Pinochle
card game
pinochle, American card game typically played by three players acting alone (cutthroat) or four players in two partnerships. The game derives from a German variety of bezique called binokel (French binocle). All these names mean “eyeglasses” (literally “two-eyes”) and refer to the scoring combination of queen of spades and jack of diamonds, allegedly because the game originated with a deck of cards in which these courtly characters were depicted in profile, exhibiting one eye apiece and therefore two eyes in combination.
A pinochle deck consists of 48 cards, with two cards of each rank and suit from ace (high) through 10, king, queen, jack, and 9 (low). When taken in tricks, the cards are valued as follows, in the simplified point-count system, which is now almost universal: aces, 10s, and kings are worth one point each, and queens, jacks, and 9s are worthless. The table lists scorable melds (card combinations) in the simplified scoring system.
| standard meld | definition | score |
|---|---|---|
| *The score for a run includes the marriage it contains, which cannot therefore be scored separately. | ||
| run | A-10-K-Q-J of trump | 15 |
| aces | four aces, one of each suit | 10 |
| kings | four kings, one of each suit | 8 |
| queens | four queens, one of each suit | 6 |
| jacks | four jacks, one of each suit | 4 |
| pinochle | queen of spades and jack of diamonds | 4 |
| royal marriage | K-Q of trump (unless in a run)* | 4 |
| common marriage | K-Q of nontrump suit | 2 |
| dix | 9 of trump | 1 |
| double run | both sequences A-10-K-Q-J of trump | 150 |
| double aces | all eight aces | 100 |
| double kings | all eight kings | 80 |
| double queens | all eight queens | 60 |
| double jacks | all eight jacks | 40 |
| double pinochle | both queens of spades and jacks of diamonds | 30 |
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