Primiera

Italian

40

From 2 to 8

Mentioned by writers such as William Shakespeare and François Rabelais, the game Primiera was very famous throughout Europe for centuries, from the 16th to the 19th century. Desdiscard pilee the use of the Italian suit deck, this game is a real ancestor of Poker.

The goal of the game is to make the highest value combination to win the pot.

Before the start of the game each player pays a participation fee: it will be the same for all, including the dealer. The sum of the paid-in shares is the pot for that hand.

The dealer, chosen randomly, shuffles the cards, submits the deck to first player at their left and hands out four cards, covered, to each participant in a clockwise direction.

The cards left after this distribution are placed, stacked and covered, in the center of the table to constitute the deck.

Each player takes their four cards and looks at them. Since the game consists in building a winning combination, it may happen that one or more players have already been served at this very early stage. In this case they shall declare it without hesitation. If only one player makes such a statement, they are entitled to win the entire pot. If two or more players are served, the different combinations are compared and the pot goes to the one with the highest value.
It happens normally that none of the participants find themselves in the first beat with a winning combination served, in hand.
At this point, starting from the first player to the right of the dealer, each has the right to ask for the replacement of one, two, three or all four cards in their possession.
This substitution is done by the dealer, who picks up discarded cards (handed over covered) and replaces them with an equal number of cards drawn from the top of the deck.
If the deck runs out, the dealer collects all discarded cards, to shuffle and redistribute them.
If no one wins a combination after the second hand, the hand is cancelled. All cards are drawn, the deck is reassembled and given for a new hand to the next dealer, who will always be the first player to the right of the outgoing dealer.
If the pot is not awarded, that is, if no one has a winning combination in hand and the hand is cancelled with the transition to the next one what is deposited remains on the table and it goes to add up to the new shares that each player will be required to pay to continue in the game.

Primiera is connoted as an ancestor of Poker as there is the change of cards to reach the goal of a winning combination, but there is no dialogue between the players and therefore events that are the soul of Poker, such as the possibility to raise or bluff are excluded.
The picture of possible combinations is also narrow.
• Primiera: the lowest value combination, consisting of four different-suited cards.
• Fifty-five: the tris of a 7, a 6 and an Ace of the same suit. The fourth card does not count. If it were of the same seed as the other three, you would have the flow, that is the third combination possible in Primiera. The fifty-five is therefore a combination of intermediate value.
• Flow or Rustle: the highest value combination, consisting of four cards of the same suit. It does not matter that these cards are in some sequence or correspond to specific values.
Each card has its own score, very useful to determine which is the winning between two primiera, between two or more fifty-five, between two or more flows.
In the case of two or more flows, or two or more fifty-five with equal scoring value, the flow with the highest value according to suit shall be considered. In this case, the hierarchy is now classic and sees for the international deck, in descending order of importance, Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs and Spades, while for the regional deck, always in descending order of importance, Cups, Suns, Clubs and Spades.

In the Primiera, the highest value card is 7, which corresponds to 21 points. The following are, going down, 6 (worth 18 points), Ace (16 points), 5 (15 points), 4 (14 points), 3 (13 points) and 2 (12 points).

The three figures are worth 10 points each.
There is also another easy way to store values, which is summarised below.
• Figure: worth 10 points.
• Ace: worth 16 points.
• Cards 2 to 5: face value plus 10.
• 6 and 7: three times their face value.
At this point it is clear why one of the combinations is called fifty-five. It is, in fact, valid, regardless of the suit of the cards that make it up, just 55 points: 21 of 7, plus 18 of 6, plus 16 of the Ace.