Welcome to Scopa Sundays at Silver Lake Pool & Inn!

Your new favorite Italian card game!

what is scopa?

Scopa is a traditional Italian card game that dates back to the 14th century.

Scopa translates to “broom” or “sweep” in Italian. The object of the game is to sweep, or clean, the table of cards. You can play with 2-4 players (or in teams of two). If there are more than two players, cards should be dealt and played counter-clockwise.

An Italian deck of cards comes with 40 cards and 4 suits; coins (denari), cups (coppe), swords (spade) and batons/clubs (bastoni). The cards in each suit are King (Re), Horse (Cavallo), Jack (Fante), 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, Ace (Asso).

The cards have the following values:

KING= 10
HORSE= 9
JACK= 8
7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2= face value
ACE= 1

Deal

The dealer shuffles and the dealer's opponent (the player to dealer's left if there are more than two players) cuts the cards.

The dealer then deals the cards one at a time until each player has three cards.

The next four cards are placed separately face up on the table - some players like to arrange them in a square or in a row, but the exact layout does not matter.

The remaining cards are stacked face down. [If the four face up cards include three or four Kings, all the cards are gathered up, and are shuffled, cut and dealt again by the same dealer. This is because with more than two face up Kings in the layout, sweeps (scope) are not possible.] After all players have played their first three cards, the dealer deals another three cards to each player, but no further face up cards are dealt to the table. This is repeated until all the cards have been dealt and played, after which the hand is scored and the turn to deal passes to the other player (or to the next player to the right).

PLAY

The non-dealer plays first and the turn to play alternated (or passes to the right). A turn consists of playing ONLY one card at a time from one’s hand face up to the table. The played card may or may not capture one or more cards from the table.

If the played card is equal in value to one of the face up cards on the table, it captures that card. If there are several matching cards the player must choose just one of those cards to capture.
If the played card does not match the value of any single face up card, but is equal to the sum of the values of a set of two or more cards, the player captures that set of cards. If there is more than one such set, the player chooses which set to capture.
If there is no single card and no set of cards whose value matches the played card, then the played card remains face up on the table alongside any cards that are already there, and is available for capture in subsequent turns.

When a card or cards are captured, the player takes the captured card(s) along with the card that they played and stores them in a face down stack of cards that they have taken. In a partnership game each team stores its captured cards in a single stack.

If the played card captures all the face up cards from the layout, leaving it empty, this is a scopa (sweep). To record this, the played card is placed face up and sideways in the player's capture pile, with the cards it captured face down on top of it. This makes it easy to remember and count the scope when scoring. Since the table is now empty, the next player's card cannot capture anything and remains face up on the table to begin a new layout.

After everyone has played all three of their cards, if there are any cards remaining to be dealt, the dealer deals three new cards to each player, leaving any face up cards on the table in place, and play continues with the player to dealer's right.

When all the cards have been played and there are no more cards to deal, any card remaining in the face up layout are collected by the player or team that last made a capture. Then the hand is scored.

Capturing the last card(s) from the table at the very end of the last deal of a hand never counts as a scopa. Even if the dealer's final card does actually match the total value of the last card(s) remaining on the table, thus capturing them in the normal way, this is not a scopa.

Scoring

At the end of the play, the players or teams score for the cards they have in their capture piles and for sweeps as follows.

Scopa: For each scopa (sweep), indicated by a card stored face up in the capture pile: 1 point.

Cards: The player or team with the most cards in their capture pile scores 1 point for cards. In case of a tie for most cards no one scores this point.

Coins: The player or team with the most cards of the coins (or diamonds) suit scores 1 point. If there is a tie for most coins / diamonds no one scores this point.

Settebello: The player or team with the 7 of coins / diamonds in their pile scores 1 point.

Primiera: The player or team with the best prime (primiera) scores 1 point. A prime consists of four cards, one of each suit - a player or team that does not have at least one card in each suit cannot score for prime. The best prime is found by adding the values of the four cards using the following scale of values:

SEVEN= 21
SIX= 18
ACE= 16
FIVE= 15
FOUR= 14
THREE= 13
TWO= 12
KING, HORSE/QUEEN, JACK= 10

In case of a tie for best prime - for example two opponents have 7-7-6-6, or one has 7-7-6-4 while the other has A-A-7-7 - no one scores the point.

The first player or team to achieve a cumulative score of 11 or more points over as many deals as it takes wins the game. If more than one player or team achieves this in the same hand, the highest score wins. In case of a tie for most points another hand is played to break the tie.