Double Feature: Let’Em Ride Pro and Baccarat Pro

Allow me to quote myself:

“[21 Pro] is still one of the best casino games I’ve ever played on the iPhone… and I’ve played a few. Maybe it would be more accurate to say it’s the best casino series I’ve ever played; 3 Card Pro and 4 Card Pro are built on the very same foundation as 21 Pro”

Guess what else is built on the same foundation? Yep, Avalinx has built a rock-solid foundation for their casino franchise and Let’Em Ride and Baccarat are two more installments in the series. These are the kinds of games you see in casinos but may be too much of a wuss to try and, since I’ve raved about all of Avalinx’s casino games to date, the thing I want to stress this time around is what awesome learning tools these games are.

The payouts might be a little different in these versions, but the gameplay is right on… as usual… and if you’re planning to go to Vegas this weekend like I am then I’d really recommend trying your luck (or lack thereof) on these games while you “get the hang of it” before perching yourself at an actual table where getting cleaned out is a lot more painful than tapping the restart game button.

Let’Em Ride

Let’Em Ride is better known in casinos as Let “IT” Ride, but the concept is the same: you get three cards, the dealer gets two, and your ultimate goal is to get at least a pair of 10s between all five cards combined. There’s a $1 progressive/bonus bet which pays off big when you hit a ridiculous hand, and there’s also a 3-Card Bonus bet which pays when you get dealt something awesome like a 3-Card Flush or triplets.

At first glance the game looks scary in real life because you’re required to put down THREE bets of equal amounts, ie: $25, $25, and $25, but the thing that saves you from going bankrupt in the first 15 minutes is that you can take up to two of those bets back if you don’t like what you’re seeing on the table. You’ve got your three cards, and if they suck then you take down Bet #3. Dealer flips his first card, and if you still don’t have a pair of 10s then you can take back Bet #2. Bet #1, however, always stays after the dealer flips his second card.

It’s a fun game, but it can get expensive! Odds of winning are terrible but jackasses like me play it for the 1 in a million chance that I’ll nail a flush of the Straight or Royal variety and win enough cash to buy that Ferrari I’ve had my eye on.

Avalinx’s version of Let’Em Ride, just like ALL of their games including Baccarat, has practically every detail of an actual Vegas-style table covered from the way cards are dealt to the card shoe to shuffling to the sound of chips being stacked when you get paid! It’s called Pro for a reason, and it also comes equipped with Avalinx’s standard set of bells & whistles:

• Mastering The Game: History, Rules & Terminology, Strategy, Payouts, Help
• Customizable table cloths and card decks
• In-game payout breakdowns
• Ask Dealer for advice
• High roller chip stacks
• High roller tables
• Global leaderboards

If you like this game or just wanna try it without risking this month’s rent check, this is absolutely the way to go. There are a couple of other versions of this game in the App Store and they’re cheap, as in $.99 cheap, but as is usually the case you get what you pay for. I haven’t tried the other versions because their screenshots almost made me vomit, but I kind of doubt they can compete with Let’Em Ride.

Baccarat Pro

Ok, this is a game that I truly don’t get! I mean, I “get” it, but as much as I love gambling money I can’t afford to lose I just don’t see myself parked at a Baccarat table anytime soon.

The idea behind Baccarat is to get cards whose total value is closer to 9 than the dealer’s. Like a lot of card games there’s some screwy math at work here… 10s and face cards are worth zero, and if your hand totals 10 or more the first digit gets dropped. Huh?? Yeah, I know! So if you get 3, J, A that adds up to 4 points (Aces = 1). If you get 3, 10, 7 you’ve got zero because the 1 gets chopped off your total of 10. If you get triple Kings you’re at the wrong table because that also equals zero.

You can bet on the Player or on the Dealer, and if you’re incredibly drunk you can bet on a Tie where both Dealer and Player wind up with the same point total. And of course there’s a b0nus bet called Dragon Bonus that pays crazy odds when the unthinkable happens, ie: drawing  a card that results in beating the dealer by 9 points.

Sorry, I’m not very good at explaining Baccarat because, unlike Let’Em Ride, I haven’t spent days on end playing it in real life, but at least now I know that this game is crazy and it’s for crazy people and I didn’t have to learn that the hard, expensive way.

Despite my lack of real world experience with this game, I can tell you that Baccarat Pro does the things you’d want it to do if you were at an actual table… it gives you a tally for tracking which hands have been winning (Player, Dealer, or Tie), and it also tells you what the hell just happened when a hand is dealt and over with.

Let me say that again: it tells you what the hell just happened!

All of Avalinx’s other casino games will explain payouts to you because they’re based on universally accepted poker hands and blackjack rules, but Baccarat is a different animal. Rather than tapping Ask Dealer during the hand like you normally would, you tap it after the hand is dealt, and that’s how you learn this game.

Conclusion

If you like these kinds of games or just want to learn how to play, get these apps! There are probably hundreds of blackjack and poker games in the App Store, but these games are a specific variety that not a lot of developers are creating. Luckily for fans of these table games, Avalinx has taken the time to do them right.

iTunes Link – Let’Em Ride Pro
iTunes Link – Baccarat Pro
Version 1.0.3 (Let’Em Ride Pro), 1.0.5 (Baccarat Pro)
Reviewed on iPhone 3G OS3.1