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What is it?

Pinochle (sometimes [tag]Pinocle[/tag] or [tag]Penuchle[/tag]), is a trick-taking game typically for two, three or four players and played with a 48 card deck. Derived from the card game Bezique, players score points by trick-taking and also by forming combinations of cards into melds. Each hand is played in three phases: bidding, melds, and tricks.

A Pinochle deck consists of two copies of each of the 9, 10, jack, queen, king, and ace cards of all four suits. Aces are always considered high. Pinochle follows the standard card ordering with the exception of the 10 being second highest. The complete ordering from highest to lowest is A, 10, K, Q, J, 9.

Variants of Pinochle can be played with three, five, six, eight or more players. These larger variations can combine two Pinochle decks called a “double deck”.

In some areas of the United States, such as Oklahoma and Texas, thumb wrestling is often referred to as “pinochle”. The two games, however, are not related.

The game is played with one Pinochle deck of 48 cards; one player is the dealer.

In Pinochle, after the shuffle, the dealer distributes the cards. All the cards are dealt in partnership Pinochle. In other variations a widow’ (or called the “kitty”, “talon”, or “stock”) of cards remain. Traditionally, this is done clockwise, three cards at a time, starting with the player to the left and ending with the dealer. The deal rotates clockwise, so the dealer’s left-hand opponent will deal next.

Some house rules allow a player with a hand of 6 nines or 5 nines and no meld to throw it in, making the deal null and void and demanding a redeal.^{[citation needed]} The player with this poor hand must declare this instead of bidding during an auction. Sometimes there is a limit of three deals for this reason, requiring the third deal to be played.

The Bid

In auction Pinochle, players bid for the points they predict their hand could earn. The highest bidder earns the right to declare the [tag]trump[/tag] suit. One of the players, usually the player to the left of the dealer, or the dealer themself, is obligated to open with a first bid. The minimum opening bid is usually an agreed upon value between players like 100 or 250. When a player has the turn to bid, the player may do either of the following:

1. make a new bid, or
2. pass.

Each bid must be greater than the previous one, and be a multiple of 10. When a player passes, they can no longer bid. The auction ends when subsequent players in rotation have passed after the last bid. The last bid becomes the contract. The player that made this final bid will then declare trump in the suit that is desired. In some house rules, trump cannot be declared in any suit not containing a run, marriage or dix meld.

In order to win the hand, the combined total of melding and trick points must be equal to or greater than the winning bid. Thus bidding involves anticipating the points that will be accumulated from melds and from the points acumulated from winning tricks. If the combined score is lower than the bid, then the bidding team or player has been set. This means that the total bid amount is subtracted from the total game score, often accompanied by losing the points scored in meld for that hand as well. This can result in a negative score.

[tag]Meld[/tag] – Not [tag]Melt[/tag]

Melding consists of displaying specific combinations of cards to all players. Typically this is done by placing the combination of cards face up on the playing surface until all players have had the opportunity to examine them. All players meld after the bid winner shows meld first. The types of melds include arounds, marriages, flushes and pinochles.

The rank melds containing four of the same face cards — ace, king, queen or jack — must include one card from each of the different suits . They are scored as follows:

• “100 Aces” or “Aces around” – 4 aces of different suits – 100 points
• “80 Kings” or “Kings around” – 4 kings of different suits – 80 points
• “60 Queens” or “Queens around” – 4 queens of different suits – 60 points
• “40 Jacks” or “Jacks around” – 4 jacks of different suits – 40 points

A player holding all eight aces, kings, queens or jacks is called a double around (or double aces, double kings, etc). This hand is worth 10 times the value of a single around. For instance, a kings double around is worth 800 points.

The marriages, flush and dix are the suit melds.

• “Trump Marriage” – king and queen of trump suit – 40 points
• “Marriage” – king and queen of a suit other than trump – 20 points
• “Flush”, “Family”, “Rope” or “Run” – A 10 K Q J of trump suit only – 150 points. Similar to what is done with Aces, Kings Around, etc. A double run, or two runs in trump in the same hand, is worth 1500 points.
• “[tag]Dix[/tag]” – nine of trump – 10 points

A marriage in each suit is worth 240 total points. As a shortcut, this is called a “roundtable”, “marriages around”, “[tag]Round House[/tag]“, or a “Round Robin”. This is nothing more than the sum of the marriages, plus kings around and queens around.

The pinochle is the unique combination that shares the name of the game.

• “Pinochle” – jack of diamonds and queen of spades – 40 points.
• “Double pinochle” – both jacks of diamonds and both queens of spades – 300 points.

Each card may be used in at most one meld of each type. Thus, a queen card can be used in one marriage with one king, regardless if the player has the other king of the same suit. However, a queen can be used to score a marriage and a pinochle if the player also has the correct jack.

After the melds are displayed, the points are counted and the teams total their individual meld scores to form a team score.

Playing tricks

The high bidder makes the first lead, which can be any card in their hand. (Some people play with a rule that the first card led must be a trump. ) Each player must follow suit if possible. If they can follow suit, and can play a card higher than any played so far, they must do so. If a player cannot follow suit, but has trump, they must play trump. Again, if they can play a card higher than any played so far, they must do so. If they cannot fulfill any of the previous conditions, then they can play any card in their hand. Finally, if two identical cards are played, the first one outranks the second. (One variation does not require playing a higher trump card if trump wasn’t led.)

After the first trick, the winner of each trick leads to the next.

Scoring tricks

Points are scored based on the tricks won in the hand. There are several ways to count up the points for play, but they always add up to 250 points. The last trick is always worth 10 points. The classic counting system of Pinochle is where aces are worth 11, tens are worth 10, kings are worth 4, queens are worth 3, jacks are worth 2, and nines are worth zero. This method takes longer to count the score at the end of each hand. A simpler method is to count aces and tens for 10 points, kings and queens for 5 points, and jacks and nines are worth zero.

An even simpler method that reduces strategy in trick-taking has aces, tens, and kings worth 10 (and known as “counters”), and everything else zero (“garbage”). Since all points are multiples of ten in the third method, some players drop the redundant zero. Aces, tens, and kings won in tricks are worth one point. The meld scoring can also avoid the zero in the tenth place. Melds like [tag]100 aces[/tag] are thus worth 10. The terms “100 aces”, “80 kings” and so on are still used, even though the point values are one-tenth.