Pinochle
Pinochle is a partnership card game for four players that fuses a melding phase
with strict-rule trick-taking. Partners bid for the right to name trump, score
melds from their hands, then play twelve tricks under the strictest follow-suit
rules in the genre — you must follow, you must beat the current winner when you
can, and you must trump when you are void.
This game implements the 4-player partnership format with the Modern
Simplified scoring system (classic values ÷ 10). The first side to 150
points wins.
Objective
Be the first partnership to reach 150 points by combining team meld points
with team trick points each hand. Partners sit across from one another:
Team 1 is players 1 & 3, Team 2 is players 2 & 4.
The Deck
Pinochle uses a 48-card twin deck: two identical copies of the Ace, 10,
King, Queen, Jack, and 9 in each of the four suits (two standard decks with
2–8 removed). Because every card appears twice, identical cards can be played to
the same trick — when that happens, the first one played wins.
Card Ranking
For trick-taking, cards rank high to low:
Ace → 10 → King → Queen → Jack → 9
Note that the 10 ranks above all face cards, second only to the Ace.
Setup
•
The dealer deals all 48 cards, so each player holds exactly 12.
•
The deal rotates clockwise after each hand.
•
The first deal also rotates between games: Player 1 deals the first game,
Player 2 the next, and so on round the table.
Bidding
Players bid the total points (meld + tricks) their team promises to score if
allowed to name trump.
1.
The player to the dealer's left opens. The minimum opening bid is 15.
2.
Bidding proceeds clockwise. Each player must bid higher than the current
bid or Pass.
3.
Once a player passes, they cannot re-enter the auction that hand.
4.
The highest bidder wins the contract, immediately names the trump suit,
and their partnership becomes the bidding team.
If every player passes without a bid, the hand is thrown in and redealt by the
next dealer.
Melding
All players lay down scoring combinations. Partners combine their meld into
one team total. Melded cards are shown, then return to hand for the trick phase.
Meld point values (simplified)
K & Q of a non-trump suit
Queen of Spades + Jack of Diamonds
Meld reuse rules
•
A card may belong to multiple melds of different types (e.g. the Queen
of Spades in both a pinochle and a marriage).
•
A card may not be used twice in the same type of meld (e.g. two Kings
of Hearts and one Queen of Hearts still yield only one marriage).
•
A run in trump subsumes the royal marriage — score the run (15), not the
run plus a separate royal marriage. Even with duplicate Kings and Queens
of trump, a hand scores at most one of {run 15, royal marriage 4}, never both.
Trick Play
Players pick their melds back up into hand. The highest bidder leads the
first trick. Play is clockwise for 12 tricks under the strict rules below.
On your turn, in order:
1.
Follow suit if you hold the led suit.
2.
Head the trick: if you hold the led suit and can beat the current winning
card of that suit, you must play such a card.
3.
Trump: if you cannot follow suit, you must play a trump if you have one.
If a trump is already winning and you can beat it, you must.
4.
Discard: only if you have neither the led suit nor any trump may you play
any other card.
The highest card of the led suit wins unless trump is played (then the highest
trump wins). When two identical winning cards are played, the first one played
wins. The winner of the trick leads the next.
Hand Scoring
After 12 tricks, each team counts captured Aces, 10s, and Kings (1 point
each) plus 1 for the last trick if they took it — 25 trick points are
available per hand.
•
Bidding team makes the contract: their meld + trick points are added to
their match score.
•
Bidding team is set: if meld + tricks are less than the bid, they score
0 for the hand and subtract the bid amount from their match score.
•
Defending team: always scores their meld + trick points, except a team
that takes zero tricks scores 0 that hand (meld is forfeited).
Winning
The first team to reach 150 wins. If both teams cross 150 on the same
hand, the bidding team wins, regardless of which total is higher. There is
no draw.