Sette e mezzo is an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 card game

Playing card

A playing card is a piece of specially prepared heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic, marked with distinguishing motifs and used as one of a set for playing card games...

 similar to blackjack

Blackjack

Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one or Vingt-et-un , is the most widely played casino banking game in the world...

. It is traditionally played in Italy during Christmas

Christmas

Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

holidays.

Overview

Sette e mezzo is played with a 40-card deck (card values from 1 to 7, and three face cards, with four suits).
Face cards are worth half a point each, whereas cards from the ace to seven are worth their nominal value. The goal is reaching the highest possible score without exceeding 7½.