Briscola is played with the forty-card Italian deck, whose suits are coins, cups, swords and clubs. The dealer gives three cards to each player and then turns the next card face up, tucking it half under the remaining deck so that it stays in view for the whole game. Two and four players are the usual formats, though three and six work too. The rules take five minutes to learn and a lifetime to play well, because almost all the difficulty lies in choosing when to spend the cards that actually count.
The trump suit
The face-up card under the deck fixes the trump suit — the briscola — for the rest of the game. That card is also the very last one anybody will draw, so whoever ends up with it knows in advance whether they are collecting the weakest card of the dominant suit or, if luck was kind, its ace. After every trick each player draws one card back up to three, starting with whoever won, and this continues until the deck is gone. The final three tricks are then played out from the hand, by which point good players have a firm idea of what is still out there.
Winning a trick
Whoever leads may play any card they like, and the others answer with any card they like: there is no obligation to follow suit and none to trump. The trick goes to the highest trump played, or, if nobody trumped, to the highest card of the suit that was led. A card that is neither a trump nor of the suit led cannot win anything at all; it is only useful for shedding a worthless card or for refusing to hand over points. Within a suit the order follows the card values, so the ace beats the three, the three beats the king, and so on down to the two, the weakest card in the deck. The winner of a trick takes the cards and leads to the next one.
What the cards are worth
Only five cards in each suit carry points. The ace is worth eleven, the three is worth ten, the king four, the knight three and the jack two. Sevens, sixes, fives, fours and twos are worth nothing and are known as lisci, the smooth ones. That adds up to one hundred and twenty points in the deck. Here is where the tension of the game comes from: aces and threes are the cards you want to capture, and also the cards you dare not throw into a trick you might lose. One ace and one three surrendered in a single trick is twenty-one points gone.
Reaching sixty-one
Once the last card has been played, each side counts the points it captured. With one hundred and twenty points in play, sixty-one is enough to win, and reaching it settles the game. Sixty apiece is a draw and the deal is replayed. Plenty of groups do not stop at a single deal: best of three is common, as is agreeing on a number of games to be won before anyone leaves the table.
Playing in partnership
With four players the game is played in partnerships, with partners facing each other and pooling their captured points. Talking is not allowed, but tradition allows signals: an agreed face for holding the ace, another for the three, and the opposing pair watching for both. There is also a five-player version built on bidding, where a player commits to a number of points and calls for a specific card; whoever holds it becomes their secret partner and is only revealed when that card is finally played.
Keeping score with Score Buddy
Score Buddy sets Briscola to a target of sixty-one points. There are two ways to use it: count at the end and type each side's total on the keypad, or add points as you go with the +1, +5 and +10 quick buttons, finishing off on the keypad when a trick comes to an awkward number. As soon as someone passes sixty-one their card marks the win, but the scorer never ends the hand for you: you press New game when you are ready to start again, and the trophy beside each name counts the wins. If you are playing in pairs, add two entries named after the partnerships rather than four players — the partners' points belong together and the standings stay readable.