Macau (gambling)

Macau is possibly a forerunner of baccarat ; the name is borrowed from the "Monte Carlo of the East" ( Macau ), but the game itself comes from Hungary. Macau is played with French cards , Macau is a card game of chance similar to Onze et demi , Vingt un , Trente un or Seventeen and Four . The idea of Macao is also used in the dice game of the same name .

The game

Each pointeur receives a card from the banker , additional cards can be bought. Ace counts one, tens and pictures zero, the remaining hands count according to their number. It is important to have nine eyes in your hand as quickly as possible, or as close as possible to nine eyes.

If you get a nine as your first card, this is a big hit and you win double the bet; unless the banker also has a big hit: in this case the banker collects double the stake from all players, only the pointeur who also has a nine simply loses. An eight as the first card is called a small punch .

If you sell (i.e. get more than nine eyes), you lose your bet immediately. If the banker sells himself, all players who keep nine or fewer eyes win. If a player keeps more eyes than the banker, he simply wins; if he holds less, he loses his stake. If a player has the same number of eyes as the banker, the number of cards decides: whoever holds fewer cards wins; with the same number of points and cards , the banker always wins.

Source: Meyers Konversationslexikon from 1908

Differences between Macau and Baccarat

With Macau a player can buy as many cards as he likes; If he exceeds nine points, he loses immediately. In the different variants of Baccarat , a player may only draw a maximum of one card. If a player exceeds nine points, only the ones place counts in baccarat , i.e. H. a player can get worse by buying, but exceeding nine points does not necessarily mean losing the coup.

In Macau , all punchers receive cards, but with Baccarat chemin de fer only one punchers and with Baccarat banque only two punchers (one at each half of the table).

Literary reception

The game in Arthur Schnitzler's novella Game at Dawn is mentioned by name as Baccarat , but according to the information contained in the novella, it is Macao .