Escoba rules

The deck and the deal

Escoba is traditionally played with the Spanish 40-card baraja. Our deck mirrors it with standard cards: Ace through 10 in every suit, with the Jacks, Queens and Kings removed entirely. Every card is worth its face value — the Ace counts 1, the 10 counts 10, nothing is worth more than it says. Diamonds stand in for the Spanish oros (coins), the money suit the scoring cares about.

Each round, the dealer gives every player three cards and turns four cards face up on the table. The rest of the deck sits face down. Whenever all hands empty, the dealer deals three fresh cards to everyone — no new table cards — and this repeats until the deck runs out. The arithmetic always comes out even: after the opening deal the remaining cards divide into exact three-card hands for 2, 3 or 4 players.

The first dealer is chosen at random and the deal passes to the left each round. Play always starts with the player to the dealer’s left and proceeds clockwise.

The dealer’s luck: if the four cards first dealt to the table already sum to 15, the dealer captures all four immediately and scores an escoba before anyone has played. If they sum to 30 — two fifteens — the dealer scores two escobas. Either way, play then begins on an empty table.

How a turn works

On your turn you play exactly one card from your hand. Two things can happen:

• Capture — if your card plus any set of table cards sums to exactly 15, you take those table cards and your played card into your capture pile, face down. A capture can take one table card or several; the only requirement is the exact total of 15.
• Discard — if your card cannot make 15 with anything on the table, it is added face up to the table for others to fish.

Capturing is mandatory for the card you play. If the card you choose can make 15, you must capture with it — discarding it to the table is illegal. You are, however, free to play a different card from your hand that has no capture, holding the capturing card back for a better moment. When your card can complete 15 in more than one way, you choose which combination to take.

A capture that takes every card off the table is an escoba — a sweep — worth one point at the end of the round. The next player then faces an empty table and can only discard, which is exactly why escobas hurt so much.

When the deck and all hands are exhausted, the round ends. Whatever still lies on the table goes to the last player who made a capture — a consolation sweep that counts the cards but is not an escoba.

Scoring a round

At the end of each round every player’s capture pile is examined and points are awarded in five categories. A tie in a category means nobody scores it.

The 7♦ is the most valuable card in the deck: it scores its own guindis point and simultaneously counts toward most sevens, most coins and most cards. A player holding all four sevens scores 2 for the sevens plus 1 for the guindis — three points from one rank.

Winning the game

Round points accumulate across rounds. The game ends when a round finishes with a player on 21 or more points who is strictly ahead of everyone else. If two or more players are tied at 21 or higher, nobody has won yet — another round is dealt and play continues until someone holds the lead outright.

Because scoring only happens between rounds, you can never win mid-round: a great capture puts you in position, but the round must be played to its end before the totals move.

For pacing: the four fixed categories are worth 4–6 points a round (more with the all-coins or all-sevens doubles), plus whatever escobas fall. A dominant round might score 6 or 7; a typical game reaches 21 in four to six rounds, so every category point you concede roughly buys your opponent a round of tempo.

Edge cases & fine print

The exact rulings our game applies where table rules often get fuzzy:

• The mandatory capture binds the card, not the hand. You are never forced to play a particular card — only forced to capture with whichever card you do play, if it can. Keeping a dangerous card in hand by playing a harmless one is legal and often correct.
• Exact fifteens only. A capture must total exactly 15 — you cannot take fewer cards than the sum requires or "overpay". If your 10 faces a table of 2 and 3, you must take both (10+2+3), never just one of them.
• Multiple combinations: you pick one. When your card completes 15 several ways, you capture exactly one combination of your choosing; the rest stay on the table.
• The opening-table escoba is real. A first table summing to 15 hands the dealer an instant escoba (30 sums to two), all four cards included — before a single card is played.
• The final sweep is not an escoba. The last capturer takes the leftover table cards when the deck runs out, and they count for cards, coins and sevens — but clearing the table this way scores no escoba point.
• Ties score nothing. Equal card counts, equal coins or equal sevens between the leaders means the category point is simply not awarded that round.
• A tie at 21+ plays on. Reaching 21 is not enough — you must end a round strictly ahead. Tied leaders trigger another round, however high the scores climb.

Variants and house rules

Our game plays the cardgames.io ruleset above. Around the world you will meet these variations:

• Scopa — the Italian ancestor captures by matching a single card’s value (or a sum equal to the played card) rather than building to 15, and scores a settebello (7 of coins) and primiera instead of sevens. Different game, same soul.
• Different targets — some tables play Escoba to 15 or 30 points instead of 21. We play first to 21 with an outright lead.
• Spanish deck values — with a real baraja the sota, caballo and rey count 8, 9 and 10. Removing our courts and keeping the 8-9-10 spot cards makes the arithmetic identical.
• No dealer escoba — some house rules redeal an opening table that sums to 15 instead of awarding it to the dealer. We play the dealer’s instant escoba (and two for 30).
• Team play — four players sometimes play as two partnerships pooling captures. Ours is every player for themselves at 2, 3 or 4 seats.

Frequently asked questions

Related rulebooks

• Go Fish rules — ask, fish and collect the 13 books
• Cribbage rules — peg the play, count the show, race to 121
• Gin Rummy rules — meld, knock and go gin — first to 100