A guide for referees and clubs
How to run a burraco tournament
A club tournament rests on a few decisions taken well before it starts. Here they are, in the order you need them: how many pairs, how many rounds, how tables rotate, who sits out, and how points are counted.
1.Pairs and tables
Each table seats two pairs, so you have half as many tables as pairs. Twelve pairs make six tables. With an odd number of pairs one sits out each round — the «bye» — and that has to be planned before the room is seated, not after.
2.Rounds and hands
The common club format is four hands per round over four rounds: about three hours, with time left for the prize-giving. With few pairs you stretch to six or seven rounds, because you need enough encounters to separate the standings. More hands per round make the result steadier and the evening longer.
3.How tables rotate
The first round is drawn at random. From then on pairs move by a rotation that avoids replaying opponents already met. In short tournaments some repeats are unavoidable: what matters is knowing it and spreading them out, not pretending otherwise.
4.The bye table
The pair sitting out does not lose the round: it takes a fixed score, decided beforehand and the same for everyone. Two habits that prevent arguments: never let the same pair sit out twice, and say out loud at the start what a bye is worth.
5.From points to VPs
Points are counted at the table, but the standings are not made from them: the difference between the two pairs is converted into Victory Points through a table, so one lucky thousand-point hand does not outweigh a whole tournament. Winning narrowly gives few VPs, winning widely gives many — up to a cap.
6.Fees and prizes
Collect the entry fee before drawing the tables, or halfway through the evening nobody knows who has paid. Decide the prizes along with the fee: how many pairs are paid, how much to the winners, whether there is a technical prize. Writing it down beforehand prevents the argument afterwards.
A note on VP tables
There is no single table. Federations use different ones, and a club may well have its own, handed down over the years. Before a tournament that matters, check which table your club or federation follows: it is the thing most often argued about at the end of the evening, and ten seconds avoid it.
On the day
What you need in the room is little: the list of pairs, numbered tables, score sheets, and somewhere the standings can be seen. The tiring part is not the game, it is the arithmetic between rounds — adding, checking and rewriting the standings while twenty people wait on their feet.