Pinochle

Pinochle is a card game played with a 48-card pack consisting of two copies each of cards of the ranks 9, jack, queen, king, 10, and ace in the four suits (spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs) found in the more widely used 52-card bridge or poker pack. The ordering of the ranks also differs slightly, with the 10 ranking above the face cards. Aces are always considered high. This makes the complete ordering of ranks, from highest to lowest, A 10 K Q J 9.

Related Topics:
Card game - Bridge - Poker

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Variants of pinochle can be played by two, three, four, five or six players. In general, dealing and play proceed from right to left. Hands are played until a player or team reaches 1000 points. Each hand is played in three phases: bidding, melds, and tricks.

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What is being bid on is the right to name a suit "trump", or higher ranking than all other suits in the taking of tricks. Bidding starts at a defined minimum level (150 for four handed pinochle). A player who has not yet "passed" has the option of exceeding the current highest bid, or "passing". Bidding starts to the dealer's left. If all players other than the dealer pass, the dealer names trump at a "price" usually one less than the minimum bid.

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Bidding/Scoring is not always done at such a high level, some players prefer to use 20 as an opening bid instead of 200, with all subsquent point levels equally reduced (i.e., a marriage is worth 2 instead of 20, etc.)

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Meld consists of displaying specific combinations of cards. Possession of these combinations adds points to one's score, and also confers partial information about one's hand to one's teammate and opponents. A player may choose to not meld a combination, giving up points while denying others the information. Values of melds are as follows:

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Class I (rank melds)

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"100 Aces" or "Aces around" - 4 aces of different suits (A♦ A♠ A♥ A♣) - 100 points

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"80 Kings" or "Kings around" - 4 kings of different suits (K♦ K♠ K♥ K♣) - 80 points

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"60 Queens" or "Queens around" - 4 queens of different suits (Q♦ Q♠ Q♥ Q♣) - 60 points

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"40 Jacks" or "Jack around" - 4 jacks of different suits (J♦ J♠ J♥ J♣) - 40 points

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It is important that they are different suits. For example, A♠ A♥ A♥ A♣ does not qualify for "Aces around" because you are missing A♦. Also, there is no "Nines around" or "Tens around".

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In addition, all eight Aces, Kings, Queens or Jacks is called a double round worth 10 times the value of a single around, for instance, Kings double around is worth 800 points.

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Class II (suit melds)

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"Trump Marriage" - King and Queen of trump suit - 40 points

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"Marriage" - King and Queen of nontrump suit - 20 points

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"Flush", "Family" or "Run" - A 10 K Q J of trump suit - 150 points

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"Dix" - Nine of trump - 10 points

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Class III (pinochle)

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"Pinochle" - Jack of Diamonds and Queen of Spades (J♦ Q♠) - 40 points.

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"Double Pinochle" - both Jacks of Diamonds and both Queens of Spades (J♦ Q♠ J♦ Q♠) - 300 points.

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Each card may be used in at most one meld of each class. Thus, K♥ K♥ Q♥ only counts as one marriage, while K♠ Q♠ J♦ counts as both a marriage and a pinochle. As a shorthand, some people divide all scores by 10 points.

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Also note that a marriage in each suit is worth 240 total points. As a shortcut, this is called a "roundtable" or "the Round House".

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