The Rules for Those Who Wish to Follow Them
Chemin de fer, known as chemmy, is utterly extravagant in its madness. It is a game of daring and nerve, of impetuosity – a true game of chance. It’s as simple as betting on which number of bus will come around the corner first.
All face cards and tens count as zero. The aces count as one, and the rest as they are numbered: two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine.
If in counting the cards the total amounted to double figures, the ten would be dropped, a seven and six would count as three, a six and four as zero.
Nine is the best number, and called, along with a count of eight, as a ‘natural’. The gamble is an even-money bet on which of two players is closest to nine.
Even if a player draws a third card, that decision involves no talent. The rules of the game, the tableau, which in casinos must be followed exactly, dictates mathematically correct play: whether to draw or rest.
Six packs of cards are normally used for a shoe. The croupier never handles the cards directly before a ‘coup’, a hand; he may move them down the table with his palette. Before the start of every shoe he shuffles the cards, a player cuts them by placing one card at random in the deck (something a clever croupier can ‘break’), and places them in the shoe.
The cards in each coup, initially two each, are dealt by whichever player holds the ‘bank’; he strokes them singly from the wooden shoe, which has a weight at the back and a metal mesh in front. He is gambling against whoever at the table calls ‘banco’, and any player can do that. If the player who calls ‘banco’ loses he can immediately call ‘suivi’ and play again. This can go on until the bank loses.
Chemin de fer (French for ‘railway’ – the image of the shoe as a train travelling around the table) is the companion game of baccarat, once the grand gambling game in French casinos. The house provides a croupier to advise players of the rules. It also supplies all the necessary gaming equipment: table, chairs, the shoe (called the sabot) and the cards. For that, the house takes a percentage commission (the cagnotte, or rake) of 5 per cent on all winning bank hands. The house also guarantees to pay the winners.
Each player can be a banker in turn. The player who is acting as the bank is responsible with his/her own money for all losing bets, as well as collecting all winning bank bets.
The instructions and terms used in the game are in French. In a casino or gambling club chemmy is played on a kidneyshaped table covered with a green beige cloth. The croupier sits in the middle; there are nine seats for the players, the space on the table in front of them being marked with the numbers one to nine. There can be fewer players seated at the table, but never more than nine.
There is a slot in the table beside the croupier’s place leading to a cabinet locked into the table into which the croupier drops the cagnotte (later a table charge). There is also a nine-inch-diameter hole in the centre of the table into which a removable, cylindrical metal container, flat on top and about two feet deep under the table, is placed. It has a slit into which the cards are dropped by the croupier after each coup.
The first bank goes to the player sitting at the right of the croupier, at number one. He puts in the middle of the table chips (cash is never seen in smart games) to the value for which he wishes to open his bank (his bet).
The player sitting at number two seat has first choice of taking the bet and after that precedence to do so moves anticlockwise – but anyone at the table can call the bet by saying ‘banco’.
The bank deals two cards alternately to his opponent and himself. They are dealt face down. The caller looks at his cards and if the joint count is either eight or nine he turns them over, as does the bank. There is then no further action; the better hand wins.
If there are no ‘naturals’, the caller can stay put – reste – or ask for a third card. The bank has exactly the same judgement to make.
The tableau, a copy of which is usually attached to the chemmy shoe, tells both players what is mathematically the correct strategy to adopt in almost every situation. There are a few situations where mathematically the alternatives of resting or drawing (avalante) make no difference to the chance of winning, and the gambler makes a choice. In casinos it was obligatory to adhere strictly to the tableau; in London, the games did not always hold as closely to the rules.
After a winning coup or coups the bank remains with the same person; after the first losing coup it passes automatically one place to the right – the train moves around the table.