BURRACO

OBJECTIVE OF BURRACO: Meld all your cards in hand!

NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 4 players (fixed partnerships)

NUMBER OF CARDS: two 52 card decks + 4 jokers

RANK OF CARDS:  Joker (high), 2, A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2

RANK OF SUITS: Spades (high), Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs

TYPE OF GAME: Rummy

AUDIENCE: All Ages

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INTRODUCTION TO BURRACO

Burraco is an Italian card game, not to be confused with the South American games Buraco and Burako. This game has similarities to the rummy game Canasta, in that goal is to make melds or combinations of 7 or more cards. Burraco, like other more modern games in this family, utilizes a second hand that players use once disposing of all cards in the first hand. Despite the game originating in South America, the Italian rules are considered standard.

CARD VALUES

Joker: 30 points each

Two: 20 points each

Ace: 15 points each

K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8: 10 points each

7, 6,5, 4, 3: 5 points each

THE DEAL

To choose the first dealer, have each player draw one card from the shuffled deck. The player who draws the lowest value deals first. The player who draws the highest cards sits to the left of the dealer and plays first. In the event of a tie, use suit rankings (listed above) to determine who has the highest value card. The two players with high cards play the other two with the lower cards.

After each hand, the deal moves to the left.

The dealer shuffles the deck and the player to their right cuts the deck. They must lift the top 1/3 of the deck, taking at least 22 cards and leaving at least 45 in the deck. The dealer grabs the remainder of the deck (the bottom 2/3s) and deals from it, passing each player 11 cards. The player that cut the deck deals from the bottom of their cut to form 2 face-down piles or pozzetti. These are dealt one card at a time, alternating between the two, until each pile has 11 cards. The two piles are placed in a cross shape, with one pile horizontally placed on top the other. The cards the remain are placed in the center of the table, face down.

After the dealer finishes each of the 4 hands, they place the 45th card face-up in the center of the table and the cards that remain beside it, on top of the cutter’s extra cards.

So, each player has a hand of 11 cards. In the center of the table is the pozzetti, which has two face-down stacks of 11 cards, for a total of 22 cards. The pile of remaining cards from the cutter and the dealer should consist of exactly 41 cards with 1 card face-up beside it.

THE MELDS

The goal of Burraco is to form melds. Melds are card certain combinations set on the table that must contain at least 3 cards. You may add cards to your team’s melds, but not your opponent’s melds. 안전토토사이트

TYPES OF MELDS

• Set. A set has 3 or more cards of equal rank. You may have no more than one wild card (2 or joker) or be made entirely of them. You can have no more than 9 cards in a set.
• Sequence. A sequence has 3 or more cards that are consecutive AND the same suit. Aces count both high and low, but cannot count as both. A sequence can have no more than 1 wild card (2 or joker) to replace a missing card. Twos may count as natural cards in sequences. For example, 2-2-Joker is a valid sequence. Teams may have two separate melds of sequences in the same suit, however, they cannot be manipulated (joined or split).

Melds with natural (non-wild) cards only are called clean or pulito. Melds with at least 1 wild card are dirty or sporco. If a meld contains 7+ cards it is called a burraco and earns that team bonus points. Burraco melds are indicated by flipping the last card in the meld horizontal, 1 card if it is dirty and 2 if it is clean.