Scarto

Scarto is a three player trick-taking tarot card game from Piedmont, Italy. It is a simple tarot game which can serve as an introduction to more complex tarot games.^[2] The name comes from the discard pile which is also the origin of the name for the Skat card game.

Deck

The 78-card Italian suited Tarocco Piemontese is used to play this game but the French suited Tarot Nouveau deck can be a substitute. The deck should contain 56 cards divided into four suits each with ten ranks of pip cards and four ranks of face cards plus a suit of 21 trumps and one suitless card, the Fool.

Traditionally the order of the long (swords and batons) or black (spades and clubs) suits goes from King, Queen, Cavalier, Jack, 10 ... 1 while the round (cups and coins) or red suits (hearts and diamonds) goes from King, Queen, Cavalier, Jack, 1 ... 10. Trump 20 also outranks 21 in most Piemontesi games. Having all the suits follow one ranking or making trump 21 the highest won't affect game-play.

Card Points:

• Kings, the Fool, and Trumps 1 and 20: 5 points
• Queens: 4 points
• Cavaliers (Knights): 3 points
• Knaves (Jacks): 2 points
• All others: 1 point

Rules

The dealer hands everyone packets of five cards. After the deal, everyone should have a total of 25 cards with three remaining cards. The dealer will take these three cards and discards three cards into his trick pile which will count towards him. The dealer can't discard any card worth 5 points.^[3]

Play is counter-clockwise; the player to the right of the dealer plays to the first trick. Players must follow suit if they have a card of the suit led, otherwise they must play a trump if possible. The winner of each trick leads to the next until all cards are played.

The Fool can be played at any time. It is not part of any suit but excuses the player from following suit; it can't win any tricks. If the Fool is the first card of the trick, the next player's card sets the trick's suit. After the trick, the player takes the Fool back and puts it into his own trick pile while awarding the trick taker the cheapest card from that pile. If there is no card to exchange for the Fool, then the Fool is worth only four points while the trick taker gets an extra point.

After the hand has been played, the player's trick pile cards are counted in groups three. After adding the card points in that group of three, subtract 2 points, this will be that group's points. Then add up all the group points for the player's total point count.^[4] There should be 78 points divided between the three players so each player will have to subtract 26 from the their total point count to get their game score. The game is usually played thrice, giving each player the chance to be the dealer. The winner is the one with the highest cumulative score from the three games.

See also

• Tarot card games

References

External links

• Scarto rules at Tarocchino.com (archived)
• Scarto rules at Cardgamesplanet.com
• Scarto rules in Japanese at Gamefarm.jp