Burraco is widely practiced, but little "theorized". There are a couple of books that deal with strategy, but otherwise the pot weeps. While a bridge player can draw on encyclopaedic knowledge, the burrachi player must be satisfied almost exclusively with direct confrontation with his partners. Burraco is underestimated as a "logical" game, because there are so many variables and chance can disprove any theory, however, it is worth repeating, a good technique serves to improve performance, as a percentage. Here we do not claim to offer a scientific guide to victory, we would not be able to write it, but to make available to the reader a good experience in the field. Let's talk about the four-player game, where the strategy is different from the head-to-head or three-player game.
Here are five of the ten basic rules that my playmate and I have given ourselves in the belief that they offer us a better chance of achieving a good score.
One: be quick. The couple's first objective is to take the cockpit, always keep this in mind; only after this step do you have to ask yourself the problem of being a burraco and then closing. Taking the well first forces the other pair to chase you and pay less attention to his game and puts you in a position to definitively close the hand, naturally after making the burraco. Speed translates into honors scoring: whoever does not take the well pays one hundred points and whoever closes the hand collects another hundred points. This haste can sometimes cost you dearly, take that into account. In fact, it can happen that, in order to take the well, great sacrifices are made, fundamental cards are renounced and then one is unable to make a burraco, leaving the opponents time to recover the lost ground and win the hand. It's a risk, but it's worth the risk, because staying one step ahead offers a better chance of success. Those who get lost behind their dreams, those who pick up a card to play the burraco instead of going to the well, in most cases, remain entangled in their own net and pay the penalty.
Two: be thrifty. In Burraco you must always look for the maximum yield with the minimum cost. We have already had occasion to compare mad women to family savings. These should not be wasted, they should be put to good use, because they help build the future. In a generous hand, in which you have many wild cards, you can also lose, but in poor hands you must be careful not to throw anything away. This criterion will help you choose the right path when you want to open and find the answer to the fateful question: three of a kind or straight? Always choose the game that doesn't cost you anything. If you have 3 eights in your hand, i.e. three average cards par excellence (the fundamental ones for closing a straight) you can wait for a round before putting down such a "foul". If even your partner doesn't open, however, take the road of sets without thinking twice. The sooner you do this, the better, because your partner will be able to make his choices in light of yours. This argument is valid, of course, if you have only one mad or none in your hand. If you have two or three, however, you can also decide to give up a clean set, provided that you always remain equally close to closing.
Three: Be good observers. The good Burraco player first of all "looks" at the table. What game to open? What waste to make? You will often find the right answer on the table itself. Look at the games opened by your opponents and evaluate your discard, for example, based on this observation. What result can you achieve with that waste? First of all to get rid of a card you don't need, but that's not all. Maybe you can "pass" a good card to your partner and you will be able to understand what he needs by remembering what he has collected, but also what he cannot discard to his opponents. If you have a card in your hand that your partner could potentially bind to his by freeing himself from some impediment, discard that card. Observe the behavior of your opponents also to evaluate the problems they have, i.e. which cards they are trying to match so as not to give them to you and to understand how much time you have: if in the first hand they open "dirty" games, i.e. with wild cards not waiting, look for the shortest way to get rid of what you have in your hand, you may not have the opportunity to play many times. Conversely, if you see that your opponent is in trouble, you can also allow yourself some more reflection or take on some risks, even postponing a bad closing by one hand. It is a behavior that we almost never adopt, but exceptionally it can prove useful. In short, keep your eyes open, they will be your best compass.
Four: memorize extreme cards. All players know that straights offer more chances of roaming than sequences. In fact, for each suit there are 26 cards in sequence (13 and 13) while there are only eight cards of the same type (eight 3s, eight 4s, etc.). However, seven cards are enough to make a burraco, even for a straight you don't need 13. you have an open straight composed of ace, king and queen you must never pick up a 13 of that suit, because it is useless since the burraco stops at 300 and useless gestures cause you to lose fundamental rounds. In the scale of our example, a high scale that starts from the ace, your extreme card, the one you have to reach to make a burraco, is therefore 7, so make a mental scheme like this: ace-8, king-8, queen-8 , jack-7, 6-5, 10-4, 9-3, 8. Memorizing the "extremes" means choosing with much more certainty what to collect and what not to collect, what to keep in hand and what to discard. This little effort will be very useful to you especially when you have taken the well and are unable to make burraco. In this case you have to become farsighted. Your opponents don't discard anything good, especially they try to block your longer games, where you already have 2 or 7.1 cards? It's time to put some hay in the farmhouse and to know, without having to think about it, which is the "far" card you need to close a possible burraco. This way you won't risk discarding it and you will pick it up if someone discards it.
Five: Be generous with your opponents. This is the most original norm of our little private game code. We often meet people who, in order not to discard a good card to the opposing pair, are willing to do anything, even not taking the pozzetto. It's not our philosophy. Every gift to your opponents can be a gift you give yourself, an investment that will bring a lot of interest. We almost never try to pair a card that our opponents need with a wild card, "so as not to run the risk - as we often hear - of not discarding it". In fact, that card can become an excellent weapon in your hands, especially when your opponents are ahead. Is the player after you out, has only two or five cards in hand, and can he go live? You can't wait for the discard pile to fill up a bit to put even that dangerous card on it, a fundamental extension of the opponent's game or even burraco, even clean burraco. The player after you with that pile of discards in front of him will in fact find himself at a crossroads: either he collects and doesn't close, or he doesn't collect and loses the opportunity to score a lot of points, because your partner, who knows you, he is ready to clear the table of any subsequent temptations. Often your adversary collects, enticed by that easy profit, without thinking about the fact that he also puts in his hand quite a lot of "toxic stocks", ie the scraps collected that he doesn't need. At that moment he falls into your trap: you earn at least one round, you are free from embarrassing discards and you can take the well first, perhaps play the burraco and close your hand. You have probably given away a hundred points, perhaps even 200, but you have achieved at least double and in any case you have put a stop to the "enemy" race, by giving him space you have contained the supremacy of whoever is in front of you. Interesting, isn't it?
(Continued)
