Pinochle

4 player card game where 2 player teams build melds which are point earning combinations from their hand. A bidding round ensues where players with high meld, bid against one another until someone wins the bid. 4 cards in the middle of the table are earned as the prize for winning the bid and then teams determine how many tricks they believe they will win. Make your bid and earn your bid points + meld points for each hand. The team reaching the agreed upon score total first is the winner. (1000 points in typical Pinochle, but this group plays a variation of the game known as the Meron rules).

 Min. Players: 4
Max. Players: 4
Length (minutes): 60 		 
Difficulty to Learn Difficulty to Play Replay Value Strategy Intensity Main Course Overall Overall StDev
5.503.252.252.001.751.252.620.41

Individual Player Ratings
Player Difficulty
to Learn		 Difficulty
to Play		 Replay
Value		 Strategy Intensity Main
Course		 Overall
Chad Hall4133123
Jeff Wenzel7511112
Mike Flynn4232313
Scott Baughman7522212.5

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Comment by Scott B on 2012-07-23 17:28:07 (GMT)
Much like the reasons Mille Bournes was such a failure, this equally falls short. Too much depends on the meld which then impacts the scoring. One team can totally dominate with the way the cards fall. In Spades, for comparison, weak hands actually have some value. You can bid zero, blind zero, or try to feed the other team bags. In Pinochle, it seems like too much "Well maybe next hand" is going on.
Comment by Chad on 2012-07-22 04:47:02 (GMT)
A staple of the old Buffy-Buffet-Pinochle night, it just doesn't seem to have held up. Games like Spades and Whist are much better (IMO), and seem to play better in our group. We had some trouble remembering how to score, which threw our game off a little bit, but even with the correct scoring I'm not sure how much it helps the game.