Tresette
Tresette (also spelled Tressette) is an Italian trick-taking game for four players in partnerships. Much like in Pinochle, players also score points for melds that they find in their hands. Melds in Tresette are much more simple, however, because they can only include aces, 2s, and 3s. These cards, along with the face cards, are the only cards that count when collected in tricks.
Object of Tresette
The object of Tresette is to be the first partnership to score 31 or more points. Points are scored by taking certain cards in tricks and by forming melds consisting of aces, 2s, and 3s.
Setup
Tresette uses the 40-card Italian deck. (This is the same deck used to play Seven and a Half, Scopa and Briscola, among others.) To create the requisite deck, start with a deck of Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards and remove the 10s, 9s, and 8s. Now you’ll have a deck that has ten cards in each suit (ace through 7, and the three face cards). You’ll also want something to keep score with—pencil and paper works great.
Tresette is traditionally played in a counter-clockwise fashion (to the right). For the sake of simplicity, we’ve reversed the directions so that it proceeds to the left, like most normal card games. If your players want some added authenticity to their Tresette game, you can reverse it back. It really makes no difference.
Determine partnerships by any convenient method, such as by drawing cards or just mutual agreement. Players should sit next to each other, so that as the turn proceeds around the table, it alternates between partnerships.
Shuffle and deal the entire deck out, ten cards to each player.
Card ranking
Tresette uses an extremely odd card ranking. Aces are high, but 3s and 2s are ranked even higher than the aces. If that’s not enough, the jacks outrank the queens! What’s left is in the usual order. That gives a full card ranking of (high) 3, 2, A, K, J, Q, 7, 6, 5, 4 (low).
Game play
Melding
There are two types of melds in Tresette, and they both involve only the aces, 2s, and 3s. The first is three or four of a kind. (Again, just aces, 2s, and 3s count—three of a kind in any other suit gets you nothing!) The second, called a nap, consists of 3-2-A of the same suit.
If a player holds a meld at the beginning of the hand, they declare it by stating “Good play”. They do not reveal the meld, and multiple players may declare melds. Upon winning their first trick, a player that declared a meld announces the type of the meld or melds they hold, such as “four 2s”, or “three aces and a nap”.
Play of the hand
The player to the dealer’s left leads to the first trick. Play is the same as it is in most every trick-taking game, but we’ll give you the rundown anyway. Each player in turn plays a card. They must follow suit if able, and if not, they can play whatever they want. After all four have played, whoever played the highest card of the suit led wins the trick and leads to the next one. Each partnership maintains a won-tricks pile, shared between the two partners, in which they store the cards from tricks that they’ve won.
Unlike in most other card games, in Tresette, you can share information about your holdings and what you want your partner to do. However, anything you say is public knowledge; your opponents are in on it too! When you lead to a trick, you can ask your partner to “play their best” card of that suit. If you’re playing to a trick led by someone else, you can announce how many cards you hold of the suit led. You can also announce, at any time, if you hold two, one, or zero cards in a suit (but not which suit it is).
Scoring
Play continues until all ten tricks have been played. The hand is then scored. Each partnership first scores one point for each card in their melds. That is, for each four-of-a-kind melded, they score four points, and they score three for every other meld. Each team then counts the number of 2s, 3s, and face cards that they captured in tricks. For every three of these cards captured, they score one point. Any remainder is disregarded. For each ace that the partnership collected, they score one point. Finally, the partnership that took the last trick also scores one point.
Game play continues until one partnership scores 31 or more points. That partnership is the winner.
Spinado
Spinado is a game in the Stops family for three to five players. Although the basics of the game are more or less identical to Newmarket (Michigan), it changes the winning conditions for the various pots in the middle of the table. In addition, it grants the A♦ the title of spinado, giving it a special role in the game.
Object of Spinado
The object of Spinado is to obtain the most chips over the course of the game. Chips are collected by playing particular cards associated with individual pots that the players contribute to.
Setup
Spinado is played with a stripped deck of only 47 cards. To make a Spinado deck, remove the 8♦ and all of the 2s from a deck of Denexa 100% Plastic Playing Cards. You’ll be left with a deck of four suits with kings down to 3s, as well as four aces (the diamonds, of course, will be missing the 8).
You also need something to bet with, such as poker chips or some other form of counter, like marbles or beans. If desired, you can have each chip represent some amount of real-world money. If so, each player will need to buy in. Otherwise, give an equal amount of chips to each player.
You will need some way of organizing the three pots in the center of the table. The pots in Spinado are Matrimony, Intrigue, and Game. Each player antes one chip to each pot at the beginning of the hand.
Shuffle and deal out the entire deck, dealing one hand to every player plus one. That is, if playing with four players, deal five hands of nine cards each. If there are any extra cards left over, place them in the extra hand. This hand is discarded and serves no part in game play.
Game play
The player to the dealer’s left starts the hand by playing any card they wish. Whoever has the next highest card of the same suit—cards rank in their usual order, with aces low—may play it next. And so on it goes, until play is stopped by the next-higher card in the sequence being in the dead hand (or removed, as when an ace or the 7♦ is played). When that happens, the last person to play can choose any card they wish, and play continues from the new starter.
The A♦ is called the spinado, and has a special power not granted to any other card. The player holding the spinado can play it alongside any other valid play, interrupting the sequence. Because the 2♦ is removed from the deck, the spinado also stops play, so the person playing it also gets to start a new sequence. That means the player holding the spinado can essentially play three cards in a row!
If a player holds K-Q♦ and gets the chance to play them both, they collect all of the chips in the Matrimony pot. Likewise, if a player can play Q-J♦, they take all of the chips in the Intrigue pot. A lucky player who can play K-Q-J♦ takes both pots!
Ending the hand
Game play continues until one player runs out of cards. That player wins the hand and collects the Game pot. Any uncollected amounts in the Matrimony and Intrigue pots are carried over to the next hand. In fact, the pots are more often left unclaimed than not, because of the difficulty in both getting the two necessary cards and getting the chance to play them!
If a player holds the spinado at the end of the hand, having failed to play it, they must pay the winner two chips for each card in their hand.
The deal passes to the left and each player except the winner of the previous hand antes again to each pot. The game continues until some predetermined time or number of hands. Whichever player has the most chips at that point wins the game.
See also
