Baccarat Chart

Table of contents

1. What Are Baccarat Scorecards?
2. Should You Keep Score of The Baccarat Results?
3. Baccarat Score Keeping Methods
4. Bead Road
5. Big Road
6. Derived Scoring Systems

What Are Baccarat Scoreboards?

Baccarat scoreboards are visual tracking systems used in casinos and online games to display past hand results. Players use scoreboards to track streaks and identify potential patterns, though baccarat remains a game of chance. While they don't influence outcomes, scoreboards enhance engagement and strategy for those who enjoy analyzing trends.

They include the Big Road, which records Banker and Player wins, and pattern trackers like Big Eye Boy, Small Road, and Cockroach Pig, which highlight trends. The Bead Plate shows a grid of past outcomes, making it easy to follow game history.

Each scorecard starts from the beginning of a new shoe and ends after the shoe runs out.

At brick-and-mortar casinos, you'll get a blank scorecard at the table so you can make notes and track the results. At Baccarat online casinos, you'll see the results automatically for each live dealer baccarat table.

Should You Keep Score of The Baccarat Results?

The short answer is: don't bother.

You should not keep score of Baccarat results, as there is no real benefit to it.

Many baccarat fans believe in pattern recognition. They keep track of what is happening in the shoe and study the results to predict the outcomes of the next hands.

Casinos encourage this by handing out scorecards and pens to mark down the results. At online casinos, you can often see the statistics of every live baccarat table straight at the live casino lobby.

This should be a signal in itself: if the casino freely hands you data, this data doesn't improve your gameplay. Instead, relying on baccarat cards gives you the false impression that by spotting patterns, you can predict the results of future rounds.

However, this hasn't deterred players from developing several scorekeeping methods to track game results. Below, we look at them more closely.

A veteran game developer, Taaniel Sülla, has also written a very good article on baccarat charts. Complete with mathematical models and flow charts, we recommend checking it out.

Baccarat Score Keeping Methods

The idea behind creating and studying baccarat charts is to spot trends and patterns in previous results and use these models to predict the outcomes of future hands.

There are 5 widespread scorekeeping systems in baccarat:

How To Read The Baccarat Chart

Every baccarat chart is read from top to bottom and left to right. The chart restarts at the beginning of a new shoe. Each scorekeeping method has a slightly different approach to what things they actually track.

The two main scorecards, Bead Road and Big Road, show you what hands have actually been played. They use blue and red circles (Bead Road) or rings (Big Road) to mark down Player and Banker wins, respectively. In addition, any Ties, pairs and naturals are faithfully recorded in the Bead Road.

The three "derived" methods (Big Eye Boy, Small Road and Cockroach Pig) try to gauge outlying trends, i.e. "chaos" and "predictability". They use the same colours, blue and red, but they mean very different things. Whereas blue means a Player win in the main charts, in the derived systems, it stands for chaos. Likewise, red signifies predictability instead of a Banker win.

Bead Road

The Bead Road scorekeeping method gives you the raw data of every hand played in a format that doesn't take much space. It shows you whether there was a Player win, a Banker win or a Tie. In addition, you'll see every Tie, Banker or Player pair or natural. Some variants of this method also show you the exact score of the winning hand.

How To Read The Bead Road Chart?

The Bead Road fills every square on the scorecard. It is read from top to bottom, left to right. After the column is full, the next entry starts at the top of the next column to the right.

Bead Road is very faithful in showing what hands have been dealt. In addition, it keeps track of the pairs. This may be useful if you rely on previous results when placing the Banker pair of Player pair side bets. Plus, the Bead Road uses very little space if you're stingy with writing paper.

Big Road

The Big Road is a simplified version of the Bead Road scorekeeping method. Its good readability and simplicity have made the Big Road the main scorekeeping method at live dealer casinos.

How To Read The Big Road Chart?

The Big Road makes spotting the alternation from Banker to Player and vice versa very easy, since this always starts a new column to the right. The chart is read from top to bottom, then left to right.

At a glance, you can see how long winning streaks either hands tend to get. Although the Big Road doesn't record naturals, the scoring system has evolved to show Ties and pairs.

Here's what the markings mean:

Dragon Tails

The dragon tail is a Player or Banker winning streak of 7 or more consecutive wins. The standard scorecard is 6 squares tall, so when the winning streak is longer than that, the "tail" turns right at the bottom.

When there's a dragon tail forming, superstitious gamblers usually rush to bet on this winning streak, not against it. However, the odds of the tail breaking or continuing are exactly the same as before.

If there are multiple consecutive dragon tails, they turn right at the bottom instead of overlapping with the previous tails.

Derived Scoring Systems

The three "derived" scoring systems (Big Eye Boy, Small Road and Cockroach Pig) are derived from the Big Road. Instead of accurately noting down whether the Banker or Player won which hand, these systems try to highlight overall trends of chaos and predictability in the past results. The idea is to use this data to better forecast the winners of future rounds.

In a predictable shoe, there's a certain symmetry between Banker and Player winning streaks. In a chaotic shoe, such clear patterns are hard to find. If this feels confusing, you can learn and practice reading the charts by playing free Baccarat games before moving on to real money games.

The exact rules of measuring chaos and predictability vary from one system to another. However, they all use red to signify predictability and blue to note down chaos or choppiness.

Like the Big Road, the derived systems are read from top to bottom and left to right. Each change of trend starts a new column. However, each marking only uses one corner of a standard square, fitting 4 markings in the space of 1 standard square.

Big Eye Boy

Big Eye Boy is the first of the derived baccarat scoring systems. Like the Big Road system, it uses red and blue rings to keep track of the deck. However, it measures the perceived predictability and choppiness of the deck instead of Player/Banker wins.

The things affecting whether a certain result is counted as chaotic or predictable are:

• The length of consecutive winning streaks
• The length of individual winning streaks

The rules for determining predictability depend on whether the new entry on the Big Road starts a new column or continues an existing streak:

Small Road

Small Road is very much like Big Eye Boy. To tell the two apart, the Small Road uses solid circles (red or blue) instead of rings.

In Small Road, you're still comparing the length of consecutive and individual winning streaks, just like in Big Eye Boy. However, you "hop over" one column in the comparisons.

Since you need to look at up to 3 columns back, the Small Road scoring system only starts once there are 4 columns on the Big Road.

Cockroach Pig

Cockroach Pig is also very similar to Big Eye Boy and Small Road. This system uses diagonal stripes of red and blue to track the results.

Whereas Small Road hops over 1 column in comparison, Cockroach Pig hops over 2:

In Cockroach Pig, you need to look at up to 4 columns back. That's why the entries only start once there are 5 columns on the Big Road.

About the Author

Article by:

Milla Gustafsson

After working with casino content for a good few years, Milla now puts her heart into writing detailed articles that speak from player to player. She will investigate the smallest details and provide honest reviews.

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