How to Play Scopa

The Deck

Scopa uses a 40-card deck. Traditional Italian decks have four suits — Denari (Coins), Coppe (Cups), Spade (Swords) and Bastoni (Batons) — and three court cards: Fante (Knave), Cavallo (Horse) and Re (King). This digital version uses French-suited art instead, so Coins appear as diamonds ♦; the values and rules are identical. The deck is a standard poker deck with the 8s, 9s and 10s removed (ranks A, 2–7, J, Q, K in each suit).

Each card has a capture value: Ace = 1, 2–7 = face value, Fante (Jack) = 8, Cavallo (Queen) = 9, Re (King) = 10. The 7 of Coins (7♦) is the famous settebello.

Setup

• Each player is dealt 3 cards.
• 4 cards are dealt face-up to the table — once. The table is never replenished to four during the deal.
• The non-dealer plays first (in this game, that's you).
• When both players have emptied their hands, 3 more cards are dealt to each from the stock (the table is untouched). This repeats until the deck is exhausted.

How to Play

On your turn you play one card from your hand. Capturing is compulsory whenever it is possible:

1. Single match (forced, takes precedence): if any table card has the same value as your played card, you must capture a single matching card — a single match always beats a combination. If several cards match, you choose which one to take.
2. Combination: only if no single card matches, you may capture a set of two or more table cards whose values sum to your card's value. For example, a King (value 10) can take a 6 + 4, or a 7 + 3.
3. You may never discard while any capture is available.
4. A monte (no capture): if neither a single nor a combination is possible, your card stays face-up on the table.
5. Captured cards — your played card plus everything you took — go to your score pile.

Scopa — Sweeping the Table

If your capture takes the last cards on the table, leaving it empty, you score a scopa (a "sweep") worth +1 point. The one exception: a sweep made with the very last card of the final deal does not count, because play does not continue afterward.

The Last Trick

When the deck and both hands are exhausted, any cards still lying on the table are awarded to the player who made the most recent capture. (No scopa is scored for this.)

Scoring

At the end of each deal, four points are contested plus any sweeps. A tie awards no point:

Primiera (the prime)

For each player and each suit, take your single best captured card by the special prime-value table below, then add the four suit-bests together. The higher total wins the point. A player missing a suit entirely scores 0 for it (and usually loses the prime).

Winning

Deals are played and scored until a player reaches 11 cumulative points. If both players reach 11 in the same deal, the higher total wins.

Strategy Tips

Cultural Context

Scopa is, by tradition, associated with 18th-century Naples, though card play in Italy is far older. Today it is played the length of the peninsula — in cafés, kitchens and piazzas — and is regarded as one of Italy's "big three" traditional card games alongside Briscola and Tressette. A four-player partnership variant, Scopone, is a serious game in its own right.

Much of the game's character lives in its scoring: the lone, hotly contested settebello, and the deceptively subtle primiera in which a humble 7 outranks any king. These give Scopa a depth that keeps a simple capturing game endlessly replayable.