How to play double-deck Pinochle

The deck and the ranking that confuses everyone

A double Pinochle deck holds four copies of the Ace, Ten, King, Queen, and Jack in each suit: 80 cards with no nines. Every card has three identical siblings, which is why meld can arrive in twos and threes.

Sources: Pagat: Double Deck Pinochle; Cool Old Games: Double Deck Pinochle.

Deal and auction

1. Deal all eighty cards, twenty to each player, five at a time, starting to the dealer's left.
2. Bidding opens at 50 and moves clockwise from the dealer's left.
3. Raises step by one through 60, then move in multiples of five.
4. A player who passes is out of the auction and cannot re-enter.
5. Three passes end it. If the first three players all pass, the dealer must take the bid at 50.

The winning bidder names trump. At the default table you may only name a suit in which you hold a King and Queen, so the auction is partly a question of which marriage you are willing to commit to.

Sources: Pagat: Double Deck Pinochle; Cool Old Games: Double Deck Pinochle.

Meld: scoring before the first trick

Once trump is named, every player scores the combinations in their hand. Meld counts toward the partnership total immediately, and the bidding side needs meld plus counters to reach its bid.

Meld depends entirely on which suit is trump, so the same twenty cards are worth different amounts depending on the auction. A run in the wrong suit collapses to its King and Queen, which still pay a two-point plain marriage but nothing like the fifteen a trump run would have earned.

Sources: Pagat: Double Deck Pinochle; Cool Old Games: Double Deck Pinochle.

Playing the tricks

The bidder leads first. At the Big Mike default table the trick obligations are strict, which is stronger than most trick-taking games people arrive from.

• Follow the led suit if you can.
• If you can follow, you must also beat the highest card played so far when you are able to.
• If you cannot follow, you must trump when you hold a trump.
• If you are void and a trump has already been played, you must overtrump when you can.

When identical cards tie for highest, the first one played wins the trick. Big Mike also supports two looser obligation settings for tables that play them.

Sources: Pagat: Double Deck Pinochle; Trickster Cards: Pinochle rule options.

Counters and the contract

Each Ace, Ten, and King captured is worth one point, called a counter. A double deck holds 48 of them, and the last trick is worth two more, so a deal is worth 50 points in tricks on top of all the meld.

Add meld and counters together. If the bidding team reaches its bid, both sides keep everything they earned. If the bidding team falls short, it does not merely lose the difference: its score for the hand becomes minus the entire bid.

Sources: Pagat: Double Deck Pinochle; Trickster Cards: Pinochle rule options.

Table options Big Mike supports

Every option is stored with the match when it starts and cannot change part-way through.

Sources: Pagat: Double Deck Pinochle; Trickster Cards: Pinochle rule options.

What this version does not mix in

Passing cards between partners is the big one. Pagat calls the exchange a common variation and documents one to four cards with different procedures, and other sources use a partner-first four-card pass. There is no honest universal default, so Big Mike does not ship one. Alternate meld scales, minimum-meld requirements, and throwing in a hand are also documented practices that this table does not implement.

Sources: Pagat: Double Deck Pinochle; Pinochle Online: partnership rules; Trickster Cards: Pinochle rule options.