Briscola

Italian

40

From 2 to 6

With Scopa and Tressette, this is the most popular Italian game but, contrary to what you can believe, it’s not an ancient game. Its appearance dates back to the first half of the 19th century. The cards from Briscola vary from region to region, but are typically Italian suit: 40 cards to adapt then to the number of players.

Briscola is a catch (or capture) game; the goal is to take as many points as possible in each hand, to get to the end with the most of the 120 points at stake.

The dealer of the first hand is drawn by lot and the game always proceeds in a counter-clockwise direction. The dealer, after mixing the deck of forty cards, and allowed the cut, gives the opponent three cards covered, and three to themselves; they take the seventh card and lays it face-up on the table, placing the deck on it perpendicularly so that half of the card remains visible. This face-up card indicates the Briscola suit for the hand.

The game begins when, once the Briscola suit is discovered, the opponent of the dealer first plays a card of his choice from among his three cards. The dealer responds by playing a card.

The catch can be done within the following criteria.

a) If no briscola card is played and…
• If the hand player plays a card of a certain suit and the second player plays a card of a different suit: the first player always makes the catch, whatever the value of the card played by the opponent.
• If the first hand plays a card of a certain suit and the next player plays a card of the same suit; the catch is awarded by the player who has played the highest value card.
b) If at least one briscola card is played…
• If only one is played, the player who plays it always makes the catch, whatever the face value of their card in relation to that opponent is.
• If both players play a briscola card, the highest value card wins.

The player who makes the catch collects the two cards and places them face down in front of them. The following catches will accumulate to form a pile always covered. It is forbidden to look at your own or other cards already subject to capture. After the first catch, the player who made it draws from the deck the first card available and rebuilds their three-card fan in hand. The opponent draws the next card and the game continues with a new play. The player who makes the last catch is always the first to play. When the deck runs out, the last card (that face up which indicated the briscola suit) is given to the player who got the previous catch. From this moment on, the game continues until all the cards in the hands of the players are used up. Finally, points are calculated. The sum of the scores of each suit (illustrated below) is equal to 30, so the whole deck has a total score of 120: 61 points are enough to ensure the hand. If both players score 60 points in a draw, it is repeated with the same dealer. Otherwise, the deck changes hands and a new hand is made. A game is normally made up of three or five hands.

For the purpose of taking and calculating the score at the end of the hand, cards of any suit have the following value: Ace 11 points; Three 10 points; King 4 points; Horse/Queen 3 points; Jack, 2 points.

All other cards have no value and are therefore called “scraps”.

In the case of three players, the game proceeds with the same rules for the two-players mode; but you must remember to remove a 2 from the deck, so that it reduces to 39 cards.

The role of the dealer is played in a counter-clockwise direction, as well as the distribution of cards and the sequence of the drops. In the three-way game you do not need to score 61 points to win, but you cannot win with less than 41 points. The winner is the one who has achieved the most of the 120 points in play. A tie can occur, with 40 points per person. In this case, the match is repeated without changing the dealer.

It is played with the same rules and with a deck of forty cards, but introduces the game in pairs. The two partners sit opposite each other, so that they can alternate with the two opponents. They play in a team game: the 61 points are scored together. The catch is made after all players have played their cards. The catch is attributed to the player who drops the winning card, and they will be the first to draw from the deck and the first to start the next phase of the game. The cards captured by a pair are all kept by one of the two players, in a single pile. The Briscola in four admits the possibility of using forms of information between the two partners through conventional signs. More explicitly, players are also allowed to talk to each other, up to asking the teammate to drop a specific card or behave in a certain way. But it is forbidden to exchange information during the first round of the game. Finally, after the last card of the table has been drawn, before the start of the three final rounds, the players in each pair can exchange their cards and see them, and then return them to the partner. In order to allow all players to make at least one turn as a dealer, the game in the Briscola in four is divided into a minimum of five hands.