Baccarat is a casino card game. Two sides — the player and the banker — receive cards, and the winner is the one whose cards add up closest to nine. You do not really invent a strategy the way you do in poker; the table rules tell you when to take another card. The game has a quiet, expensive feeling: high tables, little talk, large bets. It is famous in Macau and in European casinos, and you will meet the word in films and news about gambling far more than in ordinary homes. English borrowed it from French in the nineteenth century. It is a specialised word, not a kitchen-table game. People say the English name in more than one way; some keep a French-sounding end.