Buraco
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| Origin | Argentina/Uruguay |
|---|---|
| Type | Matching |
| Players | 4 |
| Skills required | Tactics & Strategy |
| Cards | 104 cards |
| Deck | Anglo-American |
| Play | Clockwise |
| Card rank (highest to lowest) | A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 |
| Playing time | from 40 minutes to several hours |
| Random chance | Medium |
| Related games | |
| Canasta | |
Buraco is a Rummy-type card game in the Canasta family for four players in fixed partnerships in which the aim is to lay down combinations in groups of cards of equal rank and suit sequences, there being a bonus for combinations of seven cards or more. Buraco is a variation of Canasta which allows both standard melds (groups of cards of the same value) as well as sequences (cards in numerical order in the same suit). It originated from Uruguay and Argentina in the mid-1940s, with apparent characteristics of simplicity and implications that are often unforeseeable and absolutely involving. Its name derives from the Portuguese word "buraco" which means “hole”, applied to the minus score of any of the two partnerships. The game is also popular in the Arab world, specifically in the Persian Gulf; where it is known as 'Baraziliya' (Brazilian).
Buraco is played with two 52-card decks of standard playing cards for a total of 104 cards. Team members sit opposite each other, so that no team member is sitting next to their own teammate.
Before beginning the game, the players cut the deck to establish who deals first. The player from the team who has the lowest card must deal to the player of the other team who has cut the highest card. In the case of two identical cards being chosen, two new cards must be cut. The dealer shuffles and the player to their right cuts the deck.
The opponent sitting to the right of the dealer attempts to cut exactly twenty-two cards off the top of the deck. If exactly twenty-two cards are cut off the top of the deck, then that team immediately gains one-hundred extra points. This person uses these cards to make two (2) hands of eleven cards each, and the first Hand is crossed over the second and they are both stacked in a corner of the card table. These two hands are called the Pots.
While the Pots are being made, the dealer distributes eleven cards to each player one by one in a round-robin manner; these cards are called the players’ Hand(s). If during the dealing any mistake is made then (e.g., one card too many, one card too few, cards upturned) the Hands and the Pots must be re-dealt. Responsibility for dealing the cards always proceeds clockwise from Game to Game. The remaining thirty-eight cards, placed face-down in the center of the table, make the Stock.
Each team has its own collection of Runs that are shared by both players; that is, both players build on each other’s Runs in turn. A player from one team may not play on the other team’s Runs.
Runs can be made in one of two ways:
Runs of seven or more cards earn extra points for the team, and are classified in one of two ways:
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Wikipedia