The games · Coolhand Cards

Briscola

Italy's trump game on forty cards. Three in hand, draw after every trick, no need to follow suit, and the aces and threes are worth the most.

Players: 2 to 4
Family: Trick-Taking
App: Coolhand Cards · iOS and Android, soon

How it goes

Forty cards, with the eights, nines and tens taken out, and you hold only three. A card turned up from the stock names the trump, the suit that beats every other, and stays at the bottom of the stock. Any card may go to any trick: there's no need to follow suit. The highest trump takes it, or the highest card of the suit led if no trump fell, in the order ace, three, king, queen, jack, then seven down to two. After every trick everyone draws back to three, the winner first. Aces are worth eleven, threes ten, kings four, queens three, jacks two, a hundred and twenty in the deck, and more than sixty takes the deal. Best of three deals wins. At a full table, the player across is your partner.

A good hand

Trumps held back for the tricks that carry points, and aces and threes kept until they can go on a trick your side already holds. Since nobody has to follow suit, a trick is only worth what's on the table. So lead the cards worth nothing and let the other side commit first. A hand of low cards and a couple of trumps can afford to wait.

The usual mistake

Trumping a trick that carries no points, which spends a trump for nothing. Throwing an ace onto a trick the other side can still take. And forgetting the stock: the turned trump goes to whoever draws last, and once the stock is gone the last three tricks are played with cards you could have counted. Count them.

Played differently where you are?

Card games change from table to table, and we researched some of these games instead of playing them. If Briscola goes differently where you play it, tell us. That's one of the things the closed beta is for.

The closed beta is by invitation. How to ask to join.