Marafone
Romagna’s partnership game with 40 cards. Hold the 4♦ to name trump, catch aces for whole points, and score a maraffa with the Ace, 2 and 3 of trump. First to 41. 4 players, in partnerships.
How to play Marafone
- 1Marafone (also called Beccacino) comes from Romagna in Italy. Four players play as partners sitting across from each other, with 40 cards: the eights, nines and tens are taken out. Everyone gets ten cards.
- 2Whoever holds the 4♦ looks at their hand, names any suit as trump, and leads the first trick. They deal the next hand.
- 3You must follow the suit led if you can; if you can't, play anything, trump or not. The highest trump wins the trick, or the highest card of the suit led if no trump was played. The winner leads next.
- 4From high to low, each suit runs 3, 2, A, K, Q, J, 7, 6, 5, 4.
- 5Only the cards you win count. An ace is worth a point; threes, twos, kings, queens and jacks are worth a third of a point each; the rest nothing. The last trick earns an extra point. Leftover thirds are dropped.
- 6Maraffa: if the player naming trump holds its Ace, 2 and 3 and leads that Ace to the first trick, their side earns 3 extra points.
- 7The first side to 41 points wins. A side that gets there in the middle of a hand calls itself out and wins at once.
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