Marafone Beccacino

Full rules

1. Overview
2. The cards
3. Setup
4. Naming trumps
5. Playing a trick
6. The marafona
7. Signals
8. Scoring
9. Winning the game
10. Tips for beginners
11. Variants

Overview

Marafone Beccacino is the card game of Romagna in north-eastern Italy: Tressette with a trump suit. Two teams of two play tricks with Tressette's card order (3s highest, then 2s and Aces) and point values. Before each deal's play, one player names the trump suit without any help from their partner. Holding the top three trumps, the marafona, earns a bonus. The first team to 41 points wins – and since nobody may look back at old tricks, you have to keep the count in your head.

• Players: 4, in two fixed teams. Partners sit opposite each other.
• You need: one standard 52-card deck, and paper and pen for the score.

The cards

Take out all 8s, 9s and 10s and the jokers. You play with 40 cards: 3, 2, A, K, Q, J, 7, 6, 5, 4 in each of the four suits.

In every suit the cards rank from high to low exactly in this order – note that the 3 and 2 are the highest cards:

3 – 2 – A – K – Q – J – 7 – 6 – 5 – 4

Some cards are worth points:

Setup

1. Dealer: choose the first dealer at random. The player to the dealer's left cuts.
2. Direction: as in most Italian games, dealing and play go anticlockwise (to the right).
3. Deal: the dealer deals 10 cards to each player, 5 at a time. No cards are left over.

Naming trumps

In each deal one player – the battezzante ("the one who christens") – chooses the trump suit and announces it. The cards of that suit are trumps: they beat every card of the other suits.

• First deal: the player who holds the 4♦ is the battezzante.
• Every later deal: the player on the dealer's right is the battezzante. The battezzante's partner (on the dealer's left) must not look at their cards until trumps have been named.
• The battezzante chooses alone – no discussion, no hints from the partner.
• Whoever was battezzante deals the next hand. From the second deal on, the deal therefore simply passes to the right.

Playing a trick

A trick is one round in which each player plays one card face up; the best card wins all four.

1. The battezzante leads (plays the first card) to the first trick. Any card may be led.
2. The others play in turn, anticlockwise. You must follow suit – play a card of the suit led – if you can.
3. If you have no card of the suit led, you may play a trump ("cut") or throw away any other card.
4. If any trumps were played, the highest trump wins the trick; otherwise the highest card of the suit led wins.
5. The winner takes the cards (a team keeps one pile together) and leads to the next trick. Nobody may look at earlier tricks.

Example: Hearts are trumps. Anna leads K♠. Ben has no spades and cuts with 4♥, the lowest trump. Carla plays 3♠ and Dan 7♠. Ben's 4♥ wins the trick: the King and 3 give Ben and Dan ⅔ of a point.

The marafona

The 3, 2 and Ace of trumps together are the marafona (also maraffa or cricca). A player who holds all three may declare them during the first trick and scores 3 extra points for their team.

Signals

Apart from the following, nobody may talk about the game or give signs. When you lead to a trick, you may make one of these announcements, by saying the word or by the matching gesture:

• Busso ("I knock"), or knock on the table: partner, win this trick with your highest card of this suit if you can, and then lead the suit back to me.
• Volo ("I fly"), or let the card glide onto the table: this is my last card of this suit.
• Striscio ("I stroke"), or slide the card across the table: I still hold one or more low cards (King or lower) of this suit.

A player who cuts with a trump may say "taglio" ("I cut"). According to Italian Wikipedia, any other word or sign costs the hand: the other team scores all 11 points. It also says signals must be honest; pagat.com only calls a false signal unwise.

Scoring

When all 10 tricks have been played, each team counts the points in its tricks, and the team that won the last trick adds 1 point. Fractions are dropped: 7⅓ counts as 7. So there are 11 card points in each deal. Add 3 for a declared marafona. There is no extra score for winning every trick.

Example: Anna and Carla's tricks hold three Aces and thirteen ⅓-point cards, and they won the last trick: 3 + 4⅓ + 1 = 8⅓, which counts as 8. Anna had declared the marafona, so they score 8 + 3 = 11. Ben and Dan have one Ace and seven ⅓-point cards: 1 + 2⅓ = 3⅓, so 3.

Winning the game

The first team to reach 41 points wins. This usually takes several deals.

Claiming: you may stop the play at any moment – even in the middle of a deal – and claim that your team has reached 41 with the tricks it has won so far plus any marafona. The tricks are counted: if you are right, your team wins at once; if you are wrong, your team loses.

Match: usually two games are played; if each team wins one, a third game, la bella, decides the match.

Tips for beginners

• Name the suit you are longest in, especially if you hold its 3 or 2 – you lead first and can draw the opponents' trumps.
• Keep a running count. You can't look back at old tricks, and knowing the score is the key to a good claim near 41.
• Aces are the prize. Don't lead a lone Ace into a suit where the 3 and 2 are still out.
• Cut to win points, not just tricks: a low trump on a trick holding an Ace is a great swap.
• Fight for the last trick – it is worth as much as an Ace.

Variants

All optional – agree before you start.

• 31 points: at some tables the game goes to 31 instead of 41, or two games go to 31 and la bella to 41.
• Stricter claims: in games to 31, some tables require a claiming team to hold at least 31⅓ – 31 is not enough – and the marafona doesn't count towards the claim.
• Who may declare: some tables allow only the battezzante to declare the marafona; others say they must lead the Ace of trumps to the first trick to declare it.
• Extra signals: fuori tutto ("all out") when leading a trump while none of the top three trumps has been played: I hold none of them. Taglia ("cut") when leading another suit: partner, please win this trick with a trump.
• Redeal: a battezzante whose ten cards are worth less than 1⅓ points may ask for a new deal by the same dealer.