LARO77 Small Road: How to Draw It From the Big Road

The small road is one of the baccarat scoreboard’s derived roads, and the standard way scoreboards draw it is from the big road. This page walks the construction column by column so you can read the marks on the board, as the live casino tables pillar describes it, without guessing at what they mean. The Wikipedia baccarat article lists the Bead Plate Road, the Big Road, the Big Eye Boy, the Small Road and the Cockroach Road as the common baccarat roads. The five steps below are the construction as scoreboards commonly draw it, so check the table’s own legend if its screen shows one.

The five steps at a glance

1. Build the big road first: record each Banker or Player win in a grid, starting a new column whenever the winner changes, with ties never starting a column.
2. Find where the small road starts: begin at the second entry of the big road’s third column, or at the first entry of the fourth column if the third has only one entry.
3. Compare a new column’s start: compare the length of the previous column with the column two before it, with equal lengths giving red and unequal lengths giving blue.
4. Compare a continuing entry: look at the same row in the column two to the left, and mark red if that cell is filled.
5. Mark the empty-cell cases: blue if that cell is empty but the one above it is filled, and red if both are empty.

Draw the big road first

The big road is the grid the small road is built from. Each Banker or Player win goes into the next cell down the current column, and a new column starts when the winner changes. A tie does not start a column.

1. Write each Banker or Player win in order.
2. Keep adding to the same column while the same side keeps winning.
3. Start a new column the first time the other side wins.

An example run of eight columns, with lengths 2, 2, 2, 1, 2, 3, 1 and 2 (an example, not a real shoe), is used below.

Find where the small road starts

The small road needs a column two to the left to compare with, so it cannot begin at the first entry. Its first mark comes from the entry after the first entry of the big road’s third column. Some describe the same rule as starting with the second entry of the third column, or with the first entry of the fourth column if the third has only one entry.

In the example, column 3 has two entries, so the first mark comes from the second entry of column 3.

Compare a new column with the column two back

When a big road entry opens a new column, compare two lengths: the previous column, and the column two before it. Equal lengths mark red. Unequal lengths mark blue.

In the example, column 4 opens after column 3, which has 2 entries, and column 1 has 2 entries. The lengths are equal, so the mark is red. Column 5 opens after column 4 (1 entry) and is compared with column 2 (2 entries), so it is blue.

Compare a continuing entry with the cell two columns left

When the new entry sits lower in an existing column, look at the same row in the column two to the left and then at the cell above it.

Take the second entry of column 5. The cell in row 2 of column 3 is filled, so the mark is red. The second entry of column 6 looks at row 2 of column 4, which is empty, with row 1 filled, so the mark is blue.

Worked example: the marks for eight columns

Applying the rules to the example run of lengths 2, 2, 2, 1, 2, 3, 1 and 2 gives ten marks.

Read in order, the small road for this run is red, red, blue, red, red, blue, red, blue, blue, red. The sibling roads use the same method with a different gap: the big eye boy compares one column back, and the cockroach road three columns back.

What the red and blue marks tell you

Red means the pattern repeats the column two back, and blue means it breaks. The colours say nothing about Banker or Player, and they predict nothing about the next round.

1. Red: the pattern repeats the column two back.
2. Blue: the pattern breaks from the column two back.
3. Neither colour names Banker or Player.

The arithmetic is simple. Each round is dealt from the same shoe by the same drawing rules, so the chance of the next result depends on the cards left, not on any mark. As an example, three red marks in a row do not enter the chance of a pair on the Player’s first two cards, which depends only on the cards left in the shoe; the player pair side bet page shows that working. Dice tables work the same way: the snake eyes page shows a 1 in 36 chance that never changes with the last roll.

Using the board without chasing it

A scoreboard is a record, and the cost of a bet comes from the paytable. Before you stake anything, read the table’s own rules screen, then use the house edge meaning page to turn a payout and a probability into an expected cost.

1. Treat the small road as a log of what has been dealt.
2. Read the payout for each bet on the table’s own paytable.
3. Set a stake you can afford to lose before the round starts.