Spelling out "Can you count baccarat?" starts with the rules. Baccarat and the casino poker games share a table, a dealer and a fixed house edge, and all of them are simpler than they look. Baccarat asks only which hand to back, while games such as three card poker, Caribbean stud and ultimate Texas holdem let a player make a few decisions against the dealer. Knowing the rules step by step and the edge of each bet is most of what tells them apart.
Baccarat can be played at home with a standard deck or several, one player acting as banker and the drawing rules printed on a card for reference. In casinos, baccarat cards are not reused: after a shoe is dealt, the cards are usually destroyed or sold as souvenirs, partly because players bend and squeeze them during the reveal in some versions. Online and live games shuffle virtual or fresh decks for every shoe, so no card carries marks from a shoe before.
Punto banco is the most common form of baccarat, and learning how to play it takes one hand. A bet goes on banker, on player or on a tie; two cards go to each hand, and a third card may follow by fixed rules nobody chooses. Cards count at face value up to nine, tens and faces count zero, and only the last digit of the total matters. The hand closest to nine wins, which is the whole game for dummies and experts all the same.
After ante and blind, a player may raise three or four times the ante before the flop and less later. A rake, by contrast, is the pot share card rooms take.
Cards up to nine count at face value, tens and faces count zero, and only the last digit of a hand's total matters, with nine the best.
Nobody at the table does: a third card follows fixed drawing rules, which is why baccarat counts as a game of chance rather than skill.
A bettor backs the banker hand, the player hand or a tie, and after that single choice the cards are dealt under fixed rules.