Italian here. You sure you using the 10 card? Italian card decks have cards ranging from 1 (Ace) to seven, then soldier, knignt and King. The more valuable card is usually the Ace followed by the 3s. Then descending King, knight, soldier, 7 to 2 (skipping 3)
Heya! We were expecting this comment. Quinns replaced the 7s in the Italian deck with 10s for this game, since they're worth 10 points. If you're replicating the Italian 40 card deck specifically for this game (as most of the people watching this video will be doing), it's a small tweak that makes Briscola Chiamata simpler to learn.
@@shutupandsitdown yeah so normally dont answer, but take Briscola pretty personally. For the point, Ace is 11 point, 3 is 10 point, king is 4, queen is 3 and Jack is 2, completely aware that really dont make any difference when the game start if you decide the point value priors to the beginning of the game, but you know, feel it personally
Italian here too. I can confirm the rule with the 3 being worth 10 points: I think it's because 3 is the "trinity" and Italy is pretty Christian traditional, which is reflected in popular culture including card games. Also... another name for Briscola Chiamata is "il Due" which just means "the Two" because everybody bids down to possibly the 2.
Thanks so much for the info folks. This game has enough special rules to it already, I feel like keeping with the traditional card values and order wouldn’t have been too much of a stretch from the already pretty heady teach. I appreciate the rules and history clarifications!
Well, let's just say that in Italy we enjoy games that are 'mathematical' you need to calculate what others have in their hands, be smart, bid properly, being strategic, bluffing, suspicious... I don't see anything like this in crockinole... Plus a deck of card you keep it in your pocket if you want and is as cheap as 4 euro ihihih
If you lose track of your deal when dealing out an entire deck (e.g. 13 cards each to 4 people for a 52 card deck) you can fix the mistake by starting with yourself (the last card that would be dealt) and going backwards. You'll run out of cards just as the two deals meet in the middle.
@@NinjarioPicminthat's the point, it doesn't matter. If there are 5 people and you're about to deal to Player 3, then something distracts you and you forget who was next, deal to yourself and start the circuit again. Now the player who should have been dealt another card will receive the last remaining card.
Italy here, you're missing an important gameplay mechanic: every card you play is accompanied by swearing, bloodcurdling profanity, angry gesturing and general drama
@@wildtony79 Nah, the Bastarda one is just another name for Briscola Chiamata in the video. I'm sure that's screaming and swearing is literally a gameplay mechanic of the game, since everybody does it here in Italy! It must be in the rules somewhere, ain't it?!
In the mean time, you can look up the book "Dice Games Properly Explained" by Reiner Knizia (I got my copy at Amazon). Lots of rulesets for good dice games in there, along with a very informational chapter on how to calculate probability and odds when rolling dice.
hmm i don't really get 2 things : 1.) what is the bidding at the start useful for? if it doesn't go below 2 all you've done is change the number of the possible ally and you are the start player for giving nothing? because what is the difference between having a 10 or a king called? 2.) so what happens if at the start you end up bidding for "2 and 68" which means you need 68 points to win. then there is a space (60-68 points) where none of you win?
The actual rules are that the team of two (or the winning bidder) is trying to win by getting the point value, and the rest of the players win if the bidder/pair fail to get that many points. So, if the winning bidder says that they think their team of two can win with 81 points, if the larger team gets to 40 points between them, the small team can't win that hand. It becomes a lot clearer what the purpose is if you delve into the scoring rules, which this video does not cover, because the bigger the point requirement for the winning bidder, the bigger the scoring payout is to either side at the end. It's a risk/reward mechanic.
Regarding number 1), the difference between having a 10 or 7 (sorry, traditional italian deck user here :P) and a King is, ofcourse, that King beats 10 or 7. In other words, the higher bid you can "get away with", the more power your "secret ally" will have. And since your opponents are on the lookout for who is your ally and do not necessarily trust each other, they might waste their trick-taking power squabbling with each, thus giving you even higher chance of taking those sweet, 20+ point hands. There are other, finer points to be considered. If you know someone had bid, say, 3, you might want to lower their bid to reduce their power. This is because is it very unlikely someone will bid to themselves, thus they are very unlikely to have a 3 in hand. If they get the 3 bid, they are guaranteed 2 tricks and 21 points (assuming the bidder has an ace, which is often - but not always! - the case). If they can't get the 3 they might get a K or lower, which means 1 guaranteed trick, 11+ guaranteed points, and a lot more headache for the 2-player team.
It's like a mix of Skat (3 players, involves bidding) and Doppelkopf (4 players, involves teaming up secretly), which I think are the most popular trick-taking card games here in Germany. So the next time we are 5 players for Doppelkopf we might give this a try instead of having the dealer sitting out! Thank you very much for bringing this up! :)
"Chiamata" means "called". In italy the Briscola is the Trump suit in trick taking games. Glad to see BRISCOLA CHIAMATA in your show! Best italian game evah ;)
This is incredibly close in rules for sheepshead, with a modified deck, the exact same point structure, weird suit ordering, and hidden roles. Sheepshead plays with a 30 card deck, has more trump, has a set trump set, you have to follow suit, and also the partner is always the person with the Jack of diamonds. I highly recommend ya'll check it out.
well, these are really only broad familial resemblences; so many point-trick games have the ace-10 schedule -- that's the most common one -- and point-trick games go hand in hand with shortened decks as too many pointless cards can make uninteresting play; sheepshead should at the very least be a much deeper game strategically, because you have to follow suit and can only trump if you can't; this is a very fun but still a lighter affair. And the extra-long trump suit is not a minor difference either. Calling for a card to create a secret partner similarly seeped into all kinds of games whenever they added bidding into a 4+ handed game, because the once uber-popular Quadrille had it (that's a 4-handed version of the very game that invented bidding, Ombre) -- there one called a non-trump king. But this notion of progressive bidding by being prepared to call a lower and lower card for your partner (and so likely a weaker partner I guess) I think is a novelty specific to chiamata... Though afaik some groups dispense w that and just bid points they need to win immediately.
Some of those rules remind me of Doppelkopf (some more of Schafkopf). Also a great cardgames that are very popular in Germany, along with Skat, you could discuss.
== Folklore Club == You're missing some important rules. Swearing and blasphemies are a must. You call it Briscòla (stress on the o), but it's Brìscola (stress on the i). From "Bar Sport", popular comedy book from Italian author Stefano Benni: "Briscola is a simple game. Your opponent slams on the table a card, and you have to slam another one HARDER. Good players are able to break from 15 to 20 tables per game. It is appropriate, before slamming a card on the table, to make that card wet with a bit of saliva. Cards can take their characteristic crumpled up shape and the hardness of a rock. In many bars, to shuffle a deck of cards, we use a kneading machine. When a card is too old, it becomes hard and heavy, and if you're not well trained, it's better if you use some work gloves." Anyway, as already comment elsewhere, a Briscola deck is with A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, J, Q, K. And the order (don't ask why we don't know either) is (from lowest to higher): 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, J, Q, K, 3, A. There are some variants on the auction itself. I find very funny calling directly points (e.g: 65!). The one who wins the auction can call a card (e.g. 5 of Spades. Spades becomes the Trunk, and the player with the 5 of Spades is the secret partner). You now must reach that many points. You can even call yourself (you call a card that you already have). This way there is no secret partner and a lot of more confusion on the table. If you win this way and you're keeping track of the points, this round your points are doubled. BTW: This applies to any game. In science, there's a method to calculate vectors called "Fleming's right-hand rule". Going counter-clockwise seems the right way to do it since you got a normal vector from the table surface as a result. I'm very uncomfortable with clockwise games and every time I can't remember specific rules, I deal cards/take turns counter-clockwise Last but not least. I have to go, but I don't know how late I am since we don't have clocks around here :P
French Tarot also has the secret role at 5 players: the one who win the bidding chose a king, and the one with this king is secretly its ally against the 3 others. Moreover, French Tarot can be played at 3, 4 and 5. (1 vs 2, 1 vs 3 or 2 vs 3) [You can also use the Tarot deck for making divination if you're into that kind of stuff...] Its only problem is that you need a 78 card decks (14 cards per colours, plus 22 trump cards), so it might be difficult to find in your country. But that's in the top 5 of the most played card game in France.
Came here to say exactly this. Troggu is another great tarot game that goes up to 8 players and has the secret role at 7 and 8, and Schafkopf (and the very similar Sheepshead), a 32-card game, can also have a secret partner, depending upon the bid.
The only reason French Tarot has the 5 player version is because the goals of the contracts are modified by the 21, 1 and Excuse in a way that makes the mechanics of the system not "work" when you try to play 4 players with calling the king. This system also works backwards from the way it logically should: Have taken neither 21, 1 nor Excuse: goal 56 of 91 card points (21, 1, Excuse and kings: 4 each; queens: 3; knights: 2; jacks: 1 + cards/2) Have taken any one: goal 51 Have not taken any one: goal 41 Have taken all 21, 1 and Excuse: goal 36
@@alsatusmd1A13 Not sure what you were trying to say. Competitive French Tarot is played at 4 players, so I don't think the 4 player was ever intended to be a team play. And for the point system, the rules could be rewritten in better and simpler ways, but the point is that the 1, 21 and Excuse are worth twice as much as kings (they are worth 5, and reduces the contract by 5), and you have an additional (reduction of the contract of) 5 points if you have the majority of them.
You should look into the game escoba (spanish name) or scopa (italian name) I learned it from a Spaniard, but most references I've found use the Italian name. It's a really great card game!
In Portugal, you see some people playing this (you can choose any card to be your ally and you have to follow the suit tho'), but the most played card game historically in the country is a variant with only 4 players ("sueca", swedish); the trump is randomdly select, 7 instead of 10's, you have to follow the suit, no communication allowed (only small gestures when playing cards), teams of 2 (seated in opposite sides). Each team to win a set has to gather 4 points (a game with more than 60 points it's one point, more than 90 it's 2 and if you manage to humiliate the other team by getting the 120 points you win the set immediately). More experienced players, during a game, count both teams points and usually know where are the remaining important cards left. What makes this a fantastic game is the scoring system, with the Ace's and 7's combining 70% of the total points - you don't want to lose a 7 to an Ace or any of them to a small trump - and, only in this variant - the rule that you have to follow the suit if you can (is such a important part of the strategy of the game; otherwise, you have a massive advantage to be the last one to play in a trick).
This game in honestly very similar to Sheepshead. From my understanding of both games, the primary difference is that diamonds and J/Q are set trump in sheepshead. Card point values are the same, 5-handed rules are also very similar. We also play sheepshead as a gambling game, for extra spice :D
"In Italy the numbers eight, nine and seven don't exist." ...Because "7 8 9". C'mon! How could you miss such a golden opportunity for such a stupid joke! I am disappointed in you guys. I watch these videos for the stupid jokes. :P On a more serious note, trick taking _and_ an auction? This is really not a game for me, alas.
Great great game if you have 5 players. Only variants I know is to have the trump suit caller be the last to play in the first hand (slightly easier for the caller). Also normal Briscola (2 player game) and team Briscola (4 player) are good but without the secret team mechanics; you play with 3 card in hand, trump suit is the same as last card of the deck.
I like how they allow the dismissal of the counter-clockwise rule. Historically, a lot of these games became more complicated simply so vets could have an inherent advantage over newbies, kind of like how your sister CHANGES THE RULES OF CHESS HALFWAY THROUGH! (This is also why so many card games have a ranking order that somehow defies the ordinal numerics of the cards.) I'm excited to try this one out!
plenty of games go either direction, its not really true any is particularly dominant when you look at all of europe, but given this reaction perhaps the ones most influential in the USA happened to be of one kind? But counterclockwise direction is certainly very early rather than an arbitrary late complication, since its a feature of all and ancestral among the tarot/taroccho/tarock games, which goes back to the middle of the 15 century, one of the earliest documented groups. In fact italian games in general tend to be anti-clockwise today and historically. (hungarian ones also for eg, as well as the swiss, greek, spanish, portugese...) . It seems to be a matter of 2 equal choices where that symmetry broke in a different direction from country to country. Its really an arbitrary thing in practice though; one book I have on local card games started by saying that one can go either way in any of the games described, as long as one is consistent, but whenever it might be relevant for the purposes of exposition, all the descriptions will presume an anti-clockwise direction. I think you can see that attitude historically being not uncommon also in the fact that games of different families tend to adapt to the rotation direction prevalent in the country they come to, even when the game originally rotated the other way often enough.
There's nothing magic about the 5 of spades that makes that player the traitor. Matt bid 5 and chose spades, so it was the 5 of spades. Bidding lower means you're picking a teammate with a lower trump card in their hand.
It has nothing to do with the number of tricks. But the further down you go, the weaker, on average, your teammate is. Not only that, but in that trick where your teammate reveals themselves (i.e. when Quinns plays the Five of Spades), you ideally want them to win that trick, and win big. Otherwise, they're wasting a turn on communication rather than getting points.
Untill the two, you bid that you and eventually your companion can win the game, after you bid that you can get that amount of points. If you win the bet you get points and the others loose points, if you loose it's the opposite.
I don’t know if you have heard of the game sheepshead, but it is my favorite card game I have ever played. My grandmother taught me it when I was young, and it is somewhat similar to this game. Not a lot of people seem to know how to play it outside of Wisconsin, however, so I always have trouble finding people to play with, but it would be interesting to see you guys try it out
We learned to play this in my Spanish class in high school as *briscas bastardas,* a Spanish game, using some real naipes our teacher purchased in Spain. It proved to be so popular that students would come to his class over lunch to play in an impromptu league. ¡Qué chévere!
I might have missed this but did you explain what the purpose of the bid at the beginning is? I get the extra points to winonce you get down to two, but why would you bid a higher number like a 10? Why would you not bid? It doesn't sound like you actually pay anything for these bids.
Also confused by this. The rules only mention that the players bid, not what they are meant to be bidding with. Not sure how they aren't just naming meaningless numbers.
I personally find even more attractive than briscola chiamata a similar game called Tressette, which can be played in 2, 4 or 5 players. The auction and the secret buddy are present only in the 5 player version. The main interesting variations with respect to Briscola Chiamata are: each round, the players must respond with the same suit played by the first player and the ranking of the cards is different from their point value, since 3 >2>Ace>10> 9 and so on, but ace is worth 1 point and 7,8,9,2,3 are worth one third of a point.
Before you get down to two on the bidding, is there any disadvantage to bidding further down, provided you want to call trump? What are you actually bidding until you get down to two? It doesnt seem like theres any tangible disadvantage to bidding further down until you get to adding points on to two
you have to remember you are calling your ally with that card, so you ideally want the higher card possible, some time you wouldnt even want to call if you got a really poor hand.
if you bid an high briscola card, you have a companion with a good card. If you bid a low briscola card, you have a companion with a not so good card. An high briscola is likely to win the trick
This sounds a bit like the Dutch cardgame Rikken. However that is played with 52 cards and four people, but one does have to outbid each other and the person how won the bid has a secret partner.
I went to a highschool with a lot of italians. We used to play briscola every lunch in the cafeteria. I never knew this version, but I actually invented a variant of this game so that 5 people could play. Very trippy watching this and realising that something I came up with is actually a variant of an existing game. In mine you just bid points, and then you name a card. So if you had the ace, you would probably want to name the three. The reason I came up with this mechanic is to make it fair that one team only had two, so I added the ambiguity of not knowing who was on the bidders team. So weird how similar that is to the game you are showing in this video! Sorry if this sounds made up, but its honestly not. Anyways, thanks for another great card games vid.
"Again, because in Italy clocks don't exist" and that might explain because we're always late 😂 btw great video guys! Loved seeing foreigners play Briscola on their own (since it's the first game that we teach to Erasmus students when they come here)😂
@@Maulo93 eh anche, però di solito in università è più facile che si facciano tornei di briscola piuttosto che di scopa ahahah non ho idea del perché però 😂 e poi di solito gli erasmus riescono a sopportare solo un gioco di carte alla volta, altrimenti dopo iniziano a mischiare le regole😂😂
There are other games that use similar hidden partnership mechanics, but I think this is the most interesting use of the mechanic with the way it's tied to bidding.
I was left wondering this too, but in the blog comments Quinns answered this. Basically: with a high bid you can guarantee that your ally is someone with a high trump card
you got the wrong numbers for the deck: it goes King Horse (or Queen) Jack 7 6 5 4 3 2 Ace and the values for "power" are (with points): Ace(11) > 3(10) > King(4) > Horse(3) > Jack(2) source: italian with this game as most played activity during high school
"Chiamata" litterally means "called", as you "call" a card for chosing an ally. You should keep the 7 and not uset the 10 (usually italian decks of card dont have the 10). You can play a variant of this with 4 players, without the hidden role with 2 teams of 2. You can play it without the trump suit, so there isnt someone with a very strong hands because maybe he has all the spades. I usually play in a way that you HAVE to play a card of the same suit being played first. You can siplify the score: use the K Q J as 1/3 of a poin and an A as a whole point. You can play it with out talking (wich you should do) but comunicating with a list of gesture and signals to the table: an esemple would be if i play a card wich i have many of the same suit i would drag the card two times on the table before playing and maybe saying "ive got others". EDIT you can play this in 3 with the one “calling” playing aways playing alone vs the others 2. You need to take off 4 secred card each turn and the player that calls takes the cards and show them and then secretelly discard 4 others cards or the same or a mix, so you never know exatly what cards can be played
What is the point of prohibiting talking if you then substitute it with an equivalent secret language? ^^ Don't get me wrong, motti are cute, but the concept is nonsensical.
Lilin maybe i explained that badly. Its more like you can say or sign JUST some things and everyone know what you mean but dont know what you got so its a bit of trying figure out what others have not only bu what they play but with what they say. An i forgot to mention that only the first one playing the hand does this. So some times you want to pick up the cards in the pot just to basically tell your team mates what you got
One of the best things that come out in just a few rounds of this game is the emerging dynamic: in a couple of rounds players find out that another factor for choosing to win or not is what is the caller position relative to the winning player. Usually it is said that making the caller go last in a round is a "traitor" move, and the same can be said for playing an high value card as first or second player when the caller is last. But what if the caller is first? then loading the trick with points as second or third player is clearly a "non-traitor" move, because you have an higher chance that somebody else than the caller gets the points. This may seem articulate but it's quite clear once you played a couple of rounds, and when everybody has this knowledge it enables another layer of the game: if the traitor has a strong hand he will play in a very open and obvious manner, but if not or unsure of the caller hand quality he can try to bluff and play a very neutral game, raking up just the amount of points needed for his team to win. On the other hand (and this works way more than you can imagine with good player) a non-traitor can bluff it out and make the caller dump all of his points on him! Trivia: another name for this game is "Briscola al due", which means "Briscola till the 2", usually shortened to just " al due", since you find out quite fast that if the caller calls something higher than a 2 his team will win very easily. Most of the game will start with a call between 62 and 66, with some extreme calls to 70 points if the caller has a great hand or not even reaching 2 if everybody has terrible hands (which is rare).
This game sounds super interesting, but the bidding part has me baffled. What are you bidding? What's to stop the first person to bid 2 and steal the opportunity to name an ally card? Its not like you lose a card or points or anything like that when you bid, right?
I was stuck on this at first too. Turns out the ally selection is the point, not just a neat efficient way of choosing a random player. With a high bid, you can guarantee that your ally is someone with a high trump card.
In some areas of Italy this game Is called "giaguaro", jaguard in italian, because the secret teammate Is called the jaguar's friend, which in italian Is a way of saying that someone Is double playing
My family bought a deck of cards when we were on holiday in Spain to play with and we were confused when it only had 40 cards. We made it work but didn't know it was a thing. Suits are also different (cups, swords, coins and something else). I still have the cards as a souvenir so I think I'll bring the deck out again to have a go at this.
What I'm wondering is why there's this auction at the beginning. Why is it relevant that you bid a five instead of a four, aside from influencing who your teammate is? Are you bidding with anything?
You are bidding for points. Every round if the bidder wins he and eventually the companion get some points and the others loose points. If he loose the bet it's the opposite. Betting a four instead of a five it's just rising your bet. When you reach the two you continue rising the bets by saying how many points you think you can get in the round.
Yes, and generally you don't want to do that in the first round. You only do that when you want to let the bidder (and everyone else) know that you are very strong in the trump. And definitely you don't want to do that when you are sitting immediately at the left of the bidder - because this way it is easier for the others to prevent you guys from taking high value cards. Of course, Italian here :)
Suggestion for yet another trick-taking Card Game That Doesn't Suck: Tichu There are "official" Tichu decks, but it's easy enough to play with a normal deck of cards, provided you have 4 distinct Jokers you're willing to mark up instead of just 2. It's best played with 4, but you can play with as few as 3 or with larger crowds given multiple decks.
Italian card games ruuuuuuules. Quinns you should try SCOPA (and the 4 player variant SCOPONE), CANASTA (for which you need a special deck - sounds interesting yea?) and SCALA 40. PS: "Briscola bastarda" means "bastard briscola".
I know it's years after the fact, but since you seem to really enjoy Briscola, you might want to learn that you've been pronouncing it wrong: it's BREE-scola, with emphasis on the first syllable, not bree-SCO-la. :)
so wouldn't it make sense for this game to remove the King,Queen & Jack and leave the numbers in then you know the rankings alot easyer? since it's just the highest number then ACE at top
@@albertoburgassi Yes i understand that they had to remove some cards, but my pont was since the face cards are been used as 7,8,9 I would think for this game it would have made more sense to remove the face cards and left 7,8 & 9 in.
Here in portugal we play this game but we use A7KJQ65432 order and we call the game "Sueca Italiana" which translates into "Italian Swidish" this name its used because its the italian way of playing a game very popular in Portugal "Sueca" which is the same but with 4 players that already know their pairs(teams)
In my playgroup, if you play this clockwise, people yell "what games is this!" at you until you go counter clockwise. Also the name of this game is not birscola chiamata, it is BRISCOLA!!!!! exclaimed with as much enthusiasm as possible.
* ehm ehm * Briscola Bastarda is simply Bastard Briscola (btw in Bríscola the accent goes on the í not on the ó!) Love you guys you make wonderful videos! Love your format, love your content, love everything!
I know I'm late, but another italian here and I'm surprised no one pointed out that 1) Briscola means trump suit and is the proper name of the original 2/4 players game and 2) I don't know how to communicate it but you called it "Briscòla" and not "Brìscola" like I always did. Maybe it's a dialect or local thing. I don't know how to better communicate this, watch an italian video pronounciation is hard.
Another game with hidden partnerships is Doppelkopf, where you use a doubled up deck, and whichever two players are holding the Queen of Clubs are partners.
Couldn't you also just keep the 7, 8 and 9, since the jack, queen and king are litterally just takinh up their places? Like ditch the picture cards and only use numbers (but with Ace as 11)
I don't understand the purpose of the bidding phase. Besides picking the leader of the round, it seems to have no consequence. Seems like you should start at the 60-120 point bidding from the start.
ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-g0anMnovozA.htmlm40s Jokes on you! We can count up to 7 without any problems... but that 10 thingy still seems quite fake to me.
other games with uncertain partnerships ie partners that are unknown to the defenders and other offensive player are doppelkopf, schafkopf, sheepshead, five player french tarot, quadrille (extinct).
I didn't now Italian card games were on the the table if that's the case they you should do videos on a the slandered rules of Briscola as well as Scopa both are the go to Italian card game.
You got several things wrong. The deck: remove 8-9-10. 7 stays in the deck. The score: Ace (11 puts), 3(10pt), king (4pts), queen (3pts), jack(2pts), other cards have no score value.
This reminds me a lot of Doppelkopf, a German trick-taking game. It's played with four players, and every card is present twice. The players who hold the Queen of Clubs play together, but again, they aren't allowed to talk about which team they're on. But just like with this game, there are ways to communicate your allegiance, be it through just playing the card that makes you part of that team, or some really obvious moves, like throwing in a very valuable card when your teammate has the trick. It's very fascinating, and one of my favourites!
Italian here. Some insights: - the rank are one/three/king/queen/jack/7/6/5(so on) in italian briscola. The 10 IS the king, the threes are worth a lot because in italian cards the drawings for the threes feels “important” for some reason - you can play a variant with no rank but only points. Who win the auction can choose freely the “secret partner card”, and you score points (for the final scoring) based on the points bet in the auction. We played this variant as a social deduction - with “trust me I’m not the enemy” and “let me take this round for me pls” - you CAN play with 6. Deal all the card except 4. The one who wins the auction (the point variation) takes the 4 left out and discards 4 (the 4 discarded are part of the scoring of the “team”) and then chooses the “partner card” - granted, it’s more luck based and briscola chiamata shines in 5 player
Also we like to call the game “amico del giaguaro” that translates in “the jaguar’s friend”. Jaguar is the winner of the auction, his “friend” is in disguise!
le jeu de tarot (French Tarot) is another game that, at five players, is a similar game with the hidden traitor (partnership) mechanic at five players too, with similar rules except using a 74-card tarot deck (1-10, Valet(Page), Chevalier(Jack), Dame(Queen), Roi(King) plus 0-21 of a trump suit), follow-suit, forced overtrumps, and different point evaluations. zhao pengyou (Looking for Friends) also employs hidden partnerships in a slightly interesting manner: it uses 2 or more decks of cards (3 at 8 players, 4 at 12, ...), and the declarer calls out which card(s) joins their partnership: "first Ace of Hearts and second Black Joker", for example.
In Portugal we call it "sueca italiana" better translated by Italian briscola. Instead of the 3 we use the 7 as the briscola. Don't know why the alteration but it seems like your 10, that was made to the scoring seems more natural. The deck doesn't have 8 9 10.
Italian from Modena (near Bologna, northen Italy) here. Locally this game is known as Jaguar (Giaguaro) and is slightly different. After the cards have been dealt, players look at their cards and decide if, given their hand, could possibly win. Then, thay start bidding (in order) how many points they're SURE to make to win, starting from 60; others, in order, have to bid higher or quit. For example, if you have many high card of the same suit, you'd be saying "I win with 78" or something. Of course you can also bluff to push others over their actual potential, but they could withdraw from the bidding and leave you to fulfill an insane goal. After that, the person who bidded higher is known as the Jaguar. He ONLY THEN chooses a card to call (usually a high card he misses from the suit in his hand), for example "I call the King of Spades", and the suit of the called card is the trump suit; the person who has this card is the secret ally, known as the Amico del Giaguaro (Jaguar's friend), and the game follows as explained in the video. The Jaguar and his ally win if they make at least the amount of points bid at the beginning. It's worth noting that you always call a card you don't have, as having no ally is stupid and a certain loss, and grants no bonus. Is also worth noting that those who win get one point each in the overall score, and the game ends whenever (see further down), making who has more points the winner. There's also a special rule where if you have a REALLY good hand you can call for 120 points (which is the maximum amount), in which case you can call TWO cards of the same suit, potentially having two allies. Because you need to make ALL the points to win, the other players' objective is now to win at least one hand worth any points, and they instantly win if they do so. Since here in Italy basically anyone above the age of 12 knows Briscola, and as many carry a (very worn out) deck with them most of the time (at school, in the office, in the purse...), Briscola is just seen as a simple timekiller game to play between breaks or while eating in a bar or drinking beer in a pub, certainly not something to set an evening apart for. The basic game can be played in two or four (or in three, but everyone agrees it sucks), so Jaguar is basically just a modified version of Briscola to allow play for five people (any number above five and other games are preferred); it's barely felt as a different game really. Also, I confirm as many others have said that the Italian deck has four suits, Bastoni, Spade, Denari, e Coppe (Wands, Swords, Coins, and Cups) and numbers that go from Ace to 7, followed by three figures (Page, Knight, King), with the Ace having a value of 11 and the threes having a value of 10 points (but with the 3s being more powerful the the Aces during the hand). They are known as "Spanish type Italian cards deck" (due to various hystorical reasons), but are commonly just called "Carte da Briscola" (Cards for Briscola), just to give you and idea on how identified with this game this deck is (even thought many many other games can be played with them). Its nuanced rules (no talking during the first turn, always draw cards in the correct order, etc) are very crystalized and not following them is seen as an offence. Even the cheat signs for communication are codified (a small kiss for an Ace, and many others).
Damnit! Now there's basically no chance you'll recommend Koenigrufen :'( (especially since it requires a deck with a trump suit, to be fair!) It also has the excellent feature of the hidden team.
Another card game with a similar hidden-partners mechanic is Zhao Pengyou (Looking for Friends). Interestingly, Zhao Pengyou is played with two decks -- whoever plays the called card first becomes the partner, creating additional interesting mechanics.
