GAMES  FOR  ADULTS  AND  CHILDREN

“Hide-and-seek”, for example, needs shrewdness, cunning, astuteness but also intelligence and sagacity.

“Tombola” helps socialization waiting good-luck to come where as “Corda” learns to the youngest children collaboration. But to explain by words the “pedagogy of time” is very simplifying restrictive. It remains only the taste of “narration”.

CAMPANA

Children of primary schools play this game outdoor. Every child during a school- break or during his spare time use to play this very amusing game that allows a grate number of players. Originally it was called “Zappichetto”.

We draw on the ground square shape divided in eight or ten same parts. Every child, at his turn, throws a flat stone in one of the boxes previously numbered.

The game consists in jumping on all boxes, in order, unless the one taken by the flat stone, standing in balance upon an only one feet. Wins who manages, in this kind of situation, to pick up the flat stone left by another player in a certain box. If a child touches the lines between the boxes or if he fails in picking up the stone or touches the ground with the other feet, he skippes a turn or he has to pay penance.

BRISCOLA (Trump)

The Briscola, or “Brisca”, how is called by us, is a card game (very popular and amusing). This game crosses the whole Italian peninsula and it is played both by old and young people. It is usually played in the bars of small villages or closed places where they have small (gaming) tables and chairs. We can play it at any age from a minimum of three persons to a maximum of four, singly or in pairs. The aim of this game is to collect the highest score.

We give three cards to every player and place an uncovered card on the table.

That card represents the “briscola”: the cards of the same suit of briscola prevail against those of a different suit.

In turn every player throws a card in replay to that played by another player. When everybody has thrown his card on the table, the cards are taken by the player which has thrown the one of the biggest value.

When the hand is over every concurrent has to pick another card from the pack so that everyone has always three cards.

The game is over when we have finished all the cards, and wins the player with the highest score.

Value of the cards:

The ace is the highest card and prevails on all the others. It is worth eleven points.

The three is worth ten points

The king is worth four points

The queen is worth three points

The humpback is worth two points

The other cards (1, 6, 5, 4, 2) assume the value of the number itself during the game, but they don’t worth for the final score.

Key words

Pescare (to Fish) = to pick a card from the card pack

Buttare (to Throw) = to place a card on the table

Caricare (to Load) = to place an ace or a three on the table

Dare punti (to give points) = to play a king, a queen, or a humpback

Lisciare (to smooth) = to play a 7, 6, 5, 4, 2

Ammazzare (to kill) = to reply to the card on the table with an ace or a three of the same suit

Superare (to exceed) = to play a card of the same suit that exceeds the one on the table

Brisca = cards of the same suit of the one on the table

Parlare (to talk) = to make signs with the playmate

Strategical signs = to signal to the playmate the cards “of the same suit as briscola” that we have without showing them to the other concurrents.

SCOPA (broom)

This game is typical across the whole Tuscany and it’s our old grandparents’ favourite hobby, who meets in the classic bars and spend hours playing, even drinking something. It is played by us guys, too, when we don’t know how to spend the long afternoon’s hours.

Italian card game (40 cards packet) for 2, 3 or 4 people, with different rules by the number of the players. When there are two players the mace-bearer gives three covered cards to the opponent and to himself and he puts four of them uncovered on the table. Each player, at his turn, tries to take some of the cards on the table.

The ability of taking is: 

king = 10,  queen = 9,  humpback = 8,  the other cards from seven = 7  to ace = 1.

We can take one of the cards on the table with a card that has the same ability and we can take more of them, with a card that corresponds to them sum. The player who takes the last card, or all the cards on the table makes “scopa”. Every scopa corresponds to a point.

Regarding the score, there are other elements: a point for the majority of the cards taken (if there’s equality, we cannot receive the point); “settebello” = who has taken the seven of hearts receives a point; “cuori”(hearts) = who has taken the majority of the cards of that suit (if there’s equality, we cannot receive the point) “primiera”= who has taken some cards of different suit with the biggest value (seven = 21 points, six = 18, ace = 16,  and on lowering).

We have to make a lot of turns of game, until one of the players arrives to eleven points (or sixteen, or twenty-one). If the players are four, or if we play “scopone”, we can deal out nine cards for each player, putting four cards on the table; or ten cards for each player, beginning with empty table. Some use to call “scopone scientifico” the first variation, some call the second in that way.

SCALA   QUARANTA (scale forty)

This game is played in bars, in public places, but often at home and with friends too.

To play this kind of game are used two packets of French cards. The purpose is “chiudere” (to close), that is realizing some cards combinations to remain without them, rejecting the last one in the “pozzo” (well), leaving the opponent with a big number of cards.

The winner “chiude” (closes); the other has to discover his cards and counting the points remained in his hands. Who arrives to a hundred and one points, in more than a hand, loses the game.

CORDA (cord)

There isn’t a real setting and a particular time to play that game.

We need just a big open air place.

This game is played by three players in a courtyard or at school and by children from five to ten years old. In that game you need physical strength and children like it very much ‘cause they can show physical ability and compare his self with friends. Today this game is disappearing because children prefer to have fun with more recent amusements as video games or watching tv.

The game is for three players at least, and we need, exactly, a cord; two persons hold the its edges, making it whirl; the third player jumps, trying to make as many jumps as he can. When the child stops jumping, or he makes a mistake, it is the turn of the player who held the cord, trying to doing better than the previous. And so on. Wins who manage to make more jumps than the other players.

DAMA (draughts)

This game was created in Europe in XI or XII century. 

It is still on fashion because it is the perfect way to spend wintry nights with relatives and friends. Although most players are grown up, young people like to play Dama as well if they can not go out.

Dama is board game. Players must be 2: each one has got 12 draughts black or white. The draught board has got 64 black and white squares.

Each player has to make his draughts line-up on the black squares. You can make moves just forwards and along black diagonals.

You can get your rival's draught which you find on your way. When a draught reaches the last opposing line you can put on it one more draught of the same colour.

Your double draught has became a "Lady" (dama) and now she can move backwards as well.

You win when you get all your rival's draughts or when you make him stuck.

NASCONDINO

It is an outside game which all children love. You can have as much players as you like. 

A child has to stand in a place called "TANA" (home), closing his eyes and counting while all the other children have to hide themselves.

After that the child has to look for all the hidden children while they try to run to the tana and become save.

If the last hidden child go to the tana and say "TANA LIBERA TUTTI" (home frees everyone) he can save everyone.

Otherwise is the first found child's turn to count.

PANFORTE

It is played in Christmas time, particularly during Christmas and New Year’s Eve, when relatives and friends meet. It is played especially by adults, but also by teenagers. By the different tastes, that came can be amusing or boring.

There are two teams, composed by the same number of players.

After deciding who has to begin, the first player can start throwing the Panforte over the table. The purpose is to throw the Panforte as far as it’s possible, without leaving it fall down from the table.

Wins who makes the longest throwing. The first person who plays without leaving the Panforte fall down has to be beaten by a member of the opponent team. If it doesn’t happen, the first team receives the point.

RUZZOLA

This is a game that’s disappearing. It is played in the open air, during spring’s or autumn’s afternoons. The playground is composed by the steep and twisting streets of our hills that, thirty or forty years ago, weren’t yet asphalted and so, with dust, they created much confusion and amusement.

There are two teams and it can be played by people of every age.

To play that game you need strength and ability and it is played with a pecorino (typical Tuscan cheese ) shape that has to be very hard and matured. It has to weighs about 900 g or 3 Kg. We can also use wooden wheels, that have the same form of the cheese.

The “ruzzola” has to be thrown and it has to roll on the road, starting from an established point and trying to make it arrive as far as it’s possible, having five shooting at our disposal.

To give trajectory and speed, we roll a cord up on the wheel that one of the extremity is tied up at the player’s wrist. The player take a short run and throws the ruzzola, giving, with the cord, a great push of propulsion.

One of the rules of the game is going on the throwing from the place where the ruzzola stops. The soil impressed on the ruzzola, design the exact point of restarting. The player has to restart from that point, without exceeding it.

Every player, or team, throws at his turn.

The player who will complete the route with the lower number of throwing, wins a cheese shape.

The game could last hours, with a lot of challenges, where the prizes are the pecorino shapes won and eaten in the evening.

TOMBOLA

This is a very popular game in Italy.

Here, in Tuscany, we use to play that game especially in Christmas time, after the abundant dinners with relatives and friends. Tombola usually gathers a lot of players.

In South Italy, especially in Naples, about Tombola was created the “smorfia”; that is given to every number an event or a particular and characteristic character.

This is an extraction game that could be played with a little group of people, too. It is played with simple instruments: A big board with numbered (from 1 to 90) pigeon-hole, divided in six parts; a minimum of 24 cards with 27 pigeon-holes (in three lines of nine) with a selection of 15 numbers from 1 to 90 (in each card 12 pigeon-holes are empty). The game-leader has the big board in front of him and a small sack with 90 numbered pawns inside. He extracts them one by one, he tells the number to the other people and he puts them up on the correspondent pigeon-hole of the big board. Now the players have to control if they have that number on their card; if they have it, it has to be covered with a sign (usually a bean). The align of 2 numbers on the same line is “ambo”; of 3 numbers is “terno”; of 4 “quaterna” and of 5 “cinquina”, that correspond to the relative prizes. The prizes are based on the payment of the players to buy cards. When a player has a combination of numbers, he has to tell it to the other people and he receives the relative prize. Who complete his card wins the game and the most important prize.

UN  DUE  TRE  STELLA (one two three star)

This is mostly a children game (boys and girls), played in primary schools, but now it’s disappearing.

One of the children has to turn himself toward the wall and count until three. At the three the child turns rapidly saying: “stella” and the other children have to stops themselves immediately. If a child keeps on moving, he has to return back and now it is harder for him to win. A player wins when he manages to reach the child who is counting, without let him see his movements.