Pinochle Rules: How to Play Pinochle with 4 Players

These pinochle rules teach the most common home version: four players in two partnerships, bidding for the right to name trump, then scoring points for card combinations (melds) and for winning valuable cards in tricks. Pinochle has a lot of vocabulary, but once you play a few hands it flows naturally. If you enjoy spades or euchre, you will feel right at home.

Quick rules

• Four players, partners sit opposite, using a 48-card pinochle deck.
• Deal 12 cards each. Card rank from high to low: A, 10, K, Q, J, 9.
• Players bid on how many points their team will score. The high bidder names trump.
• The bidder's partner passes cards to the bidder, who passes the same number back.
• Everyone lays down melds and scores them, then the hand is played out in 12 tricks.
• Aces, tens and kings won in tricks score points. The bidding team must reach its bid or lose it.
• First team to 1,500 points wins.

What you need

• A 48-card pinochle deck: two copies each of A, 10, K, Q, J and 9 in all four suits. You can build one from two standard decks by removing the 2s through 8s.
• Pencil and paper or our scoreboard.

Setup

Partners sit across from each other. Cut for deal; the deal passes to the left after each hand. The dealer deals all 48 cards, three or four at a time, so each player has 12. Note the unusual rank order: the 10 ranks just below the ace and above the king.

How to play

1. Bidding

1. The player to the dealer's left bids first. A bid is the total points your team expects to score from meld plus tricks.
2. The minimum opening bid is usually 250, and bids go up in steps of 10.
3. Each player in turn raises the bid or passes. Once you pass, you are out of the bidding for that hand.
4. The last player left wins the bid. If everyone passes to the dealer, the dealer must take it at the minimum.
5. The winning bidder names the trump suit.

2. Passing cards

The bidder's partner passes three or four cards (agree which before play; four is very common) face down to the bidder, usually trumps and aces. The bidder then passes the same number of cards back. Nobody else exchanges cards.

3. Melding

All four players lay their melds face up on the table. Each team adds its meld points together and the scores are written down, then everyone picks their cards back up. A card may count in two melds of different types (for example the king of spades in a marriage and in kings around), but not twice in the same type.

Holding both copies of aces, kings, queens or jacks around, or a double run, scores much more (commonly ten times the single value). Bonus values for doubles vary by region, so agree them first.

4. Playing the tricks

1. The bidder leads the first trick with any card.
2. You must follow suit if you can.
3. You must try to win the trick: play a higher card of the suit led if you can, and if you have none of that suit, you must play a trump.
4. If you cannot follow suit and have no trumps, play any card.
5. The highest trump wins, otherwise the highest card of the suit led. If two identical cards are played, the one played first wins.
6. The winner of each trick leads the next.

Scoring

After the hand, each team adds its meld and its counters. Bidding team: if meld plus counters reaches the bid, it scores everything it made. If not, it goes "set": it scores nothing for the hand and the bid is subtracted from its total. Other team: it scores its meld only if it wins at least one counter or the last trick, plus all counters it took.

Many groups drop the final zero from every number (a run is 15, the minimum bid is 25, counters are 1 each, game is 150). It plays exactly the same way.

How to win

The first team to reach 1,500 points wins. If both teams cross 1,500 in the same hand, the bidding team's score is counted first and it wins.

Variations

• Two-hand pinochle: deal 12 cards each, leave a stock, and meld after winning tricks during the early play.
• Three-hand auction: deal 15 cards each with a 3-card widow that goes to the high bidder.
• Double-deck pinochle: uses 80 cards (no nines), 20 per player, with bigger meld values.
• Shooting the moon: some groups let a bidder claim every trick for a large bonus.

Tips and strategy

• Bid with your partner in mind. A partner who keeps raising usually holds aces or a long suit.
• When passing to the bidder, send trumps and aces. When passing back, return non-trump cards that cannot win.
• Lead your aces early to collect counters before opponents run out of the suit.
• Count trumps as they fall. There are 12 in the deck.
• Throw counters (aces, tens, kings) onto tricks your partner is sure to win.

House rules to agree first

• Minimum bid, and whether the dealer is forced to bid.
• Three or four cards in the pass.
• Values for double melds such as double aces and a double run.
• Whether the scale uses tens (1,500 game) or dropped zeros (150 game).

Looking for more trick-taking games? Try bridge, whist or 500.