With "Can you count baccarat?", the key is the order in which cards are drawn. Baccarat looks formal and plays simply: two hands, called player and banker, are dealt, and the bettor backs one of them or a tie. Nobody at the table makes a decision about drawing, because a fixed rule decides whether each hand takes a third card. Knowing the point values and that rule makes every round easy to follow, from the first card to the result.
Baccarat tables display scoreboards, often called roads, that record the result of every recent round in grids of coloured marks. Many players read patterns into them and bet on streaks continuing or breaking. Each round is dealt from a shoe that does not remember the last one, so the boards describe the past and predict nothing. They are useful for following a table, and harmless as long as no betting plan is built on them.
Cards from two to nine count at face value, aces count one, and tens and picture cards count nothing. A hand's total is the last digit of the sum, so a seven and an eight make five. The highest possible total is nine. Two cards totalling eight or nine are a natural, and a natural on either side ends the round at once with no further cards drawn. The hand closer to nine takes the round.
A tie usually pays eight to one on the tie box, and at most tables bets on player or banker are handed back rather than lost.
Each box on the layout carries its own minimum, and the table limits show the smallest accepted stake for player, banker, tie and pair bets.
The player hand draws on any total from zero to five and stands on six or seven, a rule that stays the same at every table.
If the player stood, banker draws on five or less; otherwise banker always draws on two or less, stands on seven, and between three and six follows a printed table.
No: the roads only record past rounds in coloured marks, and since the shoe has no memory of earlier hands they forecast nothing.
Twos through nines keep their face value, aces are worth one, and tens along with picture cards score nothing, so a seven and an eight make five.