Cassino Go Fishing:Casino Card

About Cassino Go Fishing:Casino Card

Casino Offline Go Fishing, sometimes spelled Casino, is an English card game for two to four players using a standard, 52-card, French-suited pack. It is the only fishing game to have penetrated the English-speaking world. It is similar to the later Italian game of Scopa and is often said, without substantiation, to be of Italian origin. Cassino is still played today in Madeira, probably due to English influence.

Twenty-one Point Cassino appears for the first time in print in Dick's 1880 Modern Pocket Hoyle where he says that "Cassino is now very generally played for a fixed number of points (usually twenty-one)". The first player to the target score wins and the points are scored as soon as made. Sweeps are not turned down "as in the single deal game" but scored as they are taken. A player who erroneously claims to have won loses the game.

Royal Cassino appears for the first time in Foster's Complete Hoyle (1897), however, the concept of giving value to the court cards was an Austro-German invention of the early 19th century. The only difference from standard American Cassino is that Jacks are now worth 11, Queens 12, and Kings 13, so that, for example, a Queen can capture an Ace and a Jack or a 7 and a 5. In a variation recorded by David Parlett, the Ace is worth 1 or 14 as desired.

Spade Cassino: Also making its first appearance in 1897 was the "interesting variation" of Spade Cassino in which every spade scored a point except for the ♠J which scored 2. This replaced the usual score for "most spades" and gave 24 points per hand, excluding sweeps. The game is 61 and hence it is scored on a cribbage board, all points being pegged as they are made apart from "most cards" which is pegged at the end.

Diamond Cassino is a recent variant described as a "cross between Cassino and Scopa". Only 40 cards are used, and the courts are being removed. Players are dealt three cards each, and four are dealt to the table. The game is 11 up and players get 1 for most cards, 1 for most diamonds, 1 for the ♦7, 2 for all four 7s, 6s or As, and 1 for each sweep.

In Draw Cassino, first called Royal Draw Cassino, players draw a replacement card each time they make a play, so that they always have four cards in hand (until the end), rather than being dealt cards in discrete rounds of four. It is a two-player game.

Related games: There are several other European fishing games in the same family as Cassino:

Callabra: In this "fast and simple forerunner of Cassino", each player is dealt three cards, and five are dealt to the table. Players may trail or take cards from the table if they have cards that match the cards on the table, or if they have two cards that add up to a card on the table and equal the table card's value. In this game, Jacks are worth eleven points, Queens are twelve points, and Kings are thirteen. The game ends when a player finally clears all the cards from the table.

Tablanette is said to be of Russian provenance. In this game, each player has six cards, and a player with a jack may use it to clear the whole table. At the end of a round, players score points for holding the most cards, and extra points if they are holding picture cards.

Diloti: In this Greek fishing game, players are dealt 6 cards. Matching face cards must be captured so that no two face cards of the same value can ever be together in the pool. The scoring differs most notably in that there is no special suit, and sweeps are very valuable: