Scopa

About Scopa

Scopa is a traditional Italian card game, its variant Escoba is also popular in Argentina and Brazil.

The name "Scopa" literally means "Broom" in Italian, referring to the game's objective - sweep all the cards from the table.

According to Wikipedia, there is evidence that Scopa was already popular in Italy as early as the 18th century, however, there is no earlier evidence of its origin.

Italian Playing Cards

Scopa is traditionally played with a deck of Italian cards. A deck of Italian cards contains 40 cards which are divided into Cups, Coins, Swords, and Clubs. Each suit has 10 cards - an Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Jack, Knight and a King.

Our game offers a selection of French, Italian, or Spanish decks.

When choosing to play with a French deck, the suits are mapped as follows:
Coins are Diamonds.
Cups are Hearts.
Swords are Spades.
Clubs are Clubs.

How to play Scopa?

When the game starts, 3 cards are dealt to each player, and 4 cards are dealt facing up to the table.

After the cards are dealt, the first player will play one of his cards, then the second player will play one card, and so on.

Once both players play their three cards, three more cards are dealt from the stock to each player, and so on, until no more cards are left in the stock.

On each turn, the player chooses one card to play.

1. If the played card is equal in value to one of the cards on the table - the player captures both the played card and the table card.
   For example - the table has 3, 4, and 7. If the player plays a 7 it will capture both the played 7 and the table's 7.
   
   
2. If the played card is equal to the sum of two or more cards - the player will capture all those cards along with the played card.
   For example, the player plays an 8 and the table has 1, 2, and 6 - the player will capture the 8, along with the 6 and the 2.
   If there are multiple options - for example, a 5 card that can capture 4+1 or 3+2 - the player can choose which combination to capture.
   
   However, capturing a single card always takes precedence. For example, if the player plays a 5, and the table has a 5, 4, and 1, the single 5 card must always be captured.
   
   

3. If there are no table cards matching the played card, the card is discarded and played into the table facing up, joining the other table cards.
   It is not possible to discard a card that can match other table cards.

If a played card captures all the face-up cards from the table, this is called a scopa (sweep). After the last card is played, if there are still cards on the table, they will be automatically captured by the player who was the last to capture any cards.

Scoring

• Each Scopa awards one point.
• 1 point is awarded to the player who took the most cards. There are 40 cards in total, so no points are awarded if each player takes 20 cards.
• 1 point is awarded to the player who took the most coins (or diamonds), if both players took 5 coins, no points are awarded.
• 1 point is awarded to the player who captured the 7 of coins.
• 1 point is awarded to the player with the highest prime score (explained below), if both players have the same prime score, no points are awarded.

The prime score is calculated as follows:
Each card has a prime value, which is unrelated to its face value.
The prime score is calculated by adding the prime value of the highest-value card from each suit.

For example, player 1 captured the 7 of Coins (21 points), the 6 of Cups (18 points), the 7 of Swords (21 points), and the Ace of Clubs (16 points), the Prime will be 21+18+21+16 = 76

The round's points are added to the previous rounds' points, and the first player to reach 11 points wins the game. You can adjust the target score before starting the game.

If both players reach 11 points at the same round, another round will be played, until one of the players scores more points than the opponent.

Notes

• Capturing the last cards on the very last turn never counts as a scopa.
• Our version deals all cards at random on all difficulty levels, however, it will not allow 3 or more kings to be dealt to the table in the first round.
• For simplicity, we always calculate the prime score, even if a player is missing cards of one of the suits.
• There are dozens of variants of the game, we chose a simple variant:
  No points are awarded for capturing the King of Coins.
  No Napola.
  No special rules about the Ace.
  Winning a round 7 to 0 will not end the game.