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Italian
Card Games: The Rules Where
can I obtain a pack of Italian cards? |
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La Scopa (Sweep) La Scopa is one of the easiest Italian card games to play. It is usually played with a Napoletane 40-card deck. The values of the cards are:
If you don't have a 40-card deck, then you can still play La Scopa with a regular American 52-card deck, but you must make the following substitutions:
Either 2 or 4 people can play La Scopa at a time. If 4 people play, then you will play as a team, and the person sitting opposite you will be your partner. The dealer starts each game by dealing 3 cards to each person. Dealing is done to the right (opposite of most American card games). Also, instead of dealing one card to each person at a time, the dealer will give 3 cards to the person on his right, then the next 3 cards to the next person, etc. The dealer will then leave 4 cards face up in the middle of the table. The object of La Scopa is to collect as many cards as you can. You must match a card in your hand with one or more cards that are face-up on the table. For example, if you have a 5 of swords (spade) in your hand, and there is a 5 of cups (coppe) on the table, then you throw down the 5 of swords on top of the 5 of cups. Then you scoop up both cards from the middle of the table and lay them face down in a pile off to the side. This is your team's "score pile". It is traditional to stagger each of the matches in the pile so that you can rapidly count cards at the end of the game. On each turn, you may only play one card at a time. You may play either a number card or a picture card. The picture cards (which have values of 8, 9, and 10) can be used to match more than one card at a time. For example:
There is one restriction: if you have a picture card in your hand which matches a picture card on the table, then if you play your picture card, you must take the picture card that is on the table. An example will illustrate this point. If there are 4 cards face up on the table:
and you wish to play your La Donna of swords, you must take the La Donna of clubs. Even though you could possibly use your La Donna of swords to pick up the 5 and the 3 that are on the table, this is not allowed. (NOTE: You are not 100% obligated to play the La Donna of swords in the first place. You could have played another card in your hand. But if you do play La Donna in this situation, then you must take the corresponding La Donna of clubs instead of the 5 of cups and 3 of swords). If you make a match which removes the last face-up card from the table, then this is called a Scopa (i.e. a sweep). Each time you make a Scopa, then your team gets 1 point. When you put the cards that you removed from the table onto your score pile, it is traditional to denote the Scopa by leaving the top card face up. That way you will know how many points you scored from Scopa's. The end of each game is reached when there are no more cards to deal. Points are awarded on the basis of the cards in each team's score pile. The 4 basic points per game are:
In addition to the 4 basic points per game, one point is also awarded to each team for each Scopa that was scored. At the end of each game, a new game will begin. Scores from the previous game carry over into next game. The first team to reach a pre-determined number of points (traditionally 11 but sometimes 21) is the winner of the match. |
Italian
Card Games |
