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Cuarenta
Cuarenta is the national card game of Ecuador. It is a fishing game played with a Baraja, a pack of 40 Spanish playing cards. The game can also be played with the standard 52 card pack of Anglo-American playing cards, but all 10s, 9s and 8s are omitted (ace is low).
This card game is almost exclusively played in Ecuador. The name of the game, '''' is Spanish for the number 40 . This refers to the number of points that are required to win a chica (small division of the game). Two chicas or the first chica with (loss of the chica by scoring less than ten points) win the game . The game can be played by 2 players, or 4 players split into two teams.
The score is kept with two kinds of chips, the two-point tantos (points) and the ten-point s (dogs). When a standard 52 card pack is used, the 8s, 9s and 10s can be used to keep the score.
Game
Five cards are dealt to each player, given out as a batch of five cards. The opponent of the dealer or the opponents of the dealer's team are given ten points if there are any irregularities during the deal itself, and the dealer's turn is handed over to the opponent . The cards left over after dealing are placed face down on a stack to the side.
Before the first individual turn after each deal special announcements have to be made by each player if applicable. These are the doble ronda (four cards of the same rank) and the ronda . A doble ronda automatically wins the game; a ronda scores two points.
The player to the dealer's left begins. The turn to play passes clockwise. Each player plays one card face up onto the table. Cards on the table may be captured by the opponent. If cards are captured, they are placed face down in front of the player or his teammate. Played cards remain on the table until they are captured or the round ends. Cards can be captured in the following three ways: matching , addition , and sequence (a card captured by matching or addition entitles the picking of the next higher card; matching a 2 entitles the capturing of the 3 and 4 (etc.), as well, should there be any). Note that, due to the absence of 8s, 9s, and 10s, the Jack follows the 7 in sequence. A table with the cards 3 4 J Q K can be cleaned with a 7 , capturing a total of 6 cards.
Scoring
If a player clears the table by capturing all cards, they score a limpia . If a player captures the card just played by the player before, this is called a caida . These two often happen at the same time; under the "official" Quito rules of the Asociacion de Periodistas Deportivos de Pichincha (the association of sports journalists of the province of Pichincha), no additional points are scored for this combination . In the Cuenca rules variation, both events are scored, for a total of 4 points.
After all five cards are played, there is a new deal. After a new deal, caida does not apply to any cards remaining on the table. After all cards have been played , each player or team counts their collected cards. If the number of collected cards is 20, 6 points are scored; an additional point is given for each captured card in excess of 20, rounded to the next even number. So, 21 cards gives 8 points, 22 cards still gives 8 points. 23 or 24 cards give 10 points. If both teams capture 20 cards, neither side scores 6 points. In this case and all other ties, the non-dealing team scores 2 points. This is called dos por darlas, "two for dealing (next)", as the scoring team will deal the next round. If neither team captures 20 cards, the team with more cards scores 2 points. If a player gets 4 of a kind, they automatically win the game.
If a team reaches exactly 38 points, that team is "out of play," called 38 que no juega (38 that doesn't play). The final two points that achieve victory may only be scored by caida or by counting the cards collected on a dealer's round.
A chica is won when a player or team reaches 40 points. The game is won when a player or a team wins two chicas or when the opponent doesn't reach ten points at the end of the first chica (this last kind of loss is known as "zapateria").
If the opponent loses with "zapateria" (he doesn't score a perro = ten points), he's called "zapatero", probably because he ends up "poor" like a shoemaker (zapato = shoe): "zapatero, ra. 8. m. coloq. Jugador que se queda sin hacer bazas o tantos [in this case, perros]. Se quedo zapatero. source: 22nd edition of the dictionary of the Real Academia Espanola".
External links
Rules of Card Games: Cuarenta (Please bear in mind that this is only one of many versions of the game.)
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Cuarenta
