Brisca card game

Brisca rules

The Brisca game is similar to Tute. It is simpler since in Brisca you can play any card – there is no need to play a card from the required suit or a trump as in Tute.

Brisca is usually played with the 40-card Spanish deck.

A game can be played in one or several rounds.

Objective

In Brisca the main objective is to win more rounds than the opponents. The party with the most points wins the round, and the party that wins the most rounds is the winner of the game.

Similar to many other trick-taking games, in Brisca it is essential to earn more points by taking high-value cards.

Cards in Brisca

The most used Spanish deck to play Brisca has 40 cards, divided into four suits. The cards are numbered from 1 to 12. Consider that the Eight and Nine cards from the 48-card deck are not used.

The cards are grouped in four suits – Swords, Coins, Batons, and Cups. In addition to the symbols used, you can also recognize the suits by the number of interruptions in the outline frame:

• Coins: none
• Cups: one
• Swords: two
• Clubs: three

The cards have the following values:

• Ace: 11 points
• Three: 10 points
• King: 4 points
• Horse: 3 points
• Jack: 2 points
• The 7, 6, 5, 4, and 2 cards have no value

The total value of the cards in a suit is 30 points. Correspondingly, the whole deck is 120 points.

Dealing

The direction of play for all game actions is a counter-clockwise.

The dealer for the first hand is chosen randomly. For the next hands, the dealer is the next player in the direction of play.

During dealing, each player receives 3 cards.

After dealing, the remaining cards are placed face-down on the table, thus forming the stock pile. The players would later draw from this deck while playing tricks.

The top card from the stock pile is placed face-up next to the stock pile. This is how the trump suit for the current round is determined – it is the suit of the face-up card.

Playing the Cards

The common rules for playing the cards are:

• Players place cards on the table in the direction of play.
• For the first trick, the first card is played by the player on the right of the dealer.
• For the next tricks, the first card is played by the player who won the previous trick.

If there are unused cards in the stock pile, after a player wins a trick all players receive another card from the stock pile. The first to obtain a card is the player who won the trick, followed by the other players in the direction of play.

Winning tricks

There are no rules for what cards the players should play in a trick. All players can play any card they want.

Each trick is won by one of the players as follows:

• When no trump card was played, the trick is won by whoever played the highest card of the suit led.
• When trump card was played, the trick is won by whoever played the highest trump card.

Swapping

When the “Swapping” option is set, you can replace the face-up trump card with one of the cards in your hand. You can do this when all of the following conditions are met:

• You have already won a trick.
• There are one or more unused cards in the stock pile.
• One of the following is true:
• You hold the 7 card from the trump suit, and the face-up trump card is 1, 3, King, Cavalry, or Jack.
• You hold the 2 card from the trump suit, and the face-up trump card is 7, 6, 5, or 4.

Consider the following about swapping:

• Swapping is done before playing a card in the trick.
• It is possible only once during a trick.

Black hand

When the game option “Black hand” is set, if it happens that you hold the three strongest trump cards (Ace, Three, King) you would win the round.

Your party scores a standard round win, as usual, there are no special awards for winning with a Black hand.

Hand and Session Scores

At the end of a round each team scores the sum of the card points it won. The winner is the team that scores more than half of the points – 61 or more from 120 totally. In case both teams won 60 points, the winner is the team that won the last trick.

Game winner

The first team that wins a specific number of rounds (as set for the table, for example 3) wins the session.