The Shuffle and Cut – The Players agree beforehand, who is to tabulate the ongoing scoring of the game. It consists of: A (high), 10, K, Q, J, 9 (low) in each of the four suits, with two of each card. The Pack and Rank of Cards – A 48-card Pinochle pack is used. Number of Players – Three people can play Certainly, there is strategy but much in chance. This can dramatically help develop power in your trump and additional meld points. There is a nice feature that the bid-winning team gets to pass 4 cards from supporting member to the bid-winner, then the bid winner passes four back. Generally, you count (estimate) the meld points in your hand, add that to the potential trick points you think you could pull and that is the maximum bid you should go to. When you want to bid – There are general guidelines when you would/or would not bid. Here’s where you fight for tricks/point cardsįollow suit, then trump, else any other cardīid-winner discards three non-melded cards I know you’ll be saying “why is the 10 out of place?” Not sure where that comes from, it’s just the way it is – something to make life interesting I guess.

Another quick note about this 48-card deck – the order of power goes (lowest to highest) 9, J, Q, K, 10, A. This means there are two of each card, for example, you’ll find two 9 ♥, two A♠, etc. It’s a race between teams to a point count of 150.Ī Pinochle deck can be built from two sets of standard poker decks, only using cards of 9, J, Q, K, 10, and Aces. Points are awarded for melds and wining point-cards. Each player is independent and competes against the other two players. Three-handed pinochle is a card game of bidding and playing for tricks. I wanted to create a simple beginner’s guide to help first-timers learn to play. This version of Pinochle described is a nearly traditional form of three-handed Pinochle. Welcome to our beginner’s guide to the family-fun card game “Pinochle” (Fletcher style).

Play double deck pinochle