What number do you capture to in Escoba?

Exactly fifteen. The card you play plus one or more cards from the table must total fifteen for you to capture them. Face cards count 8, 9 and 10, and number cards their face value.

A sweep — a capture that takes every card off the table at once. Each one is worth a guaranteed bonus point, which makes sweeps the most dependable way to score.

What happens if I cannot capture anything?

Your card simply joins the cards on the table. This is not always a bad outcome: adding a card that makes the table hard to work with is a genuine defensive move.

Why is the seven of coins special?

It scores a point on its own, separately from the categories for most cards, most coins and best sevens. Three of the five scoring routes therefore hinge on specific cards rather than sheer volume of captures.

What deck does Escoba use?

A 40-card Spanish deck — coins, cups, swords and clubs, running ace to seven plus three face cards valued 8, 9 and 10. You can play with a French deck by removing the eights, nines and tens.

Is Escoba the same as Scopa?

They are close relatives, not the same game. In Escoba you always capture to a total of fifteen; in Scopa you capture cards matching the value of the card you played. Both score sweeps and the seven of coins.

Escoba

Escoba is arithmetic disguised as a card game. Every turn you are adding to fifteen, and every card you fail to capture is a card you have handed to your opponent.

Choose a card from your hand, then select table cards that together with it total fifteen.

Players	2
Deck	40-card Spanish deck
Play time	10–20 minutes
Difficulty	Simple arithmetic, real tactics

How to play Escoba

Escoba uses the 40-card Spanish deck — four suits of coins, cups, swords and clubs, running ace to seven plus three face cards. The face cards are valued 8, 9 and 10 for arithmetic; number cards are worth their face value. There are no eights or nines as pip cards.

Each player is dealt three cards and four cards are placed face up on the table. The name means "broom" in Spanish, and the full name is often given as Escoba de quince — the broom of fifteen.

Capturing

On your turn you play one card from your hand. If that card, together with one or more table cards, adds to exactly fifteen, you capture all of them and put them face down in front of you. If no combination reaches fifteen, your card simply joins the table.

Examples: play a seven onto a table containing an eight, and you take both. Play a five where the table holds a four and a six, and you take all three. The arithmetic is the whole mechanic.

The escoba

If your capture takes every card on the table, that is an escoba — a sweep — and it is worth a bonus point. Sweeps are the most reliable source of points in the game and setting them up is most of the tactical content.

Hands are replenished three at a time until the deck is exhausted. Whoever made the last capture takes any cards remaining on the table.

Scoring

Four categories, one point each, plus the sweeps:

Most cards captured overall.
Most coins — the coins suit specifically.
The seven of coins — a single named card, worth a point on its own.
Best sevens — having the most sevens, or the best set of them.
One point per escoba.

Play continues over successive deals until a player reaches the agreed target, commonly 21.

Strategy

Escoba is the most purely calculating game on this site. There is no trump, no hierarchy and no bluffing — only what the table adds up to and what you are leaving behind.

Count what the table totals, not just what you can take

Before capturing, add up the cards you would leave on the table. If they sum to fifteen or contain an easy fifteen, you have just handed your opponent a sweep. Sometimes the right move is a smaller capture, or no capture at all, because of what it leaves.

Deliberately leave the table awkward

A table holding four high cards that cannot combine to fifteen is a table your opponent can do nothing with. Playing a card that adds to the pile without capturing is a legitimate and often strong move, particularly when your hand is weak.

Fight hard for coins and sevens

Three of the four scoring categories are about specific cards rather than volume: most coins, the seven of coins, and the best sevens. A player who captures fewer cards overall but takes the coins and the sevens usually wins. Track which sevens have gone.

Sweeps are worth more than they look

Each escoba is a guaranteed point, unlike the four categories which are contested and can be lost by a single card. When you have a choice between a big capture and a sweep of a smaller table, take the sweep.

Remember the deck has no eights or nines as pips

Because the pip cards stop at seven and the face cards count 8, 9 and 10, the distribution of achievable totals is not what a French-deck player expects. Fifteen from two cards means pairs like 7+8, 6+9, 5+10 — and 8, 9 and 10 only ever arrive as face cards. Knowing how many face cards remain tells you which two-card captures are still possible.

Variants

Three and four players — the four-player partnership game is the usual social form in Spain, with partners sitting opposite.
Escoba with a French deck — played by removing the eights, nines and tens, with the jack, queen and king counting 8, 9 and 10.
Scopa — the Italian cousin, where captures match a single card or a sum equal to the card played rather than a fixed fifteen. Scopa also scores the settebello, the seven of coins, and the primiera.
Cirulla — a Ligurian variant with additional bonuses for particular dealt hands.
Escoba de 15 with a target of 31 — regional adaptations that change the target sum.

Where Escoba came from

Escoba belongs to the fishing games, a family in which cards are captured from a shared table rather than won in tricks. The family is old and geographically wide, with members across the Mediterranean and East Asia, and the Italian Scopa is its best-known representative.

Escoba is the Spanish member and is played throughout Spain and much of Latin America, particularly Argentina, where it is a household game. Its closest relative is Scopa — the two share the sweep, the scoring of the seven of coins, and the general shape — but they differ in the capture rule, and Escoba's fixed target of fifteen makes it more arithmetically demanding than Scopa's match-the-card-played system. David Parlett and John McLeod both group these games together and trace the family's spread through the Mediterranean, with the underlying idea probably arriving in Europe from further east. The Spanish deck it uses — coins, cups, swords and clubs — is itself the older European pattern, predating the French suits that became standard elsewhere.

Questions people ask about Escoba

What number do you capture to in Escoba?: Exactly fifteen. The card you play plus one or more cards from the table must total fifteen for you to capture them. Face cards count 8, 9 and 10, and number cards their face value.
What is an escoba?: A sweep — a capture that takes every card off the table at once. Each one is worth a guaranteed bonus point, which makes sweeps the most dependable way to score.
What happens if I cannot capture anything?: Your card simply joins the cards on the table. This is not always a bad outcome: adding a card that makes the table hard to work with is a genuine defensive move.
Why is the seven of coins special?: It scores a point on its own, separately from the categories for most cards, most coins and best sevens. Three of the five scoring routes therefore hinge on specific cards rather than sheer volume of captures.
What deck does Escoba use?: A 40-card Spanish deck — coins, cups, swords and clubs, running ace to seven plus three face cards valued 8, 9 and 10. You can play with a French deck by removing the eights, nines and tens.
Is Escoba the same as Scopa?: They are close relatives, not the same game. In Escoba you always capture to a total of fifteen; in Scopa you capture cards matching the value of the card you played. Both score sweeps and the seven of coins.