Basra

Players and equipment

Two players, head to head, or four in two fixed partnerships sitting across from each other. A standard 52-card pack, no jokers. Suits barely matter — the exceptions are the seven of diamonds, which has a power of its own, the two of clubs and the ten of diamonds, which carry a scoring bonus. Aces count as 1 for capturing; queens and kings carry no numeral value at all.

The deal

Shuffle, and let the player to the dealer's left cut the pack; the dealer may look at the bottom card before going on. Starting with the player to the dealer's right and moving around the table, deal four cards face down to each player, the dealer dealing to themselves last. Then turn the next four cards face up in the middle of the table — the floor. If any of those four are jacks or the seven of diamonds, bury them back in the pack and deal fresh replacements from the top until the floor holds neither.

Play

The player to the dealer's right leads, and the turn moves on from there. On your turn you play one card face up to the floor, and you capture where your card lets you:

A card captures a floor card of the same rank — a seven takes a seven, a queen takes a queen. A numeral card (ace to ten) also captures any floor cards that add up to it, aces counting as 1; a 9 takes a 4 and a 5 together, or an ace and an 8, and can take more than one such group in a single play if the floor allows it. A queen or king has no number to add with — the only way to take one is to match it with its twin, or to sweep it away with a jack or the seven of diamonds.

You never have to capture just because you can: a card that fits nothing on the floor may simply be added to it instead. But once you choose to play a card that does match or sum to something, the capture is not optional.

A jack played to a floor that has anything on it sweeps the whole floor into your pile at once, but never scores the basra bonus below. Played to an empty floor, a jack has nothing to sweep and sits there, open to being matched by another jack later.

The seven of diamonds behaves the same way, with one difference: if everything it sweeps is numeral cards adding up to ten or less, that clearance counts as a basra. If the floor it takes is worth more than ten, or holds a queen or a king, the seven still takes the lot but scores no basra. Played to an empty floor, it just sits there like any other seven.

Clearing the floor completely with an ordinary matching or summing capture — never with a jack, and only sometimes with the seven of diamonds — is a basra, worth ten points on its own, on top of whatever you captured to earn it. Leave the card that made the basra face up on top of your capture pile, so the bonus is easy to remember when you come to score the hand.

Once everybody has played the four cards they were dealt, the dealer deals another four to each player — nothing more to the floor — and play goes on the same way. Keep going until the whole pack is gone: after the four floor cards, the other forty-eight go out four to each player at a time — six deals with two players, three with four. Whatever is left on the floor when the last card is played goes to whoever made the last capture, but it is never a basra.

Scoring

When the pack is used up, count the cards each side has captured. The side with more than half of them — twenty-seven or more out of fifty-two — scores 30 points for the majority. A 26–26 split scores nobody; instead, hold the 30 points over and add them to whoever takes the majority on the next hand, so that hand is worth 60 for it instead of 30. Tables differ on what happens if that next hand ties again — some let the 30 keep stacking (90 for whoever finally takes a majority), others let it lapse — so agree which way you play before it comes up.

On top of the majority, each side scores:

Every ace in its pile

1

one point each

Every jack in its pile

1

one point each

The two of clubs

2

if it is in that side's pile

The ten of diamonds

3

if it is in that side's pile

Each basra that side made

10

the floor-clearing bonus

Between the majority and the four aces, four jacks, the two of clubs and the ten of diamonds, 43 points are on the table every ordinary hand, before a single basra is added. A hand with two basras in it is worth 63 between the two sides.

SquareScores deals nothing here and never sees a card — a hand is played entirely at the table, and a round on the sheet is one finished hand. Once the floor is cleared for the last time and both piles are counted (majority bonus, any carried-over 30 included, the four scoring cards, every basra), enter your side's total for that hand in your own column; nobody may enter it for the other side, though the host may correct either column if a count was wrong. The running line climbs hand by hand toward 101, and the app only ever adds what you enter — it will never work out a majority, a basra or a carried-over tie for you.

A worked hand

Alice and Ben play head to head, and the whole pack is dealt out before either of them counts a card. At the end, Alice's pile holds 30 cards to Ben's 22, with three aces and two jacks in it, and the ten of diamonds; she also cleared the floor outright once during play. Ben's 22 cards hold one ace, two jacks and the two of clubs, with no basra of his own.

Majority, 30 cards to Ben's 22

30

hers for crossing the 27-card line

Aces, three in her pile

3

one point each

Jacks, two in her pile

2

one point each

The ten of diamonds

3

hers this hand

A basra

10

clearing the floor outright

Alice enters 48 for the hand. Ben's pile has no majority bonus, one ace, two jacks and the two of clubs:

Aces, one in his pile

1

one point

Jacks, two in his pile

2

one point each

The two of clubs

2

his this hand

Ben enters 5. Forty-eight and five is fifty-three — the usual 43 plus the 10 for Alice's one basra — and Alice is nearly halfway to 101 off a single hand, largely on the strength of the majority and that basra; Ben, holding two jacks and the two of clubs but no majority and no basra, has barely started.

Ending

Play on, hand after hand, until a side reaches 101. If both sides reach 101 in the very same hand, the higher score wins it; if they are level there too, deal again until the tie breaks. The app will not end the match for you — once a side's line reaches 101, any player at the table may tap End match to bank it, whoever dealt or whoever is ahead.

Chase points, not cards

Beyond the 27-card majority line, the size of your pile means nothing on its own — a pile of low numerals is worth exactly as much as a smaller one holding the aces, the jacks, the two of clubs and the ten of diamonds. Watch where those six things go rather than how thick your own pile looks.

Hold a jack back

A jack sweeps the floor the instant you need it to, which makes it the one card you can use to deny somebody else a basra — play it the turn before the floor would otherwise hand your opponent an easy clearance. Its own sweep never scores a basra, so using one early is a capture you are choosing to make the cheap way.

Don't leave an easy sum lying around

A floor that adds up neatly to a small number is a basra waiting to be taken by whoever plays next. Sometimes the better play is one that captures nothing at all, just to avoid handing the next player a ten-point clearance.

Remember the last four

By the final round of a hand you and your opponent have both seen every card but the four each of you is holding. Keep count as the pack runs down — it turns the last round or two from guesswork into certainty.

Weigh a basra against what it costs

Clearing the floor for ten points is tempting whenever you can, but it also leaves your next card nothing to land on and may hand the floor straight back for an opponent to build up again. A basra taken with a card you had little other use for costs nothing; one that spends your best capturing card might be better saved.

Three at the table

The accounts of this game are for two or four; three-handed Basra is described only for the Lebanese game, dealt four cards at a time with every player for themselves. A table that plays these rules with three deals the same way — four each, four to the floor, refilled four at a time until the pack is gone — and has to agree for itself, before the first hand, who takes the 30-point majority when no one player clearly has the most cards; tables differ, and the accounts do not say.

The target at 121

Some tables, by tradition the Egyptian ones, play to 121 rather than 101. Nothing else about the hand changes — agree the line before you deal, since SquareScores will let a side pass either number without stopping you.

The double basra

One account of the Yemeni game gives a jack an exception: if the floor holds exactly one card, and that card is also a jack, the clearance counts as a double basra — worth 20 points to whoever played the second jack, not the usual 10 a basra pays or the 0 an ordinary jack sweep pays.

Scoring a basra by its card

A variation played in Jordan drops the flat ten-point basra and scores it as twice the face value of the card that made it, picture cards counting as 10. A basra made with a seven is worth 14; one made when a queen captures a lone queen from the floor is worth 20.

Another seven of diamonds

Some tables read the seven of diamonds' basra differently. A floor of numerals counts only when it adds up to less than ten — exactly ten is no longer a basra — but it also counts when the floor is nothing but tens, queens and kings, or when it splits into two or more groups that each add up to the same total under ten: an ace, a two, a seven and an eight, where the ace-and-eight and the two-and-seven each make nine.

How many cards do you deal in Basra?

Four to each player and four face up on the floor to start, then four more to each player every time a batch is finished, until the fifty-two card pack is gone. A jack or the seven of diamonds among the first four floor cards is buried and replaced before play begins.

What is a basra in Basra?

Clearing the floor completely in one capture, worth ten points on top of the cards you take. It only counts when the floor is cleared the ordinary way, by matching a rank or adding up to a sum — a jack's sweep is never a basra, and the seven of diamonds only earns one under its own narrower rule.

Can a jack capture a queen or a king?

Only by sweeping the whole floor at once, and that sweep is never a basra. On its own a queen can be taken only by another queen, and a king only by another king — picture cards have no number to add with, so a plain capture by sum is never how one changes hands.

Can you refuse to capture in Basra?

Yes, but only by choosing to play a different card — one that fits nothing on the floor is always a legal play. Once you do decide to play a card that matches or sums to something, taking the capture is not a choice any more.

How do you win Basra?

By being the first side to score 101 points, counted hand by hand from the majority of cards, the aces and jacks, the two of clubs, the ten of diamonds and any basras made along the way. If both sides cross 101 on the same hand, the higher score takes it; a tie there is settled by dealing again.

What happens if the floor runs out before anyone captures it?

It cannot. The floor only ever empties through a capture, a sweep or a basra, and whatever is left on it when the last card is played goes to whoever made the last capture of the hand — taking it is never a basra.