Burraco scoring explained
Every point in Burraco comes from one of four places: the cards you melded, the burraco bonuses, the bonus for going out, and the cards still stuck in your hand when someone does. Here is each of them, with the numbers.
Card values
Cards score the same whether they are sitting in a meld on the table or stranded in your hand when the hand ends - the difference is the sign. Melded cards count for you; cards left in hand count against you.
| Card | Points |
|---|---|
| Joker | 30 |
| Two (used as a wildcard or in its own rank) | 20 |
| Ace | 15 |
| King, Queen, Jack, Ten, Nine, Eight | 10 |
| Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three | 5 |
The burraco bonuses: clean, semi-clean and dirty
A burraco is a meld of seven or more cards. It is the whole point of the game and the reason for the name. What it is worth depends entirely on how you built it.
| Type | What it means | Bonus |
|---|---|---|
| Clean (pulito / limpio) | Seven or more cards, no wildcard anywhere in it. | 200 |
| Semi-clean (semi-pulito) | A variation, not standard - see below. Eight or more cards with one wildcard, leaving seven consecutive natural cards in a run, or seven equal ones in a group. | 150 |
| Dirty (sporco / sucio) | Any burraco containing a wildcard. Where the semi-clean variation is in play, that leaves two or more wilds, or a single wild in a meld of only seven. | 100 |
The gap between clean and dirty is 100 points, which is often larger than the entire card value of the meld. This is the single most important number in the game: it is usually worth holding a run one turn longer to complete it clean rather than closing it dirty now.
The consecutive part matters more than it sounds. In a run, the wildcard has to leave seven natural cards in an unbroken sequence, which in practice means it sits at one end. The same single wildcard dropped into the middle - 4-5-6-wild-8-9-10-J - leaves blocks of three and four, so that meld is dirty despite having eight cards and one wild. For a group it is automatic: every card shares a rank, so eight cards with one wildcard is seven equal naturals.
Going out, and the pozzetto
Going out - closing the hand - is worth 100 points. You cannot go out until your side has at least one burraco on the table, which is what stops the game becoming a race to dump cards.
Each side also has a pozzetto: an eleven-card packet set aside face down at the deal. You pick it up the first time you run out of cards, and it becomes your new hand. If the hand ends while your pozzetto is still untaken, your side is penalised 100 points.
That penalty matters more than it looks. A side that never takes its pozzetto has usually had a bad hand anyway, and the penalty turns a modest deficit into a large one.
Cards left in your hand
When someone goes out, everyone else counts the cards still in their hand at the values in the first table and subtracts that total. A joker left stranded costs 30. This is why dumping high cards into melds early, even for little gain, is often correct.
Worked example
Your side finishes a hand holding a clean burraco - a seven-card run of 4-5-6-7-8-9-10 in hearts - and a dirty burraco of seven clubs built with a two standing in for a missing card. You also have an ordinary meld of three fives, you took your pozzetto, and you went out. Your partner is left holding an ace, two tens and a three.
| Source | Points |
|---|---|
| Clean burraco bonus | +200 |
| Dirty burraco bonus | +100 |
| Going out | +100 |
| Card values melded (roughly) | +130 |
| Partner's remaining cards (15 + 10 + 10 + 5) | −40 |
| Pozzetto taken, so no penalty | 0 |
| Hand total | +490 |
Winning the match
A single deal is one hand. A match runs over as many hands as it takes for one side's running total to reach an agreed target. The usual choices are 1005, 1505 or 2005 points; the odd number exists so a match cannot end in a tie on the target itself.
At typical scores of 300 to 600 a hand, 1005 is roughly a two-or-three-hand match and 2005 is a long evening.
Frequently asked
How many points is a burraco worth? 200 clean, 150 semi-clean, 100 dirty - on top of the card values in the meld.
What happens if you do not take the pozzetto? Your side loses 100 points at the end of the hand.
How many points do you need to win? Whatever target was agreed before the match: 1005, 1505 or 2005.
Do cards left in your hand count against you? Yes, at their full face value, including 30 for a joker.
Want the full rules rather than just the scoring? Read how to play Burraco, or start a free hand against the computer - no download and no account needed. Or read the scoring in Italiano or Español or Português.