As someone who plays briscola often, just a point i would like to give to make it simple -- the person who throws first controls the hand. The only way to take control of the hand is to throw a higher card in the same suit, or to throw a briscola. I think that may clear up some confusion. So when he was demonstrating -- the player opposite of him threw the donna (lady) of cups. He had an ace and a three in his hand -- but they were not cups. So even though they were worth more points, they were not in the same suit, so they could not take the hand. That is why he did not throw those. The only way to beat that lady of cups would be to throw a higher cup -- the horse, the king, the three, or the ace of cups, or a briscola -- in this game any soldi/denari would do. Hope that helps
My favourite card game, introduced by my Italian 🇮🇹 school friends when a was a teenager in Australia. 🇦🇺 The cards are beautifully designed too! 40 not 52 🃏
Love the video. In Madeira this game is called "Bisca" and is very popular. It's also the biggest cause of family arguments at Xmas time when family is together at the table... playing as a pair is particularly bad as something trivial like an itchy nose can lead to accusations of cheating.
Great job explaining it thank you so much!! I could be wrong but what if you have a Re and Cavallo of any suit what are the rules on how to play those cards
My Grandfather, who was from Sicily, played Briscola with me as a child. If I can remember right the ace was 11 pts., the 3 was 10 pts. , the king was 4 pts., the jack was 3 pts, and the queen was 2 pts. I asked him why in Briscola was the jack higher points than the queen. He told me that the queen was only 2 pts. because the female was never higher than the male. Was he bull shitting me? Reading the rules of Briscola, it says that the queen is higher than the jack. Which one is right? Another thing we did was take out the 8's, 9's and 10's in Briscola and didn't play with all 52 cards. Maybe my Grandfather was bull shitting me, so tell me if his version was a variant of Briscola. I would like to know for sure. My Grandfather and I were close when I was growing up, and he liked to play tricks on me. Can somebody clear this up for me?
If you were playing with a regular 52-card deck (ie the kind with diamonds hearts clubs spades) then yes, it is correct that he needed to remove the 8 9 and 10 of each suit. The reason why he did this was to bring the 52 card deck down to a 40 card deck, which is the number of cards in an Italian deck. Lots of Italians who came to North America chose to own a 52-card deck rather than a 40 card deck because that gave them the flexibility of playing card games from both countries. They didn`t want to have to buy a second deck of cards.
blazekilla555 most of the times I play it, but with different rules: the first one who plays a briscola card is left alone, and to win he must have 40+ points. The other two team up and try to win scoring 80+
blazekilla555 there's also 5 player briscola (also known as "called briscola). I suggest you that one, I think it's the most fun because you don't know who you're playing with at the beginning of the round.
This along with Tressete is most popular card game in my town.I live in Kotor,Montenegro,but e play double briscola.....with four cards in hand and you drop 2 each "hand" :D
My sister and I used to play this in Puerto Rico about 15 years back. I went to visit her and I saw a lady playing this on her ipad on the plane and it brought back memories
Donna ? Maybe Fante... And the symbols of the 4 "types" / suites of cards are Spade, Ori, Bastoni and Coppe... All of them are "said" using the plural...
What if all 3 of your cards are useless and none are the briscola card suit? Say the briscola suit is clubs but all of the players cards are valueless coins, swords and cups. What would you deal to the middle?
greenkitty82 pretty sure the person who controls/starts the hand would just take the stack but then again doesn’t matter who takes the points in that case because there are none
GUIDz SOMBRERo yeah that makes sense for the dealer to take the stack and then play starts again, thanks. I wasn't sure as to what would happen if everything was useless as nobody wins anything.
I used to play this with friends at school about 17 years ago, too bad a pack of Italian cards are $20 on eBay in my country or else I might have tried to take it up again.
