Tips scopa

Tip 1: If you see a 7, 6, or Ace (of any suit) prioritize capturing them for their primiera value.

Tip 2: If there is a card on the shared board that you don't want an opponent to capture, consider placing cards of higher values out preemptively. Due to the rule that you must take the least cards when making matches, occasionally this can block low cards being played on subsequent turns to allow for sum rollups.

Tip 3: When the shared board gets to a sum of ten or less, you have to decide whether you want to play aggressively (to keep the board within a scopa range sum of ten or less) or defensively (to keep the board above a sum of ten, to prevent potential scopas). Generally speaking, if you're in early game or ahead you want to play defensively, but if you're in the late game and behind, you probably want to play for the scopas more often than not.

Tip 4: if you're in a four player (teams of two) game of Scopa, _play for the scopas_. When you scopa, the opposing team member must play the new card to the shared board, which your teammate then can play off of. This can lead to a lot of ping-ponging between teammates, racking up very high scores in short order.

Tip 5: "scopa" means "sweep" in Italian. So feel free to make a sweeping motion while saying "Scopa! Scopa!" when you pull one off.