- The game is done with a deck of traditional Italian cards, made by 40 cards, divided into the four suits of Denari (coins),
Coppe (cups), Spade (swords) and Bastoni (sticks).
Each suit has ten cards, going from 1 (Ace) to 7, then the Jack (8), the Horse (9) and the King (10).
- The can be 3 or 4 players. When playing in 3, the 4 of Bastoni is eliminated form the deck.
When playing in 4, it is one couple against the other. The two playersof a couple sit one in front of the other.
- The dealer shuffles the deck, then lets the player at his left halve it.
It distributes one card to each player, starting at his right, repeating this until all cards have been distributed.
- At the beggining of the game, the player at the right of the dealer plays first.
In the following turns, the player that did the last capture plays first.
- When all cards have been played and players have no cards left in hand, the game is over.
- The player on duty put on the table one of his cards. The suit of this card is the dominating suit of this turn.
If the other players have cards of the same suit of the first, is mandatory from them to play one of these.
If they have no cards of the same suit of the first, they can play any cards.
The winner of the turn is the card of the same suit of the first and having the bigger capture value (see later).
The player that played the winning card, captures all the cards of this turn.
- The highest capture value card is the 3, followed by the 2 and by the Ace, then all other cards from 10 to 4.
Complete capture order, from higher to lower: 3, 2, 1, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 2.
- Up to the second turn, players can declare "Buongioco" (good game), if they have in hand one or more of the
following combinations: 3 or 4 Aces, 3 or 4 Two, 3 or 4 Three, Ace-Two-Three of the same suit (the latter called Naples).
Declaring the possess of theese combinations is worth 3 points, for the combinations of 3 cards, or 4 point, for the
combinations of 4 cards.
More combinations give the sum of all these points.
- A the end of the game, captured cards are analyzed to compute the score of each player. When playing in 4, the scores
of the two players of each couple are added together.
- Points are computed this way:
- Each Ace is worth 3 points
- Each 3, 2, 10, 9, 8 is worth 1 point
- The player that did the last capture receive 1 point
- All other cards (7,6,5,4) are worth zero
The score computed this way is divided by 3, rounding to the closest integer.
This gives 11 points in a game.
Then, all Buongioco points (if any) are added to the rounded score and this produces the final score.
- usually more than one game is played and the overall winner is the first reaching 3 won games or 31 points.
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