Briscola

Players and equipment

Two, three, four or six players and a 40-card Italian pack — or a standard 52-card pack with the eights, nines and tens taken out. The Italian suits are coins, cups, swords and clubs, and the three court cards are the king, the horse and the knave, which in a French-suited pack are the king, queen and jack. Two play head to head; four and six play in fixed partnerships, seated so that no two partners sit next to each other. With three players, take one two out of the pack before dealing so that 39 cards divide evenly into thirteen tricks.

The deal

Three cards each, dealt one at a time. The next card off the pack is turned face up and laid half under the stock: that is the briscola, and its suit is trumps for the whole hand. The rest of the pack sits on top of it as the stock everybody draws from.

Play

The player to the dealer's right leads, and turns pass to the right. There is no obligation to follow suit — you may play any card at any time, which is the whole game. The trick goes to the highest trump in it, or, if it contains no trump, to the highest card of the suit led. The winner leads to the next.

After every trick everybody draws one card, winner first, so hands stay at three. The face-up briscola is the very last card taken, by whoever draws last, and the whole table has watched it lie there all game knowing exactly who gets it. Once the stock is gone the last three tricks are played from the cards in hand, and those are the tricks that decide most games.

Cards rank within a suit: ace, three, king, queen or horse, jack or knave, then seven down to two. The three sitting second is what catches everybody out the first time — a three takes a king.

Scoring

Ace

11

Highest of its suit

Three

10

Second, above the king

King

4

Third

Queen or horse

3

Fourth

Jack or knave

2

Fifth

Seven down to two

0

Win tricks, count nothing

The pack holds 120 card points: the four aces are 44, the four threes 40, the four kings 16, the four horses 12 and the four knaves 8. At least 61 wins the hand, and 60 all is a draw. Because two thirds of the points sit in eight cards, a hand can turn on a single trick late on, and counting what has gone is the game underneath the game.

A worked hand

Alice and Ben play a two-handed game with cups as the briscola. When the twenty tricks are done they turn their piles over and count only the cards that score.

Alice's aces

33

Coins, cups and swords

Alice's threes

20

Coins and clubs

Alice's court cards

11

Two kings and a horse

Alice

64

Her total for the hand

Ben's ace and threes

31

The ace of clubs, the threes of cups and swords

Ben's court cards

25

Two kings, three horses and four knaves

Ben

56

His total for the hand

Alice has 64 and Ben 56, and 64 with 56 makes 120, which is the check that no card has gone astray. Alice has 61 or more and takes the hand. Had Ben won the trick that held the ace of swords, the count would have been 53 to 67 the other way, which is how narrow a hand of Briscola usually is.

Ending

The hand ends when all the cards have been played. Count the points in the tricks you won — or your side won — and 61 takes it. Matches are commonly the best of three. Keeping score on SquareScores, each hand is a match and the app counts who has won the most.

Holding the briscola

A trump is the only card that can win a trick you did not lead, so the trumps in your hand are what protect your good cards and steal the other side's. Do not spend a trump on a trick worth nothing: a seven or a two led against you costs you nothing to lose, and the trump you save will take an ace later. The ace and three of trumps are the two best cards in the pack and want holding until they capture something, ideally the other side's ace or three of another suit.

When to play the three

The three is worth 10 and is beaten only by the ace of its suit and by any trump. Lead it when the ace of its suit has already gone, because then only a trump can take it and the other side may not want to spend one. When your side has already won a trick and you are playing last to it, that is the moment to load a three onto it and bank the ten points in safety.

The last trick

The last three tricks are played with no more cards to draw, so everybody knows the stock is empty and, with a little counting, what the others hold. Whoever takes the last card from the stock takes the briscola with it, and the whole table has seen what it is. Plan for that: if the briscola is an ace or a three, the player due to draw it is going to be strong at the end, and you want to have taken your points before then.

Signals in the four-player game

In the partnership game partners are allowed to tell each other what they hold, by signs made when the other side is not looking. The common set is a pressed lip for the ace, a twist of the mouth for the three, a glance upward for the king, a shrug of the shoulder for the horse and the tip of the tongue for the knave. The point is to let your partner know whether to load points onto your trick or let it go, and which suit to lead you.

Counting the pack

Forty cards, and only twenty of them count. Keep track of how many aces and threes have gone: once three aces are out, the fourth is the highest card left in its suit and can be led with more confidence. Count the trumps too — there are ten, and when most of them have been played your kings and horses in the side suits start winning tricks.

Briscola in five

Briscola chiamata, the called game, for five players with eight cards each and no stock. The players bid for the right to name trumps, each bid naming a lower card than the last, and the lowest bid wins. The winner names a suit, which becomes trumps, and whoever holds the card called in that suit is the caller's secret partner, revealed only when the card is played. The caller's side needs 61 or the points bid, and at the end the caller scores or loses two points and everybody else one, so it is three against two with nobody sure who is on which side.

Two-player

The plain game and the best one for learning: twenty tricks, three cards each, every trick a duel. With only two hands in play the count is easy to keep.

Three-player

Each for themselves, with one two removed so that 39 cards make thirteen tricks. The player with the most points wins, so 61 is no longer the line: forty-odd points can take a three-handed game when the other two split the rest.

Six-player

Two teams of three, seated so that each player has an opponent on either side, with the twos removed to make a pack of 36. Signals and the partnership play are the same as at four, with two partners to read instead of one.

No signals

Many tables, and nearly every online game, forbid signalling in the partnership game altogether. Without signs the four-player game becomes a game of memory and inference, and partners have to work out from the cards played whether to load a trick or let it go.

Briscola scoperta

Played with every hand face up on the table, so nothing is hidden but the order of the stock. A game for teaching, and a hard one to win by luck.

How many points do you need to win at Briscola?

61 of the 120 in the pack. The aces are 11 each, the threes 10, the kings 4, the horses or queens 3 and the knaves or jacks 2, and every other card is worth nothing. 60 all is a draw.

Why is the three so high in Briscola?

Because Briscola is an ace-ten game with the ten taken out: in the Italian pack the three took over the ten's place as the second-highest card, worth 10 points. So the order in every suit is ace, three, king, horse, knave, then seven down to two. A three beats a king, and only the ace of its suit or a trump beats a three.

Do you have to follow suit in Briscola?

No. You may play any card you like on any trick. The trick goes to the highest trump in it, and if there is no trump, to the highest card of the suit led. Playing a card of a third suit is a way of throwing a worthless card away, because it can never win.

What is the briscola card?

The card turned face up under the stock after the deal. Its suit is trumps for the whole hand, and the card itself is the last one drawn from the stock, so whoever draws last knows exactly what they are getting. If it is an ace or a three, that is worth planning around.

Can you play Briscola with a regular deck of cards?

Yes. Take out the eights, nines and tens to leave forty cards. The queen stands in for the horse and the jack for the knave, and the values are unchanged: ace 11, three 10, king 4, queen 3, jack 2.

How do you signal in Briscola?

In the four-player and six-player games partners may signal their cards to each other, traditionally with small signs: a tightened lip for the ace, a twist of the mouth for the three, eyes raised for the king, a shrug for the horse and the tip of the tongue for the knave. The signs vary from region to region and many tables forbid them, so settle it before you start.