fun and that is certainly the right approach but it is undeniable that things are a lot more fun when you are winning.

How To Read Baccarat

“Beating the house” is what we all dream of and over the course of history countless hours have been dedicated to dreaming up systems and methods that might enable this notion to become a reality.

There are many such systems touted as being able to achieve a positive result for the player. Very few work. Card counting in blackjack is one such strategy and spotting wheel or croupier bias at roulette is another. Almost all the others are either illegal (for example marking cards) or, quite simply, they do not work.

They say you never see a bookmaker riding a bike and if that is true then it is probably fair to say you never see a casino-owner flying economy either. The simple reason is that casino games are purposefully designed to give the casino the edge. A profit margin for the house is factored in and that means that on average, most of the time, they win and the player loses.

Luck can change that in the short-term. A system that your friend read about on the internet, or worse still paid good money for, cannot. Casinos continue to be opened and are generally glitzy, fabulous and cost at least eight figures to build. That should tell you something.

Does Pattern Recognition At Baccarat Work?

Did you read the introduction above? Does pattern recognition work? No. And No again. Just like pattern recognition in other random events such as a coin toss or roulette, it categorically does not work. Seriously, do not invest any of your time or money into investigating this, reading your friend’s book, paying for any great secret or anything else because that will be time and/or money wasted.

If you walk into a bricks and mortar casino you may well see people making a note of the results in baccarat (you will see people recording blackjack results too) but it’s a waste of time. Online and in some more modern establishments this is done electronically for you and actually, the fact that the casino are happy to do that should give you a really big clue as to the efficacy of any related system.

When it comes to baccarat, people will be keeping a tally of how many hands are won by the player and the banker, and how many are tied. This is the starting point for the concept of pattern recognition. Maths tells us that over an infinite number of hands the following percentage of hands will be won as such:

• Player wins 44.6% of all hands
• Banker wins 45.9%
• Ties occur 9.5% of the time

Pattern recognition and related strategies use these figures and recent results to try to obtain an advantage over the house. Pattern recognition usually refers to a strategy of backing an outcome which is “overdue”. However, in another indication that perhaps this isn’t the best so-called system, some use former results to bet the other way, believing not that one result is overdue but that the other is enjoying a streak and is more likely to come up.

Pattern Recognition: Player Or Bank Is Overdue A Win

The primary way some players try to use past results is based on erroneous maths and false intuition. There is actually a complex and seemingly plausible mathematical basis for this view that for a long time appeared difficult to refuse.

Let us assume that we are backing the banker (this is the best bet in baccarat and, if you are playing, it is the only wager you should ever make). We know that 45.9% of the time the banker will win. If a player records 100 hands and sees that the banker has only won 28 times, it is quite easy to see how some might be fooled into thinking they are “due” a win. The win rate stands at just 28% against an expected ratio of more like 46%.

The complex mathematical basis that goes beyond a feeling that a win for the bank is overdue is based on the ideas that if the bank wins 45.9% of the time, it has to be more likely to win in order to reach that number. If the win rate is currently down at 28%, the only way it can achieve the 45.9% we know it will, is by the banker winning more frequently in the future.

Both a player’s gut instinct and a seemingly more scientific approach to the issue are really false expressions of the same point. In a random event, such as a hand of baccarat (or a spin of the roulette wheel or toss of a coin), what has happened previously does not impact what will happen in the future.

Reading Baccarat Patterns Pictures

The belief that it does is known as the gambler’s fallacy, or the Monte Carlo Fallacy (following a reported incident in 1913 where black hit 26 times in a row at roulette, a one in 67m occurrence). Pattern recognition in this sense in baccarat does not work because no matter how many times the player has won, the odds of the game remain the same.

Moreover, what you perceive to be a statistically important anomaly in the variance, for example the banker only winning 28% of observed hands, is a mere blip. You have not observed the trillions of hands that have been played previously nor the infinite number of hands to come. Your “pattern” is just a tiny sliver of random events that has no bearing on the future.

Is a Pattern a Streak?

An alternative way in which “patterns” are used is to identify what players term “streaks”. Many baccarat players view the lack of one outcome as a sign that the alternative bet is “hot” and on a streak.

So in our example where the banker has won 28% of the time, we might assume the tie has hit a statistically typical nine times and the player has won a whopping 63% of the games. That strike rate is smashing the 44 or 45 wins that would typically be expected and therefore a player using the “theory” (and we use that term very generously) of backing streaks would bet heavily on the player.

Some ‘strategies’ that advocate backing on a streak might suggest you wait for a run of three in a row, or five in a row, or perhaps even more. If this was an event where past outcomes had any bearing at all on future ones, issues would still remain. Who decides how many results constitutes a streak? How do we know when the streak has ended or whether one reversal is just a blip? It’s all just guess work.

However, these questions are irrelevant when it comes to baccarat because, as we have stated, each hand is essentially independent of the last. The reason we add the minor caveat of saying “essentially” is that in baccarat, like in blackjack, the cards being dealt come from a finite deck (usually eight decks) and so each one drawn does alter future probabilities.

However, in baccarat these make virtually no difference to the outcome of the game. A player counting cards in blackjack can gain enough of an edge to beat the house’s advantage. In baccarat they cannot even get close. Which returns us to the key issue, the “patterns” and results of previous hands make no significant difference to the probabilities involved with future ones.

Reading Baccarat Patterns Meaning

Conclusion: Pattern Recognition Is A Nonsense

To conclude we can quite simply say that pattern recognition is a total waste of time when it comes to baccarat.

Keeping a note of the results of past hands gives you absolutely no advantage when it comes to betting on future hands. Each hand is an independent event and as such it matters not whether there have been 10 ties in a row, 17 banker wins in a row or only one banker win in the last hour.

Reading Baccarat Patterns Chart

The concept of streaks or the alternative notion that a certain result is overdue are both 100% wrong.