Pinochle is a strategic card game of rounds similar to the popular Hearts. In this tricky game, one player leads a card and the other players place their card on top of it. Depending on the played cards, one player takes the trick and earns the points as per the pulled cards. A standard deck pinochle game consists of two cards from the 9 aces, but in a double deck game which is played by 4 players, the two decks are combined and the 9’s are removed. Each team has two players, and a deck of 48 cards composed of tens aces, kings, queens, jacks, tens and nines. Here at OneHowTo.com, we are going to tell you how to play pinochle with 4 players.
Dealing:
The two teams sit opposite to one another, and one player becomes the dealer who shuffles the deck and allows the player on his or her right to slice the deck. As there are so many cards to deal, a dealer usually deals 2 or 4 cards to a player instead of only one. Each player receives 20 cards in the end.
Melding:
In this game, each card in your hand has a certain number of points known as the Meld. More Meld means a higher bid for you. However, when you start bidding, the runs should not be counted as part of the Meld. The player who takes the bid will declare the Trump.
Bidding:
Once the cards are dealt, the player on the dealer’s left start bidding. Your bid will be the number that you think your team can make between the melds and the points pulled during the tricks. 50 is the minimum bid, but you may choose not to bid if you don’t have a good playing hand or if you don’t have a pair. The player who declared the trump must have a pair in the cards. You may also increase your bid one by one, which can be a way to signal your teammate the number of points you are having in your hand.
Trump:
The player who places the last bid takes the bid and declares a suit to be the trump. This suit will beat out all other suits, and if you run out of a suit during the game, this trump suit may be used to cut the cards. The player who plays the highest trump will take the trick and its points as well.
Playing the tricks:
One player leads out a card, and all other players play a card of the same suit. The player whose card had the highest value will win the trick and take the played cards. A player can cut a card with the trump if he does not have a card in the same suit. In this case, the player who cut the card wins the trick. If more than one trump has been laid on a card, the highest trump will win. Unlike a standard 52 cards deck, the progression in pinochle is J-Q-K-10-A, which means that 10 has the highest value after the Ace.
Counting and scoring:
Once the play is over, both the teams count up their point cards, and the team that won the last trick receives two extra points. After calculating the scores, the player to the previous dealer’s left becomes the new dealer and another round of bidding begins. The team that first reaches 500 points wins the game.
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