Pâsur vs Scopa vs Cassino: The Great Fishing Card Games Compared

You can probably guess the family resemblance without anyone explaining it. Three card games — one Persian, one Italian, one English — all involve a face-up "pool" of cards in the middle of the table, all let you grab cards from that pool by playing the right card from your hand, all reward you for clearing the table in one move, and all settle scores at the end by tallying who grabbed which specific cards. Pâsur vs Scopa vs Cassino isn't really a contest, because they all share a common skeleton. What makes the comparison interesting is how three different cultures decorated that skeleton differently.

This is the comparison for the person who already plays one of these three games and is curious what they're missing in the others — or for the person who hasn't played any of them and wants to pick one to start with. We'll do the cheat-sheet first, then go deeper.

The 60-second comparison

	Pâsur (Persian)	Scopa (Italian)	Cassino (English)
Deck	Standard 52-card	40-card Italian (no 8/9/10)	Standard 52-card
Players	2 (mostly), up to 4	2 or 4 (partners)	2 (mostly), up to 4
Capture rule	Hand card + pool cards = 11	Hand card = pool card or sum (some variants: sum = 15)	Match by rank, or hand card = sum of pool cards
Builds (combining cards to capture later)?	No	No	Yes
Face cards	Kings capture Kings, Queens capture Queens, Jacks sweep everything	All pair by rank, no sums	Pair by rank only, no sums
Sweep bonus	Sur: 5 points, never on last deal	Scopa: 1 point, never on last play	Sweep: 1 point per sweep
Sweep cancellation?	Yes — opponent's sur cancels yours	No	No
Special scoring cards	Haft Khâj (most clubs, 7), 10♦ (3), 2♣ (2)	Sette Bello (7 of coins, 1), most coins (1), Primiera (1)	Big Cassino (10♦, 2), Little Cassino (2♠, 1), most spades (1)
Aces / Jacks worth?	1 point each	Aces high in Primiera	Each ace 1 point
Most cards bonus?	No	Yes (1 point)	Yes (3 points)
Target score	62	11, 16, 21, or 31 (varies)	11 or 21
Origin	Iran, 19th–20th c. (Russian import)	Italy, 17th–18th c.	England, late 18th c.

A casual reading: Cassino is the most rules-heavy, Scopa is the most elegant, Pâsur is the most aggressive. They're all good. Let's get into it.

The common skeleton

All three games are fishing games — a name borrowed from the 19th-century literature on traditional games. The metaphor is good: cards on the pool are "fish," and you "fish" them with cards from your hand. The shared mechanics:

Deal cards face-down to each player and face-up to a central pool.
Each turn, play one card from your hand. Either capture from the pool, or trail (leave your card on the pool).
When your hand is empty, get more cards from the stock.
When everyone has played all the cards from the stock, score the deal.
Specific captured cards score specific points.
Sweeping the entire table in one move is a bonus.

Every fishing game on earth — Pâsur, Scopa, Cassino, Bastra (Egyptian), Xeri (Greek), Chinese Ten, Laugh and Lie Down — uses this skeleton. The interesting differences are in how each step works.

Capture mechanics: the heart of the difference

Pâsur: "Add up to 11"

Number cards capture by summing to 11. Your hand card plus one or more pool cards must equal exactly 11. So a 7 captures a 4. A 7 captures (3+1). A 7 captures (2+1+1) if there are two Aces in the pool. The target is always 11, regardless of which card you play.

This produces a specific game shape: small cards (Ace, 2, 3) are partner cards — they need to combine with a larger card to capture. The mid-cards (4–7) are the workhorses — they have the most flexible 11-makers. The 10 is awkward because it captures only an Ace (the only card that makes it sum to 11). And as discussed elsewhere, Jacks are wild and sweep everything, while Kings and Queens pair by rank.

Scopa: "Match your card's value"

Standard Scopa works differently. Your card's value equals the sum of the cards you capture. Play a 7? You can take a 7. Or a 6+1. Or a 4+3. The "target" of the capture is whatever you played, not a fixed number.

In the 40-card Italian deck, the cards are 1 (Ace) through 7, then Jack (8), Knight (9), King (10). So a King captures a 10... except there's no 10 in this deck. So a King captures a 6+4, or a 5+5, or a 2+8 (where the 8 is a Jack). Face cards have numerical values and can play the sum game, which is wildly different from both Pâsur and Cassino. (Some variants — Scopa di Quindici, Escoba — change the rule to "your card + pool cards = 15", more like Pâsur but at a higher target. That's where the "15 vs 11" comparison comes from.)

Cassino: "Match by rank or sum, and build"

Cassino is the most complex. Number cards can capture by rank-match (play a 7, take a 7 from the pool) or by summing (play an 8, take a 3+5). Face cards (J, Q, K) capture by rank only and can't be combined.

But Cassino's defining trick is builds. You can lay a card from your hand on top of a pool card, declare a total, and now they're treated as a single card for capture purposes. Example: pool has a 3, you play a 4 onto the 3, and announce "building seven." That 3+4 combination is now a "7" sitting on the pool, waiting for you to capture it next turn with a 7 from your hand. (You must have the capturing card already in hand when you build.) Builds can be extended, paired with other builds, and stolen by the opponent if they hold the matching card.

Builds are the thing that distinguishes Cassino from its cousins. They produce a multi-turn planning game that Pâsur and Scopa don't have. They're also why teaching Cassino to a new player takes 20 minutes and teaching Pâsur takes 5.

Face card rules: where the families really split

This is the cleanest line between the three games.

Pâsur: Kings capture Kings (one at a time). Queens capture Queens (one at a time). Jacks are wild and sweep all non-K/Q cards on the table at once. The wild Jack is the Pâsur signature move. There's nothing like it in Scopa or Cassino.

Scopa: All face cards (Jack = 8, Knight = 9, King = 10) participate in the sum game. So a King can take a 7+3, just like a 10 would (if there were a 10 in the deck — but in standard Italian Scopa decks there isn't). Face cards aren't special at all in standard Scopa; they're just high-value number cards.

Cassino: Face cards pair by rank only. A Jack captures a Jack, a Queen captures a Queen. They have no numerical value and can't be part of sum captures or builds. The 10 of Diamonds is the highest number card and special as "Big Cassino" (2 bonus points). Face cards in Cassino are oddly inert; they exist to be paired off.

Three completely different attitudes toward face cards from three different cultures.

The sweep: scopa, sur, sweep

All three games have a bonus for clearing the table in a single play. It just behaves differently in each.

	Pâsur (sur)	Scopa (scopa)	Cassino (sweep)
Points per sweep	5	1	1
Allowed on last play of deal?	No	No	Yes (some rules say no, varies)
Cancellable by opponent?	Yes (cancellation rule)	No	No
Jack rule	Jacks don't sur	Jacks (= 8) can scopa	Face cards can't sum-capture, so no sweep via face card
Cap at high score?	Sometimes (50+ cap, contested)	No	No

The 5-point sur in Pâsur is more valuable per occurrence than the 1-point scopa or sweep — a single sur can move you a tenth of the way to 62. But sur cancellation means you can't accumulate many of them; if your opponent scores a sur, your next one erases theirs instead of stacking. In Scopa and Cassino, every sweep is independent and additive.

In practice, this means Pâsur rounds often have 0–2 net surs total, while Scopa rounds can have 5+ scopas if the deck cooperates. The Persian game compresses the sweep bonus into a high-leverage, low-frequency event; the Italian one rewards consistent table-clearing.

End-of-round scoring: what specific cards matter

Here's where each game's flavor really shows.

Pâsur scoring (20 points + surs per round, in a 2-player game):

Source	Points
Haft Khâj (most clubs, ≥7 of 13)	7
10 of Diamonds	3
2 of Clubs	2
Each Ace	1
Each Jack	1
Each net Sur	5

Race to 62.

Scopa scoring (varies by variant; classic 2-player):

Source	Points
Most cards captured	1
Most coin-suit cards	1
Sette Bello (7 of coins)	1
Highest Primiera (best card of each suit)	1
Each scopa during play	1

Race to 11 or 16 or 21 (agree before play).

Cassino scoring (11 base points + sweeps):

Source	Points
Most cards captured	3
Most spades	1
Big Cassino (10♦)	2
Little Cassino (2♠)	1
Each Ace	1
Each sweep	1

Race to 11 or 21.

A few observations.

Pâsur loves clubs. The Haft Khâj bonus (7 points!) is the single biggest scoring category in the game. The 2♣ adds another 2 points, and is itself a club for the bonus count. About 9 of the 20 base points a round depend on what happens with the clubs suit. (See How to Win the Haft Khâj for that fight specifically.)

Scopa loves the 7 of coins. The Sette Bello is famous enough to have its own name. It's the only card with a built-in bonus that doesn't depend on suit counts. The Primiera scoring rewards the player who took the highest-ranking card in each suit, with sevens worth the most (21 each), then sixes (18), then aces (16). It's a strange ranking that exists nowhere else in cards.

Cassino loves the 10 of Diamonds. "Big Cassino" is 2 points by itself, and the matched name "Little Cassino" (2♠) is 1. Cassino's other scoring categories are quantity-based: most cards (3 points), most spades (1 point), each Ace (1).

Each of the three games has a culture-specific scoring obsession that wouldn't make sense in the others.

Game length

This often matters more than people think.

Pâsur to 62 typically takes 4–6 rounds, 30–45 minutes. A round is 6 batches of 4 cards each, plus scoring.
Scopa to 11 takes 3–5 hands, 20–30 minutes. To 21, double that.
Cassino to 11 takes 1–2 deals, 15–25 minutes. To 21, 30–45 minutes.

Pâsur is the slowest to a finish, in part because the Persian innovations (sur cancellation, multi-stage clubs counting) make every round meaningful. Cassino is the fastest. Scopa is in between but feels brisker because Italian decks have fewer cards.

If you want a fast game over coffee, Cassino. If you want a one-evening match where the score sways, Pâsur. If you want something compact and elegant, Scopa.

Strategic depth

Honest comparison, having played all three:

Cassino is the deepest because of builds. You can plan three or four turns ahead, layer combinations, steal an opponent's build by holding the matching card. Master-level Cassino is genuinely chess-like.

Pâsur is the most aggressive. Mandatory capture forces decisions on every turn. The wild Jack is high-leverage and high-stakes. Sur cancellation means a 5-point bonus is also a 5-point negation — a 10-point swing on a single play. Reading what your opponent is holding (which clubs, whether they have a Jack) is the central skill. Less long-range planning than Cassino, more in-the-moment tactical alertness. (See Pâsur Strategy for that side.)

Scopa is the most elegant. No builds, no wild cards, just a clean sum-to-your-card mechanic. The depth is in counting cards — which suits remain, who's collected the high-Primiera cards — and in setting up future scopas without giving up the current pool. It's been called "the chess of the cafe table" by Italian writers, which I think is overstating it, but the game does reward focused attention.

There's no universal answer to "which is the deepest game" because they reward different kinds of attention. Cassino: planning. Pâsur: reading. Scopa: counting.

Cultural status

Pâsur is the dominant household card game of Iran and the Iranian diaspora — comparable to Cassino in mid-20th-century America or Belote in France. It's played at family gatherings, especially around Nowruz (the Persian New Year) and Yalda (the winter solstice). It's a living tradition, taught grandparent-to-grandchild.

Scopa is the household game of Italy. Every Italian family has a deck. It's played in cafes, at home, on holidays. There are regional variants — Scopa di Quindici (target sum 15), Scopone (more strategic), Cirulla (with extra bonuses) — and Italians defend their local variant with the same loyalty they reserve for their local pasta recipe.

Cassino was once the dominant English-language fishing game — popular in England and the United States through the 19th and early 20th centuries — but has faded. It survives mostly as a parents-teach-children family game, less in coffee shops. Some Caribbean and Northeastern US communities have kept it alive. Royal Cassino, the variant where face cards take numerical values (J=11, Q=12, K=13), is what most modern American players think of as "Cassino."

The Egyptian sibling Bastra is, mechanically, the closest game to Pâsur — same wild Jack, similar sum-target captures. The two probably share a common ancestor introduced by Mediterranean trade.

Which should you learn?

A short flowchart for the indecisive:

You want something quick to learn, play during a family meal, share with a kid? → Cassino (or Royal Cassino).
You want something elegant with deep card-counting tactics? → Scopa.
You want something dramatic where one wild card can swing the round, with cultural depth and a real "lived" tradition? → Pâsur.

If you're already a Cassino player and curious about the broader family, Pâsur is the most jarring transition (the wild Jack, sur cancellation, and 11-rule all feel unfamiliar) and Scopa is the smoother one. If you're a Scopa player, both Cassino and Pâsur will feel similar in spirit but with strikingly different specific rules.

You can read the full rules for Pâsur in the complete visual guide, and play a game right now at playpasur.com — it's free and takes about a minute to set up. The single best way to internalize the differences between fishing games is to play one for an evening, switch to another, and notice what your hand wants to do versus what it should do.

A note on respect

Each of these games is somebody's grandmother's game. The Italian who grew up watching Scopa in their nonna's kitchen has the same emotional attachment as the Iranian who grew up watching Pâsur in their grandmaman's living room. None of them is better. The comparison here is meant in the spirit of comparing different kinds of bread, not different brands of toaster. Try them all.

For more on the specific Persian terms that come up at the Pâsur table, see the Persian card-game glossary. For the broader cultural picture of card games in Iran, the history of Pâsur goes much further than this comparison.