Burraco and Canasta: differences and origins

If you know Canasta you'll pick up Burraco in no time, and vice versa: they are two games from the same family. But there are differences, and they change the way you play quite a lot.

Where they come from

Canasta was born in Uruguay, in Montevideo, at the end of the 1930s, and in the 1940s it spread throughout South America and then to the United States. A few years later, between Uruguay and Argentina, Buraco took shape: the name comes from Argentine slang and means "hole", for the negative score a team can end up with at the end of a round. In Italy the game became Burraco, with its own rules, clubs and federations.

What they have in common

Two 52-card decks plus jokers, 11 cards each.
Jokers and 2s are wild cards.
They are mostly played in pairs, with shared melds.
A meld of at least 7 cards earns a bonus: in Canasta it's called a canasta, in Burraco a burraco.
You draw from the deck or pick up the discard pile.

The differences

	Burraco	Classic Canasta
Runs in the same suit	yes	no, only cards of the same rank
Pozzetto	yes, 11 extra cards	no
Wild cards per meld	at most one	up to three
Red threes	normal cards	bonus cards worth 100 points
First meld	free	needs a minimum of points, from 15 to 120 depending on the team's score
Bonus for 7 cards	200 clean, 150 semi-clean, 100 dirty	500 natural canasta, 300 mixed
Target	usually 1005 or 2005 points (on FantaCarte also 505)	usually 5000 points

Runs and the pozzetto make Burraco more varied: there are more ways to meld your cards, and the round changes pace when someone takes the pozzetto.

Which one to learn

If you're looking for a card game to play with friends, Burraco is now one of the most played in Italy and it's easy to find people to play with, online too. The full rules are on the Burraco rules page.

Know Canasta? Then you'll learn Burraco in one game. Try it for free on FantaCarte.

Play Burraco on FantaCarte