How to Play

A Brazilian and Italian partnership rummy game using two decks plus jokers, featuring reserve morto piles and huge bonuses for seven-card buracos.

Buraco (Portuguese for "hole") is a partnership rummy game born in Uruguay and Argentina in the 1940s and now dominant in Brazil and Italy. Four players in two fixed partnerships use two decks plus four jokers (108 cards). Each player is dealt 11, and two face-down morto (pot) piles of 11 cards are set aside for later rescue. Each turn a player draws one card or picks up the whole discard pile, melds sets and runs, and discards. When a player goes out (empties their hand) for the first time, they take the first morto and keep playing. The main scoring carrot is the buraco, a meld of seven or more cards: clean (no wild cards) scores 200, dirty scores 100. Play continues until a team goes out a second time (after using both morto piles), and the first team to 3,000 points over multiple hands wins the match.

Players

Four players in two fixed partnerships, partners sitting opposite. A common two-player form also exists in which each player manages their own morto; rules below focus on the standard four-player partnership game.

Card Deck

• Two standard 52-card decks plus four jokers, for 108 cards in total.
• Wild cards: the four jokers plus all eight 2s can act as wild cards in runs or sets. Jokers are always wild; a 2 is natural only when it sits in its own rank position inside a run (for example, A-2-3 or as a set of 2s).
• Ranks for runs, low to high: A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K. Aces are low in A-2-3 runs and high in Q-K-A runs; an ace cannot wrap (K-A-2 is illegal).A♠2♠3♠4♠5♠6♠7♠8♠9♠10♠J♠Q♠K♠
• Card point values: Joker 30, Ace 15, 2 20, 3 through 7 5 each, 8 through K 10 each. Matching totals apply whether the cards are melded, buried in the discard, or left in hand at scoring.

Objective

Be the first partnership to accumulate 3,000 points across multiple hands. Points come from cards melded on the table, from buracos (seven-or-more-card melds) worth 200 (clean) or 100 (dirty), from going out bonuses, and from taking the morto at the right time, minus penalties for cards left in hand and for unused mortos.

Setup and Deal

1. Shuffle the 108 cards thoroughly. Partners sit opposite one another.
2. Deal 11 cards face down to each of the four players, one at a time, counter-clockwise.
3. Set aside two face-down stacks of 11 cards as the morto piles (also called pots or reserves). They sit to one side, untouched until a player goes out for the first time.
4. Turn the next card face up to start the discard pile. If it is a joker or 2, bury it and turn another, or leave it face up with a red three or similar marker depending on house rules; the common rule is simply to reshuffle if the first card is a wild card.
5. The remaining cards form the face-down stock. The player to the dealer's right leads to the first turn.

Gameplay

1. Draw. Start your turn by drawing the top card of the stock, or by picking up the entire discard pile. You may take the pile freely (no matching restriction), but you must be able to meld or use the card on top of the pile on the same turn.
2. Meld. Lay new runs (three or more consecutive cards of one suit) and sets (three or more cards of the same rank, from any suit). Mixed sets are allowed but a set may contain at most one wild card. Runs may contain at most one wild card and only if the run has four or more cards (some tables forbid wild cards inside runs entirely).
3. Extend. You may add cards to any meld your partnership already has on the table.
4. Swap a wild card. If a run on your side of the table uses a joker or a wild 2 to stand in for a natural card, you may replace it with the natural card from your hand and keep the wild card for another meld.
5. Discard. End your turn by placing one card face up on the discard pile.
6. First out and the morto. The first time a player empties their hand (either by melding everything or by discarding the last card), they take one of the two morto piles into their hand and continue to play immediately (no new discard is made).
7. Second out and end of hand. The hand ends when a player empties their hand a second time after the partnership has taken at least one morto and owns at least one buraco. Going out a second time without a buraco is illegal; the player must keep at least one card instead.

Melds, Buracos, and Wild Cards

• Set: Three or more cards of the same rank; may include at most one wild card. A set of four of a kind plus a wild card totals five cards and is still legal, but tables vary on the maximum.
• Run: Three or more consecutive cards of one suit. Wild cards are limited to one per run and only in a run of four or more cards (and never at the start of a run unless representing a natural ace).
• Clean buraco (buraco limpo): A run (or set) of seven or more cards with no wild cards; worth 200 bonus points.
• Dirty buraco (buraco sujo): A run of seven or more cards that contains a wild card; worth 100 bonus points. Converting a dirty buraco into clean by swapping out its wild card turns the bonus from 100 to 200.
• Maximum run length: 13 cards (A through K); once complete, the run may not be extended.

Scoring

• Cards melded: Sum the point value of every card your partnership has melded on the table.
• Bonuses: Clean buraco 200; dirty buraco 100; going out 100.
• Penalties: Each card left in a partner's hand at hand end counts against the partnership at its face value. An unused morto counts as minus 100.
• Per-hand total: Add bonuses to melded-card points and subtract penalties; record the result on the running scorecard.
• Initial meld (Italian tradition): Some tables require a partnership's first meld each hand to total at least 50 points; the rule is optional but common.
• Match end: The first partnership to cross 3,000 cumulative points wins the match when the current hand is completed. If both cross 3,000 in the same hand, the higher total wins; ties are broken by playing another hand.

Winning

A hand ends when one partnership goes out for the second time (after taking a morto and owning at least one buraco). Scores are totalled with bonuses added and penalties subtracted, then added to the running match score. The match is won by the first partnership to cross 3,000 cumulative points; if both sides cross the threshold in the same hand, the higher total wins, and an exact tie is broken with one further hand.

Common Variations

• Italian Burraco: The most standardized tournament form; requires clean buracos to go out, uses strict initial-meld thresholds, and sets the match target at 1,500, 2,000, or 3,000 points depending on the federation.
• Brazilian Buraco: More permissive about wild cards in runs and does not always require the initial-meld threshold.
• Two-player Buraco (Burraco a due): Each player is dealt 11, receives their own dedicated morto of 11, and plays solo; buraco requirements and scoring are unchanged.
• Buraco Fechado (closed): Requires a clean buraco to go out; dirty buracos still score but do not permit ending the hand.
• Three-morto house rule: Some families play with three mortos of 11 cards for longer, more comeback-friendly hands.

Tips and Strategy

• Race to the first clean buraco. Without it your partnership cannot go out safely, and a 200-point bonus comfortably offsets the risk of hoarding seven cards of one suit.
• Take the discard pile aggressively when it is large. The raw card points in a dozen discarded cards often swing a hand, and your partnership can quickly convert them into runs.
• Coordinate with your partner on morto timing: the first out grabs the morto, so if your partner is close to emptying, keep melding rather than ending the hand yourself.
• Avoid discarding cards that complete a simple set or extend a short run for the opponents. Mid-rank spades and hearts are usually safest because they rarely fit existing opposing melds.
• Swap wild cards out of dirty buracos as soon as the natural card arrives; upgrading a 100-point bonus to 200 points is almost always worth the extra table manipulation.

Glossary

• Buraco: A meld of seven or more cards, clean (no wild cards, 200 points) or dirty (one wild card, 100 points).
• Morto: A face-down reserve of 11 cards awarded to a player who empties their hand; also called the pot.
• Wild card: A joker or any 2 used to substitute for a missing card in a meld.
• Clean / dirty: Describes whether a meld contains a wild card (dirty) or not (clean).
• Going out: Emptying your hand; first time takes the morto, second time ends the hand.
• Initial meld: The first meld a partnership lays down, sometimes required to total at least 50 points.
• Discard pile (descarte): The face-up pile; can be taken whole as a substitute for the stock draw.