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italian card games - tressette
(more italian card games)
Download and start to play
now with the
freeware
Tressette
for PC's running Windows only.
Tressette is a partnership trick-taking
game for four players, with partners sitting opposite. Variations for other
numbers of players are listed at the end of the page. Like most Italian games,
Tressette is played anticlockwise.
cards
A 40 card pack is used, usually with the Italian suits:
swords, batons, cups and coins. In each suit the cards rank as follows: 3
(highest), 2, asso (ace), re (king), cavallo (horse),
fante, 7, 6, 5, 4 (lowest). It is also possible to
play with French suited cards: from a 52 card pack you need to remove the 10s, 9s
and 8s, and the cards rank 3 2 A K Q J 7 6 5 4. The cards have point values and the object
is to take tricks containing
valuable cards. There is also a score for winning the last trick. The values are
as follows:
Each asso 1 whole point
Each 3, 2, re, cavallo or fante 1/3 of a point
Winners of last trick 1 whole point
dealing
Deal (anticlockwise) 10 cards to each
player, 5 at a time. Turn to deal passes to the right after each hand.
playing
There are no trumps. The player to dealer's right leads first.
Any card may be led, and the other players must play a card of the suit led if they have one.
A player with no card of the suit led may play anything. The highest card of the suit led wins
the trick, and the winner leads to the next trick. There are certain card combinations which
score points when held in the hand of one player. These are:
Four 3's, four 2's or four aces 4 points
Three 3's, three 2's or three aces 3 points
Napoletana (3, 2 and ace of a suit) 3 points
A player with such a combination declares it at the end of
the first trick, and scores for it immediately (it does not matter if one of the
cards of the combination was played to the trick). When declaring a
Napoletana you must specify the suit, and when declaring three of a
kind you must say which suit is missing. It is possible to use the same card in
a Napoletana and another combination - for example you could declare
for a Napoletana
in cups and four
twos for 7 points. When leading to a trick, certain
remarks or signals are allowed:
- busso
indicates that you want your partner to play his highest card in the suit you led, and lead the suit back if it wins. Instead of saying busso you can strike the table
(or the led card) with your fist,
- volo (or piombo) indicates that you have no further cards of the suit led. Instead of saying volo you can
throw the card so that it glides onto the table,
- striscio
(or liscio) (not allowed by all players) indicates that you have, besides the card you are leading, one or more low cards (king or lower) of the suit led. Instead of saying striscio you can slide the card led onto the table.
Some players allow additional remarks, or
elaborations of these remarks.
scoring
When all 10 tricks have been
played each side scores the value of cards it has won in tricks, plus the point
for winning the last trick if applicable. The total points available amount to
eleven and two thirds, but fractions are disregarded in scoring, so the total
points scored on each deal (apart from any points for declarations) are actually
11, two thirds of a point being thrown away. The side which first reaches 21
points wins. This will take several deals. A player can stop the play at any
time and claim to have reached 21 points with the tricks already won up to that
point. If the claim is correct that side wins (irrespective of the other side's
total) and if it is incorrect they lose. There are some
ways of winning the game outright, irrespective of the score, or in fact winning
several games at once (by which I mean that supposing you were playing
Tressette
for a bottle
of wine, then by winning two games you would get two bottles):
- cappotto
(or collada): if one team
wins all 10 tricks, they win two games,
- stramazzo: if one team wins all
the points but not all the tricks - that is, if the trick(s) won by their
opponents contains less than one point (the point for the last trick does not
count in this case), they win three games,
- cappottone (or colladone): if a single player wins all
10 tricks, that player's team wins six games,
- stramazzone: if one player wins
all the points, the opponents winning at least one trick but the other three
players together winning less than one point (the point for the last trick
does not count in this case), that player's team wins eight games.
variations and
related games
There are quite a few of these, all
having in common the unusual card ranking and values and the lack of trumps.
Other versions for four players are:
- Tressette con la
chiamata del tre , in which the
partnerships instead of being fixed are determined by the player right of the
dealer calling a three,
- Mediatore, a version with simple bidding and a monte (a talon of undealt cards which can be
used by the winner of the bidding),
- Quadrigliati, a version with bidding but no monte.
For other numbers of players there are:
- Tressette in due
, for two,
- Terziglio, formerly also known as Calabresella, an excellent game for three, with
bidding, one player playing against two on each deal,
- Quintiglio, for five.
There is also
Rovescino, also known as Traversone or Ciapan�, a
reverse version of Tressette in which
the object is to avoid taking card points.
Tressette in due
Cards, play and
scoring are the same as in the 4 player variant. The only difference is in the
deal. Instead of dealing all the cards to the players, only 10 cards are dealt
to each player, while the remaining 20 remain in a monte (face down
pile) on the table.
After each
trick, each player, beginning with the player who won the trick, takes the top
card from the monte, shows it to the other player, and puts it
in their hand. Then the player who won the trick leads to the next. When there are no cards left in the
monte, play continues without drawing cards until all the cards have been
played.
For rules and information on hundreds of other card games, visit www.pagat.com
The card game description on this page is reproduced with permission
from the card games web site www.pagat.com and is copyright © John
McLeod, 1996-2004. No further copying or reproduction of this text in
any form is allowed, except with prior permission from the copyright
holder.
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