Briscola
Forty cards, no need to follow suit. Win the aces and threes. 2–4 players.
How to play Briscola
- 1Italy's favourite trick game, played with 40 cards: the eights, nines and tens are taken out. Two or three play alone; four play as partners sitting across from each other. With three players, one two is set aside.
- 2Everyone gets three cards. The next card goes face up under the stock, and its suit is trump for the whole hand.
- 3The player left of the dealer leads. You may play any card you like: there's no need to follow suit.
- 4The highest trump wins the trick. With no trump in it, the highest card of the suit led wins. From high to low, each suit runs A, 3, K, Q, J, 7, 6, 5, 4, 2.
- 5After each trick everyone draws a card, the winner first, so hands stay at three. The face-up trump card is the last card drawn. The winner leads next.
- 6Only the cards you win count: Ace 11, Three 10, King 4, Queen 3, Jack 2, the rest nothing. There are 120 points in all, so 61 wins the hand; 60 each is a tie.
- 7Win 2 hands to win the game. If 7 hands go by first, the most points over all of them wins.
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