Read Online Bond 01 - Casino Royale by Ian Fleming - Free Book Online Page A

the high tables here. He paid a million francs for it and his capital has been reduced to twenty-four million. I have about the same. There will be ten players, I expect, and we sit round the banker at a kidney-shaped table.
    ‘Generally, this table is divided into two tableaux. The banker plays two games, one against each of the tableaux to left and right of him. In that game the banker should be able to win by playing off one tableau against the other and by first-class accountancy. But there aren’t enough baccarat players yet at Royale and Le Chiffre is just going to pit his luck against the other players at the single tableau. It’s unusual because the odds in favour of the banker aren’t so good, but they’re a shade in his favour and, of course, he has control of the size of the stakes.
    ‘Well, the banker sits there in the middle with a croupier to rake in the cards and call the amount of each bank and a chef de partie to umpire the game generally. I shall be sitting as near dead opposite Le Chiffre as I can get. In front of him he has a shoe containing six packs of cards, well shuffled. There’s absolutely no chance of tampering with the shoe. The cards are shuffled by the croupier and cut by one of the players and put into the shoe in full view of the table. We’ve checked on the staff and they’re all okay. It would be useful, but almost impossible, to mark all the cards, and it would mean the connivance at least of the croupier. Anyway, we shall be watching for that too.’
    Bond drank some champagne and continued.
    ‘Now what happens at the game is this. The banker announces an opening bank of five hundred thousand francs, or five hundred pounds as it is now. Each seat is numbered from the right of the banker and the player next to the banker, or Number 1, can accept this bet and push his money out on to the table, or pass it, if it is too much for him or he doesn’t want to take it. Then Number 2 has the right to take it, and if he refuses, then Number 3, and so on round the table. If no single player takes it all, the bet is offered to the table as a whole and everyone chips in, including sometimes the spectators round the table, until the five hundred thousand is made up.
    ‘That is a small bet which would immediately be met, but when it gets to a million or two, it’s often difficult to find a taker or even, if the bank seems to be in luck, a group of takers to cover the bet. At that moment I shall always try and step in and accept the bet – in fact, I shall attack Le Chiffre’s bank whenever I get a chance until either I’ve bust his bank or he’s bust me. It may take some time, but in the end one of us is bound to break the other, irrespective of the other players at the table, although they can, of course, make him richer or poorer in the meantime.
    ‘Being the banker, he’s got a slight advantage in the play, but knowing that I’m making a dead set at him and not knowing, I hope, my capital, is bound to play on his nerves a bit, so I’m hoping that we start about equal.’
    He paused while the strawberries came and the avocado pear.
    For a while they ate in silence, then they talked of other things while the coffee was served. They smoked. Neither of them drank brandy or a liqueur. Finally, Bond felt it was time to explain the actual mechanics of the game.
    ‘It’s a simple affair,’ he said, ‘and you’ll understand it at once if you’ve ever played vingt-et-un, where the object is to get cards from the banker which add up more closely to a count of twenty-one than his do. In this game, I get two cards and the banker gets two, and unless anyone wins outright, either or both of us can get one more card. The object of the game is to hold two or three cards which together count nine points, or as nearly nine as possible. Court cards and tens count nothing; aces one each; any other card its face value. It is only the last figure of your count that signifies. So nine plus seven