Phones disregarded, circled shoulder-to-shoulder, a sort of excited yet expectant energy reverberates among players. For the sweltering afternoons in the Caribbean, it’s dominoes; for the salons peppered with playing tables in China, it’s mahjong; for us Italians, it culminates with cards. Sunday lunches with family quickly turn into languid afternoons of Scopa, which gets more and more heated as more and more bottles of wine are emptied.

Septuagenarians huddle around shaky sidewalk tables in front of their local bar, playing round after round of Burraco, spurred on by afternoon espressos. You’d be hard pressed to find a circolo where there wasn’t a group of friends, smoking and dealing hand after hand. Cards are so much a part of life here that it feels hard to imagine what people would do with their time without these games (work maybe, but that feels like a downgrade option).