Briscan is an 18th-century, French card game for two players played with a 32-card Piquet pack. It is a member of the Marriage group of games in which the 'marriage' of a King and Queen brings a bonus score, but Briscan takes this simple concept to extraordinary lengths.
History
Briscan is a highly elaborate expansion of Mariage, the ancestor of the Marriage family of card games. It is also a member of the Brusquembille family, a game which it began to oust in France in the late 18th century. Its name is probably a diminutive of 'Briscambille', an old name for Brusquembille. The rules of Briscan are first recorded in 1752 in La Plus Nouvelle Académie universelle des jeux and indicate that Briscan evolved from a similar game called Brisque which, in turn, may have developed from Brisquembille, whose rules were published in 1718 in the l'Académie universelle des jeux. Parlett describes it as a "Gothic extravaganza" and a game of "almost hysterical excitement and complication" that squeezed a "truly phenomenal range of scores and melds" from just a 32-card pack and two five-card hands. By contrast its close cousin, Brisque, is less complicated and more playable; as is Briscan's successor and "more sober relative", Bezique, which reduced the number of melds and bonuses available.
Rules
The following rules are based on the French Academy of Games. Where Brisque is different, this is shown in parentheses. Briscan is a two-player game, based on Brisque, but which differs in the number of cards dealt, the way the trump turnup is handled, announcements and scoring. Game is 600 points.
Briscan uses a 32-card Piquet pack. Players draw for the right to deal; the player drawing the highest becoming the dealer. He then deals five cards each and turns the next for trumps. The remaining cards form the talon which is placed, face down, at right angles to, and half-covering, the upcard.
Exchanging
The trump Seven may only be exchanged for the upcard "before playing for the last two cards of the talon". In other words, when there are two talon cards left and each player has five hand cards, an exchange may only be done at the end of the trick. If the turnup is an Ace, Ten or court card, the dealer scores ten points.
Melds and bonuses
Inspired by Piquet, Briscan has a very large number of possible melds and bonuses. Melds may only be made when at least one trick has been taken and when on lead.
Melds
There are the following melds in Briscan
Marriages: if a player holds a King and Queen of the same suit he scores 20 or, if a trump marriage, 40 points.
Sequences: runs of three or more consecutive cards of the same suit e.g. Ten, Jack, Queen. A run of three is a tierce; of four is a quatrième; and of five, a quinte. The rank of a sequence is taken from its top card, so 8-9-10 is a tierce au dix. Points are scored as per the table below, except that they are doubled in the case of trump sequences. Cards declared in a sequence may not be used for other melds.
