The History of Bura: Where the Game Came From

The history of bura is an oral history. The game passed from table to table and from generation to generation, and almost nothing about it was written down. So we cannot name an exact date or an "inventor", and neither can anyone who writes honestly. What we can do is show which games bura is related to, what clues point to the road it travelled, and how it settled at the Georgian table.

Bura is live on tamashebi.cc: open /bura and play three-card, five-card or five-card bura in pairs, against live opponents or against bots for practice.

Where bura comes from

Bura clearly belongs to a large family of card games often called the ace-ten games. In this family the ace is worth 11, the ten 10, the king 4, the queen 3 and the jack 2, exactly as in bura. The Italian game of briscola and the Austrian and German game of schnapsen use the same values. The likeness to briscola is especially striking: there too each player holds three cards, the trump is fixed by a card turned under the stock and drawn last, the deck holds 120 points and 61 wins. The difference is that in briscola one card is played per turn, and there is neither a "var" claim nor a mid-hand raise.

Bura's own trademark is that several cards of one suit may be led at once and must all be beaten together. So are "var", the spoken claim that you have reached 31, and raising the stake in the middle of a hand. These features make bura quicker and hotter than its European relatives. When and where bura took exactly this shape, reliable sources do not tell us.

What we do not know

Plenty of "precise" histories of bura circulate online, with a specific century, a city, or an explanation of the name. Most of them cite no source and contradict each other. We do not know where the word "bura" comes from, and we do not know in which country it was first played. So we do not repeat such stories here. The structure of the game itself, its points, its deal, its turned trump, shows the family resemblance, and that is the most reliable evidence we have.

Bura in the Caucasus

Bura has traditionally been known across much of the former Soviet world, and in Georgia, as across the Caucasus, it became a game of the courtyard, the summer house and the family evening. In many families the older generation taught it to the younger, just as they taught nardi. In Georgian bura that link shows in the language: the steps of the stake, davi, se, chari, panji and shashi, are nardi words. Se, chari, panji and shashi are numbers of Persian origin (three, four, five and six), used in nardi to name the faces of the dice.

The word "maliutka" most likely comes from the Russian "malyutka", "little one", which also hints at the game's ties to the Russian-speaking world. The rules varied a little from town to town and family to family: somewhere a maliutka won the hand, somewhere it did not; somewhere given cards went face up, elsewhere face down. So agreeing the rules before you sit down at a new table is an old bura tradition. Many families play both three-card and five-card bura; five-card bura in pairs lets four people play together when there is no time for a long game of Joker.

Why bura is such a fast game

• Small hands. With three cards, every move is decided in seconds.
• A low target. 31 points out of 120 is just over a quarter, so a hand often ends before the stock runs out.
• The bura itself. Three trumps settle the hand at once.
• "Var". Whoever has counted ends the hand themselves, without playing it out.
• Raises. A declined davi ends a hand in a second.

For comparison: in briscola 61 out of 120 wins, and a hand almost always runs to the last card. In three-card bura the line is half that, 31, and three or four tricks are often enough to reach it. "Var" then lets you end the hand the moment you cross the line. Those two rules are what turn one and the same scoring system into such a different game.

That speed made bura a game for the road: a few minutes, one deck, two people. For the same reason it suits online play: a match to 1, 3, 7 or 11 points takes exactly as much time as you have.

Bura among the other games of the Georgian table

At the Georgian table bura rarely plays alone. Joker, nardi, domino and seka are its neighbours, and each has its time. Joker needs four players and a long evening, with bidding, khishti and pulkas. Nardi is a game of two people and two dice, where the dice give luck its say. Seka is built on three cards and the sum of their points. Bura is the quickest of them: two players, one deck and a few minutes. Perhaps that is why it remained the most travelled game of all: it needs no board and no fourth player.

The link between bura and nardi goes beyond words. In both, raising the stake is part of the game, and in both it is done with a word: in nardi, davi; in bura, davi up to shashi. In their traditional form both games teach the same lesson: judge the worth of your position in time, and know when to back down.

Bura today

Bura is still played in families, at summer houses and among friends, and now on phones too. On tamashebi.cc bura is played in three versions: three-card, five-card and five-card in pairs. The rules are written down as the version common at Georgian tables plays it: 31 and 61 points, "var", davi up to shashi. A few disputed details, such as whether a maliutka may be led out of turn, were left as table options, so everyone can play by their family's rules. No money is played for here: Domino Coin is a virtual coin.

Online bura has one advantage a home table lacks: no arguments about the rules. The server itself checks whether a card beat a card, counts the points when someone says "var", and lets nobody see anyone else's cards. The counting, as in the old days, stays in your head: the screen does not show you your own points unless the table turns that on.

Frequently asked questions

Is bura a Georgian game?

Bura put down deep roots at the Georgian table and picked up Georgian words, but its roots lie in the wider European family of ace-ten games. Its exact homeland is not known.

Which game is bura most like?

In its points and its deal, the Italian game of briscola: three cards in hand, a trump turned under the stock, 120 points. Leading several cards at once and the "var" claim are bura's own.

Why are the steps of the stake named after nardi?

Both games were played at the same table, and bura borrowed nardi's words: se, chari, panji and shashi are the Persian numbers three to six.

• Play bura online
• Bura rules, step by step
• A glossary of bura terms
• Bura or seka: how they differ
• The history of nardi

Every game on tamashebi.cc is free to play. Some tables use Domino Coin, a virtual in-game coin: it is never money, cannot be bought or cashed out, and means nothing outside the site. The games are for fun and for skill.