In the recent remake of the classic James Bond movie Casino Royale, based on the first James Bond novel by Ian Fleming, Daniel Craig’s Bond is seen betting on Texas Hold’em with a lot of money. This touch was added as an answer to the current great popularity of Texas Hold’em and casino games, but in the original movie, Bond played a variant of baccarat.

Baccarat is the ideal casino game for the noble and wealthy environments in which James Bond used to mingle. Baccarat has been considered for a long time the most expensive casino game, and it is usually played in baccarat isles surrounded with silk ribbons and staff dressed with gala suits.

It is important to remember that James Bond does not play traditional baccarat, which does not imply skills and is much easier, but a baccarat variant known as Chemin de Fer. One of the main differences between both games is that all decisions of the baccarat player are made by the player himself.

The object of baccarat is to get as close as possible to nine, and there are standard rules about when the baccarat player has to take an additional card or on the contrary stay in order to achieve such goal. All the casino player has to do is bet whether his hand or the hand of the bank will win.

In Chemin de Fer, the baccarat player can make his own decisions and can also choose to be the bank. These elements create a propitious environment to have much more tense moments between players sitting on the baccarat table and live some of the legendary episodes James Bond was used to.