Pinochle Rules: How to Play Partnership Pinochle

These are the rules of four-handed partnership pinochle with a single deck, the most common way pinochle is played in the United States and Canada. House rules vary from table to table, so the common variations are listed at the end.

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Players and cards

Four players play in two partnerships; partners sit across from each other. The pinochle deck has 48 cards: two each of the ace, ten, king, queen, jack and nine in each suit. Cards rank from high to low: A, 10, K, Q, J, 9. When two identical cards are played to the same trick, the one played first wins.

The deal

The dealer gives every player 12 cards. The deal moves to the left after each hand.

Bidding

Starting with the player to the dealer’s left, each player either bids or passes. The first bid is at least 250 (some groups start at 150 or 200) and each new bid must be higher, usually in steps of 10. A player who passes is out of the bidding for the rest of the hand. Bidding ends when three players have passed; the last bidder wins the bid. If everyone passes, the dealer is “stuck” and must take the bid at the minimum.

Your bid is a promise that your partnership will score at least that many points from meld and tricks together.

Naming trump

The winner of the bid names the trump suit. Then the bidder’s partner passes exactly four cards face down to the bidder, who picks them up and passes four cards back (they may include cards just received). Partners usually pass trumps and aces to the bidder; the bidder passes back cards that do not help, often emptying a side suit so it can be trumped later.

Meld

Everyone now lays down their meld, the scoring combinations in their hand, so the whole table can see them. Partners add their meld together. The cards are then taken back into the hand for play.

A card may be used in melds of different classes (the queen of spades in a pinochle and in queens around), but not twice in the same class. A full chart to print is on the pinochle meld chart page.

Throwing in

After the meld is shown, the bidder may “throw in” a hand that cannot be made. The bidding team loses the amount of its bid, the other team scores only its meld, and the cards are not played. If the bid is more than 250 above the bidding team’s meld, the hand cannot be made at all.

Playing the tricks

The bidder leads to the first trick. The winner of each trick leads to the next. The rules for each card are strict:

• Follow suit if you can.
• Beat the trick if you can: when following suit, you must play a card that beats the card currently winning, if you have one, even if your partner is winning.
• Trump if you cannot follow suit, and play a higher trump than any trump already in the trick if you can.
• Only if you can neither follow suit nor trump may you play any card.

A trick is won by the highest trump in it, or if no trump was played, by the highest card of the suit led. Between two identical cards, the first one played wins.

Counting the tricks

After the last trick, each partnership counts the counters it has won: every ace, ten and king is worth 10 points, and the team that takes the last trick gets 10 more. That makes 250 points in every hand. (Older rules count A 11, 10 10, K 4, Q 3, J 2; the counter method is simpler and gives the same total.)

Scoring

• A partnership keeps its meld only if it wins points in tricks (at least one counter or the last trick). Nines of trump (dix) “save themselves” and always count.
• If the bidding team’s meld plus counters reach its bid, it scores the full amount. If not, it goes set: it scores nothing and loses the amount of the bid.
• The other team always scores its meld (if it took a trick) and its counters.

Example: you bid 300 with 120 meld. Your partner adds 60 meld and together you take 140 in counters: 120 + 60 + 140 = 320, so you make the bid and score 320. With only 110 in counters you would have 290, go set and lose 300.

Winning the game

The first partnership to reach 1500 points wins (1000 or 2000 are common too). If both teams pass the target in the same hand, the bidding team wins if it made its bid. Keep track on our printable pinochle score sheet.

Common variations

• Passing cards: some groups pass 3 cards instead of 4, or play without passing.
• Minimum bid of 150, 200 or 300; bids in steps of 10, 20 or 50 above a certain level.
• Saving meld: some groups only ask for a trick, not points, to keep meld.
• Double-deck pinochle: 80 cards without nines, 20 cards each, higher bids and bigger melds.
• Two-handed and three-handed (cutthroat) pinochle use the same melds with different deals and no partners.

Our online game uses the main rules above: minimum bid 250, dealer stuck, 4 cards passed each way, points in tricks save meld, throwing in allowed, game to 1500 (you can choose 1000 or 2000).

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