Guide on How to Play Scopa

Introduction
Scopa is a popular Italian card game that I learned while taking an Italian class at college. "Scopa" is the Italian word for "broom" or "sweep", and is the title of this card game because of a particular signature move during the game in which a person is able to "sweep" the Table clean of cards. Though I find it more fun and culturally-enriching to play with an Italian deck of cards, you can also play with an American deck of cards as long as you reduce the number of cards to 40. The Italian card deck contains 40 cards, consisting of four suits-Swords (espadas), Gold (danari), Cups (coppas), and Clubs (bastones). The Clubs, by the way, look more like feathers in my traditional deck. Please view the images for this article and familiarize yourself with the deck of cards before reading further.

If you are using an Italian deck, remember the following:

• The cards with values 1-7 are all basically pictorially represented according to their values. Example: a 3 of Clubs will have three clubs pictured on it; a 7 of Swords will have seven swords pictured on it, etc.
  
• The cards with the value of 8 will all have a picture of a standing man wearing a beret and holding the Suit Item in one of his hands (either a Club, Sword, Cup, or Gold). Don't get confused on the Swords suit because the beret man also holds a feather in his other hand, but it is still the Sword suit.
  
• The cards with the value of 9 will all have a picture of a man on a horse and holding the Suit Item in one of his hands (either a Club, Sword, Cup, or Gold).
  
• The cards with the value of 10 will all have a picture of a standing man wearing a crown (a king) and holding or standing next to the Suit Item (either a Club, Sword, Cup, or Gold).
  

If you are using an American deck of cards, you will need to adjust the deck like so:
Ace = 1
2-10 = same values
Take out (do not use) = Jacks, Queens, Kings, and Jokers

Spades = special suit
Seven (7) of Spades = special card

Object of the Game
The object of the game is to be the first player to reach a certain predetermined number of points (21 points is usually a good number, unless you want to play for a long time).