Primero (Primiera)

Full rules

1. Overview
2. Card values
3. The hands
4. Stake and rest
5. Setup and deal
6. Betting and drawing
7. Showdown
8. Winning the game
9. Tips for beginners
10. Variants

Overview

Primero was the great gambling game of the Renaissance, played at the courts of Italy, Spain, France and Tudor England. Each player holds four cards and bets chips on having the best combination – or on making the others believe it. The best-known hand gave the game its name: the primero, one card of each suit. You win the pot (all the chips bet in a deal) if everyone else gives up, or if you show the best hand at the end.

No complete rule book survives from the 16th century – only descriptions, dialogues and a chapter by the Italian mathematician Gerolamo Cardano. The rules on this page are a modern reconstruction: they follow Mark Waks's reconstruction of the English game (2002–03), including the simpler betting he later took over from David Whittaker. The card values and hands are Cardano's.

• Players: 2–6, best with 4. Everyone plays for themselves.
• You need: a standard 52-card deck with the 8s, 9s and 10s taken out (40 cards), and chips (or counters) – the same number for everyone, e.g. 50 each. Play for chips, never for money.

Card values

Every card has a point value. Suits don't rank.

The hands

There are five kinds of hand. From best to worst:

• Count only the cards that make the hand. A numerus counts only the cards of its suit; if you have two suits of two cards each, the better one counts. All other hands count all four cards (supremus: always 55).
• Every hand is at least a numerus, because four cards always include two of one suit – unless they are a primero.
• Four face cards of mixed ranks (K-K-K-J) are not a chorus; all four must have the same rank.
• A higher kind of hand always wins. Between hands of the same kind, more points win. If they are still equal, the player nearest the dealer's right wins.

Example: 7♠ 6♥ A♦ K♣ is a primero worth 21 + 18 + 16 + 10 = 65. 7♥ 6♥ 5♥ K♣ is only a numerus of 54 (the King doesn't count), and it loses to any primero. A♥ 6♥ 7♥ 2♣ is a supremus and beats both.

Stake and rest

Before you start, agree on two amounts:

• the stake – the smallest bet, e.g. 1 chip;
• the rest – the most anyone may bet or raise in one turn, e.g. 3 chips. (In the English dialogues of the 1590s, the rest is three times the stake.)

Setup and deal

Each player draws a card; the lowest card by point value deals first (a face card is lowest). Dealing and play go anticlockwise (to the right), and the deal passes to the right after each hand.

The dealer shuffles and deals two cards face down to each player, one at a time, starting with the player on the right – the eldest. The rest of the pack is put face down as the stock.

Betting and drawing

Each deal has two betting rounds: one with two cards in your hand and one with four. In each round, starting with the eldest player still in, everyone takes turns and does one of these:

• Vie: be the first to bet in this round – put between one stake and the rest into the pot.
• See: put in enough chips to match the highest amount anyone has bet in this round. After seeing, you may also revie (raise): bet more, up to the rest.
• Pass: bet nothing for now. Once someone has vied, you may pass only once; at your next turn you must see or fold.
• Fold: give up. Your chips stay in the pot.

Drawing: unless you fold, you may then discard any of your cards face down and draw the same number from the stock. If the stock runs out, shuffle the discards to make a new one.

A round ends when everyone still in has put in the same amount – or when everyone has passed without a vie.

First round: if someone vies and nobody sees, the player just before the vier (the last to speak) must see – that player may not pass or fold.

Second round: once the first round is over, the dealer deals two more cards to each player still in, and the second round is played the same way – except that nobody is forced to see. If nobody vies at all in the second round, everyone throws in their cards ("swigging"), and the pot stays for the next deal.

If only one player is left in at any time, that player wins the pot without showing their cards.

Showdown

When the second round is over and two or more players are still in, everyone left shows their four cards. The best hand wins the whole pot.

Example: Anna is eldest, then Ben, Carla and Dan (the dealer). Stake 1, rest 3. First round: Anna passes. Ben vies 2 chips. Carla and Dan pass. Now Anna is the last to speak before Ben, and nobody has seen – so Anna must see: she puts in 2. Ben has already bet 2 and passes. Carla has passed once and now folds; Dan sees with 2. The pot holds 6. Anna, Ben and Dan now swap one, two and one cards. Second round: everyone still in gets two more cards. Anna passes, Ben vies 3, Dan folds, and Anna sees with 3. Ben shows 7♥ 6♥ 5♥ 2♣, a numerus of 54. Anna shows 7♠ 6♥ A♦ K♣, a primero of 65, and wins the pot of 12.

Short of chips: if you can't match a bet, you may put in everything you have left and stay in. You can then win from each other player only as much as you put in yourself; the rest goes to a side pot for the others, as in poker.

Winning the game

Primero has no natural end. Play for an agreed time; whoever then has the most chips wins.

Tips for beginners

• Learn the card values first: 7s, 6s and Aces are the valuable cards; face cards are worth least.
• A primero is the most common strong hand. With four different suits in view, stay in; with three cards of one suit, hope for the fluxus.
• Two cards in the first round tell you little – don't bet the rest on them.
• Remember the forced see: if you vie in the first round, someone will have to pay to stay with you.

Variants

• Italian Primero (Cardano): in Waks's reconstruction of the Italian game, every vie names a hand and points ("primero 60"), and each new vie must name a better claim. You may bluff, but to win you must hold at least the hand named in the last vie – with a few permitted understatements, e.g. a supremus may be claimed as a primero. If nobody makes the claim, the pot stays for the next deal.
• Suzuki's Primero: in Jeff Suzuki's reconstruction there is no folding: a player who doesn't want to bet must pass and exchange one or two cards, which usually spoils their hand.
• Roman Primero: according to Girolamo Zorli's study of Francesco Berni's text of 1526, the game in Rome was played with all 52 cards.
• Losing Primero: Cardano mentions a rare version in which the lowest hand wins.