4pts.ĭouble Pinochle - both Js of diamonds and both Qs of spades. Pinochle - J of diamonds and Q of spades. Roundhouse (Marriages around) - Ks and Qs from each suit - 25 pts. Royal Marriage - K and Q of the trump suit. 15 pts.Īces Around - one A from each suit. Here's how scoring goes in a single-deck game in our family. As I said scoring varies widely depending on how a person was taught to play. At the end the meld is put back into your hand for use during trick play. Meld basically involves putting certain cards or card combinations on the table for scoring purposes. Whoever took the bid names a trump suit and that determines what meld can be shown. It's not easy to explain, especially through a message board.Īfter bidding comes meld. Bidding can be a complex ritual with lots of signals and such. Scoring at the end of the hand will be the addition of both partners together. Also, if you pass your first bid, you cannot get back into the bidding later. This is why it is so important to bid if you have a good hand. Whoever has the highest bid gets to name trump for the hand. So if there's a bidding war, your first bid is usually as low as possible and your second bid has to be as big as you think you and your partner can make. Also, if actual bidding takes place, a player can only bid twice. If no one bids by the time it gets back around to the dealer, it gets dropped on the dealer for 20. Partners obviously don't want to bid against each other, but it happens sometimes. Anyone choosing to bid afterwards has to beat the previous bid. The first player to bid has to start at least 20. Next comes the bidding phase.īidding starts with the player to the dealer's left. So you always have an opponent between you. And partners sit opposite one another at the table. The deal also moves to the left after each hand. The common game 4-handed game goes like this:Ĭards are dealt 3 at a time starting at the dealer's left and going around. And it's good to play a practice hand or two to get the concepts down. I'll try to explain the rules, but this is very long and is best done with a deck of cards to use as a visual aide. The 10 for whatever reason is the second strongest card in a suit behind the A.

And the order I just put them in is the order of strength. The most common variations come from scoring or playing doubledeck.įor those that don't know a Pinochle deck is 48 cards. Common ways of playing are 3-handed (cut throat) or 4-handed (partners). Everytime there are at least 3 of us together there is a Pinochle game going. I've been playing Pinochle fairly regulary for about 15 years. No variation of Pinochle that I know involves shooting the moon. Also any advice on learning the game would be good too. I was wondering if anyone knew of a website that would be useful to a Pinochle novice such as myself.

There was talk in the directions of melds, point systems, and all kinds of crazy stuff. So I'd like to ask the Ars collective if they knew anything about Pinochle. It seems like one of those games that someone else would have to teach you. As I read further and further though, the directions seemed like they were written in Chinese. Well I read the basic rules and it seemed similar in some aspects to Euchre. I had never played Pinochle before so I didn't realize that the deck wouldn't have any cards under nine in it. Well when I got home, I realized that I had bought a Bicycle Pinochle deck of cards. Now I always remember Bicycle cards being some of the most well-made cards I had ever used so when I was at a local gas station I picked up a pack of Bicycle playing cards. I had a deck of old cards I used to play poker with, but it's all old and nasty, so I set out to get myself a new deck. I recently got into the card game Euchre. Ok this is going to sound bad, er well probably.

Bicycle pinochle playing cards