Regardless of what you guys think about free baccarat, I happen to enjoy (usually) playing free online baccarat. I enjoy it because I love baccarat, and because I don't necessarily feel like dealing with putting my money online. I play for real money as often as I like in live games, and I much prefer live games.

But, regardless of what stakes you're playing it, be it play money, or high stakes baccarat, a lot of the same basic principles still apply, and all of the math is always the same. The only thing that changes as the stakes go up is the quality of players you're playing against.

I say all that to say this. If you're looking to get into baccarat, online play money baccarat is an excellent place to get started. Start with whatever amount of play money the site of your choice allows (I've been playing at Casino Classic ) and work up your play money bankroll. I think of my play money account on Casino Classic as my baccarat sandbox. I still apply sound baccarat strategy to all parts of that play money bankroll, but it's not as stressful, as it doesn't actually affect me financially.

Playing free money online allows you to see hundreds of thousands of hands in a very, very short amount of time--and that's the best way to becoming a better player, seeing more hands. But more importantly, using a play money account is a free lesson in bankroll management, variance, and you can very quickly see the difference in skill level, even between the players at different levels of play money.

Most important, good baccarat is good baccarat, no matter what stakes you're playing at. If you want to truly use a play money account as a free teaching tool, get to understand odds, systems, and strategies. Don't make bad calls using the excuse "Well, it's not real money." It's true that you're not playing with real money, but the play money allows you to see a large amount of hands that will help you in future play with real money. If you're making plays with free money that you wouldn't make with real money, you're going to learn some wrong lessons.

Anyway, on my Casino Classic play money account, I currently have just over 250,000 and I've been working up my play money bankroll. At this level, you still occasionally run into the players who say "Who cares. It's not even real money," but mostly the play is decent. Around the level that you'd find at a low-stakes home game. If you play in a low-stakes home game, working your way up to this level (and higher) could be a good free way to get LOTS of practice in with no risk. We're talking about FREE baccarat lessons.

Once you understand all the math behind the game, the only way to become a good baccarat player is to play hands, and usually that costs money - whether online or in real life.