Scopa

Players and equipment

Most often two players. Three can play individually, and four or six play in two teams — pairs at four, threes at six. Five has no version of the game. The deck is the 40-card Italian one: ace to seven plus knave, knight and king in each suit. With a standard deck, strip the eights, nines and tens. The suit of coins (diamonds) is the one the scoring watches. Each card counts its number, with the ace as one, the knave as eight, the knight as nine and the king as ten — the jack, queen and king of a French pack.

The deal

Three cards to each player and four face up to the table. When hands are empty, three more each — none to the table — until the deck is gone. Play goes to the right, the Italian way round, and the deal passes to the right after each round.

Play

On your turn play one card. If its rank matches a table card, you must capture that card; if not, it may capture several cards adding exactly to its rank — a 7 takes a 4 and a 3. A rank match takes precedence: a 7 may not take the 4 and 3 if a 7 lies there. If two cards of your rank are lying there, you take exactly one of them and you choose which. If it captures nothing, it stays on the table. Captured cards go face down in a pile in front of you or your side, with the card that made the capture.

You are not made to capture: a card that could take something may be laid on the table instead, and where more than one set adds to your card the choice is yours.

Clearing the table entirely is a scopa — a sweep — and scores a point on the spot; mark it with a card face up in your pile. The last capture of the deal takes the leftovers, but is not a scopa.

Scoring

At the end of the deal, each side counts:

Cards

1

The most of the forty

Coins

1

The most of that suit

Sette bello

1

The seven of coins

Primiera

1

The best four-card flush, one card per suit

Each scopa

1

Scored when it happened

For the primiera, sevens count highest, then sixes and aces — a side without a card in some suit cannot claim it. Ties on cards or coins award nothing. Each side picks its best card in each of the four suits and adds their primiera values, and the higher total takes the point; a tie there scores nobody either.

Seven

21

The best card in a suit

Six

18

Second

Ace

16

Third

Five

15

Fourth

Four

14

Fifth

Three

13

Sixth

Two

12

Seventh

King, knight, knave

10

All the same

A worked round

Alice and Ben, playing two-handed, finish a round with Alice on 7 and Ben on 5. Alice swept the table twice during the round and Ben once. They turn their piles over and count.

Cards

Alice 1

Alice 22, Ben 18

Coins

Ben 1

Alice 4, Ben 6

Settebello

Alice 1

In Alice's pile

Primiera

Ben 1

Alice 76, Ben 78

Scopas

Alice 2, Ben 1

Alice swept twice, Ben once

The primiera is counted card by card. Alice's best coin is the seven, for 21; her best cup is the seven, another 21; her best sword is the six, 18; and her best club is the ace, 16, because Ben holds the seven and six of clubs. That is 76. Ben's best coin is the six, for 18; his best cup is the six, 18; his best sword is the seven, 21; and his best club is the seven, 21. That is 78, and the point is his by two.

Alice scores 4 for the round: cards, the settebello and two scopas. Ben scores 3: coins, the primiera and a scopa. The running totals are 11 to 8, and since the game is to 11 Alice has won.

Ending

First to 11 points wins, finishing the deal in progress. Some play to 16 or 21 for a longer game; keeping score on SquareScores, set the target when you launch and the app ends the game at the line. If both sides pass the line in the same round, the higher total wins, and a tie means one more round.

Do not leave a capture

Every card you put down that captures nothing is a card you are offering. Before you lay a card, add it to what is on the table and ask what a single card could take. A table showing a 4 and a 3 hands a seven to anybody holding one, and there are four sevens in the pack. The safest card to leave is one that makes a total above ten with everything else there, because no card in the pack is worth more than ten and so no single card can take the pair.

Denying scopas

A scopa is a whole point, as much as the cards or the coins, so stopping them is worth more than most captures. Never leave a single card on the table when your opponent is about to play, unless it is one you know they cannot match: if the table is bare but for a 5, any 5 sweeps it. When you must leave the table thin, leave a king, which only a king can take alone.

Counting to fifteen is another game

Scopa captures by equal value only — a 7 takes a 7, or cards adding exactly to 7. There is no fifteen in it: that rule belongs to Escoba, the Spanish game, and Cirulla, the Genoese one, and players who learned those bring it to a Scopa table and take cards they are not entitled to. When somebody reaches for a 5 with a king, stop them: at Scopa the king takes a king, or cards adding to ten, and nothing else.

The settebello and the coins

Two of the four points are in the coins suit, and one of them is a single card. Take the seven of coins whenever you can, even at the cost of leaving something else on the table, and never lay it down loose unless the round is nearly over and you can see it is safe. Coins in general are worth taking ahead of other suits when a choice offers: with ten in the pack, six wins the point outright, and a side that has taken five need only stop the other side reaching six.

Counting the cards

There are four of each rank and you can see every capture, so late in a round you know a good deal about what is left. If three 7s are gone and you hold the fourth, no table total of seven is a risk to you. Count the cards captured, too: 21 of the forty wins the cards point, and once a side has 21 the rest are only coins, sevens and sweeps.

Scopone

Four players in partnerships, and the whole pack dealt at the start: nine cards each and four to the table in plain Scopone, ten each and nothing on the table in Scopone scientifico, the version most Italian clubs play. Nothing is drawn, so the game is one of memory and inference from the first card to the last.

Scopa d'assi

Also called asso piglia tutto, the ace takes all: an ace played to the table captures every card on it, and by most rules that capture does not count as a scopa. An ace played to a bare table simply lies there, waiting for the next ace.

Escoba

The Spanish game, also called Scopa a quindici in Italy, and the one people mean when they talk about counting to fifteen. Every capture must be the card played plus table cards adding to exactly 15, and a rank match on its own takes nothing. Points are for cards, coins, the seven of coins, the most sevens and each escoba, or sweep.

Cirulla

The Genoese game, with Scopa's capture by matching or by adding and the fifteen rule as well: a card may take table cards that make exactly fifteen with it. Combinations in the hand score too: three cards adding to less than ten, declared before playing, are worth three sweeps, and three of a kind ten. Game is to 51.

Napola and re bello

House points added to plain Scopa. A side holding the ace, two and three of coins scores a napola of three points, and one more for each further coin in sequence from the four upwards. Re bello gives a point to whoever takes the king of coins, beside the settebello. Both make the coins suit matter even more, and both are agreed before the deal.

What is a scopa in the card game Scopa?

A capture that clears the table of every card. It scores a point immediately, on top of the four points counted at the end of the round, and you mark it by turning one captured card face up in your pile. Taking the leftover cards at the very end of the round is not a scopa.

How many points is the settebello?

One, the same as each of the other three points and each sweep. The seven of coins is the only single card in the pack worth a point on its own, which is why it is the card everybody watches.

What is primiera and how do you count it?

The best card of each suit in your pile, with the values sevens 21, sixes 18, aces 16, fives 15, fours 14, threes 13, twos 12 and court cards 10. Add the four together and the higher total wins the point; a side with no card in one suit can only count three and almost always loses it.

Do you have to capture in Scopa?

No. You may lay a card down that could have captured. But if you do capture and a card of the same rank as yours is on the table, you must take that card rather than a set adding up to it. When two single cards match yours you take one and choose which.

Can a card capture by adding to fifteen in Scopa?

Not in Scopa. A card takes a card of equal rank, or a set of cards adding exactly to its own rank, and nothing else; a king, counting ten, takes a king or cards adding to ten. Capturing by fifteen is Escoba, the Spanish game, and Cirulla, the Genoese one, and mixing it in is the commonest mistake at a table where people learned different games.

Can you play Scopa with a regular deck of cards?

Yes. Remove the eights, nines and tens to leave forty cards, and let diamonds stand for coins. The jack counts eight, the queen nine and the king ten, and the seven of diamonds is the settebello.