Learn the History of Pinochle

Series Summary

Playing cards date back to ancient China, where they are believed to have originated, when paper currency was both the vehicle for the card games, and the bet. One popular card game that incorporates playing cards is Pinochle. Pinochle is a trick-taking card game that is played with a deck of 48 cards. Pinochle is derived from the card game Bezique, and players score points by taking tricks and combining cards into melds.

In this free video series, our expert Joe Andrews will teach you how to play pinochle. He will tell you about the history of pinochle, the deck, and how each card ranks. Joe will also teach you the rules of Pinochle, how to score a meld, and how to bid. Joe will teach you about the importance of partnership and how to do an opening lead before taking you through a full demonstration of several hands of pinochle to get your feet wet.

Video Transcript

"Root's in history for Pinochle, Pinochle is one of the great classic card games. A, I did a little research on this and there are some very fine Pinochle books out there and I would certainly advise people to go out and check out the Pinochle books. It's not in the classic card game library which I've started because I believe there are fourteen titles on Pinochle out there. Pinochles related to a French game called Bezique, B E Z I Q U E, and if a it was a very popular game in the early 1800's to about maybe 1840 and again much like the game of a Youker. There is a tremendous amount of dispute as to where Pinochle originated from. Pinochle variations are bound, we're going to cover that on in the lecture. We have three handed Pinochle, we have single deck Pinochle the most popular form of the game is double deck Pinochle. And this phenomenon has been a, during the last fifty years and has become the number one leading Pinochle tournament game, double deck Pinochle."