Buraco

About Buraco

the card game Buraco as played in Brazil. Similar games are played in some other countries

Buraco is a four-player partenrship game related to Canasta, and in some ways similar to Samba, in that the aim is to meld combinations of seven or more cards that can be either sets of equal rank or sequences in a suit. As in several of the newer games of this family each team is dealt an extra hand of cards which is picked up by the first member the team who plays all the cards from their initial hand.

Buraco originated in South America, probably in the 1940's, and is still widely played there. A similar game Burako is played in Argentina using tiles instead of cards, and since the 1990's a variation Burraco has become extremely popular in Italy.

Several versions of Buraco are played in Brazil, where the game is also known as Canastra, Biriba or Perida. Buraco Aberto (open buraco) will be described first, then the differences in Buraco Fechado (closed buraco), and finally some other variants.