Sweep the table by capturing cards that add up to exactly fifteen.
The Spanish member of the scopa family, and the simplest to explain: every capture must add up to exactly fifteen.
40 Spanish-suited cards, or a 52-card deck without eights, nines and tens. Ace counts 1 through to seven, then jack 8, horse 9, king 10.
Three cards each and four face up on the table.
Play one card. If it, together with one or more cards on the table, adds up to exactly fifteen, you capture all of them. If no combination reaches fifteen, your card stays on the table.
That is the whole rule. There is no pairing and no other total.
A capture that clears the table completely scores a point immediately — the escoba the game is named for. Mark it by turning a card sideways in your pile.
If the four cards laid out at the start already total fifteen by themselves, the dealer scores an escoba before anyone plays.
When hands empty, three more are dealt. When the deck runs out, the last player to capture takes whatever is left on the table.
Most cards. Most coins. The seven of coins. Most sevens.
Plus one point per escoba. Game is 21 or 30 points.
Because fifteen is the only target, counting the sevens and sixes out of the deck is the whole of the strategy — once you know they are gone, you know what your opponent cannot do.