Pinochle is a friendly card game. That's why players usually prefer the standard four-handed game over the three-handed "cutthroat" game. But four players are sometimes not available. So I set about trying to find a mix of the two that remained friendly.
I've come up with "Free-hand" Pinochle, which other members of my family have preferred calling "Dummy" Pinochle and "Bonus" Pinochle. All three names fit, since it is played by three players, has a "free" or "dummy" hand played by whoever wins it, and this "free" hand is played by the bid winner like a Bridge's dummy hand.
The game is simple to play for those already engaging in Pinochle, since no new rules have been added, other than the new - and I think exciting - element, the ability of the bidder to finesse tricks a la Bridge from the lay-down hand. Here is how it is played.
Deal four regular 12-card hands face down. The three players in the game pick up their hands and bid them. The fourth hand remains face down until the bid winner names trump. Then he turns the hand over and organizes it in suits, leaving it face up.
Then the bid winner selects four cards from this free hand, to make his playing hand as strong as possible, and discards four cards back into the free hand, but places them face down. During play he may refresh his memory of them by looking at these cards whenever necessary, letting no one else see them.
Now melds are made by all three players and counted. The free hand may be melded or kept secret by its owner.
The bid winner plays first. He also plays the dummy hand in its turn. He is, thus, playing against the other two players in the game, who automatically become partners for the round.
Since partners may change with each deal and bid, so scoring is kept individually. Melds and tricks taken count as in regular Pinochle. Each partner, after each deal, gets to claim the points made by that partnership during that round.
The first player to total 1500 points is the winner.
No comments:
Post a Comment