Learned about from Episode 129 of Eggplant, “Reinforcing Worldbuilding through Gameplay with Spoils,” December 23, 2023. https://eggplant.show/129-reinforcing-worldbuilding-through-gameplay-with-spoils.
“Briscola (Italian pronunciation: [ˈbriskola]; Lombard: brìscula; Sicilian: brìscula, Neapolitan: brìscula) is one of Italy’s most popular games, together with Scopa and Tressette. A little-changed descendant of Brusquembille, the ancestor of briscan and bezique, Briscola is a Mediterranean trick-taking ace–ten card game for two to six players, played with a standard Italian 40-card deck. The game can also be played with a modern Anglo-French deck, without the eight, nine and ten cards (see Portuguese variations below). With three or six players, twos are removed from the deck to ensure the number of cards in the deck is a multiple of the number of players; a single two for three players and all four twos for six players. The four and six-player versions of the game are played as a partnership game of two teams, with players seated such that every player is adjacent to two opponents.
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Briscola chiamata (English: declared briscola) sometimes also called briscolone, although that is the name of a two-player variant (see above), is the five-player version of briscola. Every player is dealt eight cards, so that no cards remain undealt. Then the bidding phase begins, the purpose of which is to decide the trump suit (Briscola) and to form two uneven groups that will play against each other.
In one variant, each player, starting from the dealer’s right and proceeding counter-clockwise, bids on progressively lower card values, according to the peculiar sorting of cards used in the game. Thus, if the first player bids on a Three, the second player can only bid on a king or lower. If a player bids on a Six, the next player can only bid on a Five, Four or Two. Bidding continues until all but one player have passed in a round. This remaining player has then “won the bid” and therefore gets to declare the Briscola, i.e. the trump suit. If they had bid on a Three, for example, they could choose “Three of Cups”: the trump suit will be Cups, and the holder of the “Three of Cups” is determined to be the declarer’s partner, though if the player holds that card themselves they will play with no partner.
In another variant, bidding proceeds in the same fashion, but players declare how many points they will score (61 or more), if someone declare 120 points he may call two cards. A player may pass, and hence cannot bid again in that game. The bid represents the number of points that player believes they are capable of accumulating. In this variant, whoever declares the trump suit also declares a specific Briscola card (example, the “Ace of Cups” if Cups was the declared Briscola) and the holder of this card is then determined to be the declarer’s partner, however, they can not openly declare this and their identity is only conclusively revealed when the named card is played.
The two variants can be combined. Most commonly, the bid starts as in the first system but a bid of Two can be beaten by a bid of “Two with 65 points”. Alternatively, any player can “force” the bid and ask subsequent players to keep the same card but increase the score. This is useful whenever a player has low-value cards such as a Two or Four in their strongest suit.
In both systems the declarer can declare the highest Briscola card they do not already hold in the hopes of creating the strongest combined hand with their partner, but can also “bluff”.
After the bidding phase, the game proceeds in the same way. First, the remaining three players are partnered with each other, without their knowledge; each player, other than the declarer’s partner, acts independently, until it is clear which players are partners. Infrequently, the declarer may declare a Briscola card they already hold (if they feel they have a very strong hand), in which case the other four players are partnered against the winning bidder.
Because of the unique method of declaration and blind partnering in this variation of the game, it is considered to be one of the most entertaining variations of the game. Game strategy is often devised to determine which player is partnered with the declarer, whereas the declarer’s partner may devise ruses and decoy strategies to fool the other players, such as not taking a trick, or playing points on a trick that will be won by an opponent. “