Pinochle Rules

Pinochle is a trick-taking card game played with a 48-card deck that has two copies of every card from the 9 up to the Ace. Points come from two places: meld, the combinations you show after the bidding, and the counters (Aces, Tens and Kings) you win in tricks. It comes from the French game bezique by way of the German game Binokel, which German immigrants brought to the United States in the late 19th century, where the name turned into “pinochle”. During World War I, Syracuse, New York, banned the game because of its German roots. This guide covers the pinochle rules for the most common game, four-handed partnership pinochle, along with meld scoring, the two-handed and double-deck games, strategy and odds.

Pinochle Rules at a Glance

The Pinochle Deck

A pinochle deck has 48 cards: twelve in each suit, two each of the Ace, 10, King, Queen, Jack and 9. Within a suit the order is Ace, 10, King, Queen, Jack, 9, so the 10 is the second-highest card. When two identical cards are played to the same trick, the one played first wins. Boxed pinochle decks are easy to find, but you can also make one from two standard packs by taking out every card from 2 to 8. A euchre deck is exactly half a pinochle deck.

How to Play Pinochle

1. Deal. The dealer deals all 48 cards, 12 to each player, often three at a time.
2. Bid. Starting to the dealer’s left, each player bids a number of points their team expects to make, or passes. Bids go up in 10s, and once you pass you are out of the auction. In many family games the opening bid is 250, and if everyone else passes the dealer must take it at 250. The player who wins the bid is the declarer.
3. Name trumps. The declarer names the trump suit.
4. Pass cards. In the popular “racehorse” version, the declarer’s partner passes four cards face down across the table. The declarer adds them to their hand and passes four cards back.
5. Show meld. All four players lay their meld face up on the table, and each team adds up its points (see the meld table below). Then everyone picks their cards back up.
6. Play 12 tricks. The declarer leads to the first trick. Each player plays one card, going left. The highest trump wins the trick, or the highest card of the suit led if no trump was played. The winner of each trick leads to the next.
7. Count the counters. Each team counts the Aces, 10s and Kings in the tricks it won, then the scores are added up.

Pinochle Meld Table

Meld comes in three types, and a card can be used in more than one meld as long as each one is a different type. A Queen of spades can count in a marriage and in a pinochle at the same time, but not in two marriages.

The King and Queen inside a run are already used, so they don’t also score as a royal marriage. If you hold a second King and Queen of trumps, those add a royal marriage: A, 10, K, K, Q, Q, J of trumps is worth 190. Some families pay extra for a single spare King or Queen in a run, so agree on this before you play. Many players also drop the last zero from every score, so a run is 15 and a pinochle is 4.

Rules for Playing the Tricks

Pinochle has strict rules about which card you must play:

• Follow suit if you can, and play a card that beats the card currently winning the trick if you have one, even if it is your partner’s.
• Trump if you have no card of the suit led. If the trick already holds a trump, beat it with a higher trump if you can; if you can’t, you must still play a trump.
• Play any card only when you can neither follow suit nor trump.

Most card game books published since 1945 use a lighter rule: you must try to win the trick only when trumps are led. When another suit is led, you still follow suit or trump, but you don’t have to play higher. Many players still use the older rule, so settle it before the first deal.

Pinochle Scoring

There are 250 points in the tricks in every hand: each of the 24 Aces, 10s and Kings is worth 10, and the last trick is worth 10 more. Some books count the cards differently (Ace 11, 10 10, King 4, Queen 3, Jack 2) but that also comes to 250.

• Making the bid: if the declarer’s team scores at least its bid with meld and tricks together, it adds everything it made to its score.
• Going set: if it falls short, it scores nothing for the hand and the amount bid is taken off its score, which can go below zero.
• Throwing in: if the declaring team’s meld is more than 250 short of its bid, the bid can’t be made. The declarer can throw the hand in without playing; the team loses its bid, and the other team scores its meld.
• Saving meld: the other team keeps its meld only if it wins at least one counter or the last trick.

The game is usually played to 1,500. If both teams pass 1,500 on the same hand, the declaring team wins.

Two-Handed Pinochle

Two-handed pinochle is the original form of the game. Each player gets 12 cards, the next card is turned face up to set trumps, and the rest form a stock. For the first 12 tricks you don’t have to follow suit. The winner of each trick may show one meld, then both players draw from the stock, winner first. A player who holds the dix can swap it for the face-up trump card. Once the stock runs out, meld goes back into the hand and the last 12 tricks are played under strict rules: follow suit, trump if you can’t, and try to win when trumps are led. In Bicycle’s rules, the cards count Ace 11, 10 10, King 4, Queen 3, Jack 2 and last trick 10, and the game is 1,000 points.

Double Deck Pinochle

Double deck pinochle uses 80 cards: two pinochle decks with the 9s taken out, so there are four of every Ace, 10, King, Queen and Jack. Four players in partnerships get 20 cards each. Scores are kept small: each Ace, 10 and King won is 1 point and the last trick is 2, for 50 points in the tricks. A run is 15, a pinochle 4 and Aces around 10. The opening bid is usually 50, the declarer must hold a marriage in the suit they name as trumps, and the game goes to 500. It is the form played in pinochle associations and tournaments.

Pinochle Strategy

• Bid on meld plus a fair share of the tricks. Add up your meld, then add a realistic share of the 250 in the tricks. Your partner usually brings meld too, but you can’t count on it.
• Pass trumps and Aces to the declarer. As the declarer’s partner, your four cards should help them win tricks and finish their meld.
• Lead your Aces early. An Ace can only lose to a trump, and every trick it takes brings in counters.
• Count the trumps. There are 12 in the deck. Knowing how many are still out tells you when your side cards are safe.
• Feed counters to your partner. When your partner is winning a trick, play a 10 or King on it if the rules let you.
• Throw in a hopeless hand. If your bid can’t be made, throwing in stops the other team from scoring in the tricks.

Pinochle Odds

• Marriages are common: 59% of 12-card hands hold at least one marriage.
• Pinochle: 19% of hands hold a pinochle, and a double pinochle turns up about once in 393 hands.
• Runs and arounds: a run in some suit comes in 3.8% of hands, Aces around in 2.8% and Kings around in 2.7%.
• Meld per hand: with trumps in the suit that gives the most meld, a hand melds 55 points on average. 15% of hands meld 100 or more and 6.4% meld 150 or more.

The pinochle, double pinochle and Aces-around figures are exact. The rest come from 2,000,000 simulated 12-card hands scored with the meld table above.

More Card Games

For another partnership trick-taking game, try Spades. If you’d rather play alone, see Hearts or Oh Hell, where you bid the exact number of tricks you will take.

A Midwestern trick-taking game with card points: Sheepshead, where the picker plays with a hidden partner.

From Italy: Scopa, a quick capturing game played with a 40-card deck, where sweeping the table scores a point.

An Italian cousin: Briscola, a quick ace-ten trick-taking game where the turned-up card sets trumps.

Another American trick-taking classic: Euchre, where the jack of trumps is the highest card.

Pinochle: frequently asked questions