THE DECK: A deck of 48 cards, 12 per suit. Each suit has two of each of the following in ascending order: 9-J-Q-K-10-A One of the suits is named "trump"each game. The other three suits are of equal value. THE DEAL: Each participant will receive 12 cards, either through Automatic Deal- ing or Card Selection. AUTOMATIC: The first 24 cards are dealt alternately to each participant with the second 24 cards not used. SELECTION: Each participant will re- ceive 2 cards. He will look at the first card and either accept or rejectthat card. If he accepts it, the othercard is discarded unseen. If the firstcard is rejected, it is discarded and the participant receives the second. This continues until each participant has the necessary 12 cards. TRICKS: A trick is one card from each participant during the play. For example, the first player plays a cardand the other responds with his card. There are 12 tricks in each "hand". THE TRUMP: In each game, one of the suits will be declared as "trump". Any card from the trump suit is of a higher value than any card from the other suits. For example, a 3 in the trump suit is worth more than a KING in any other suit. THE POINTS: There are two ways to achieve points, by "meld" and by the count of the cards taken in play. MELD: Various combinations of cards in a player@s hand will give points. After the bidding, both players revealthe cards which comprise their meld. The points found in the meld are re- corded for use later. COUNT: During the play, the player who wins a trick also wins any points that the two cards in the trick may beworth. Each ACE, TEN, and KING is worth 1 point. The queens, jacks, andnines are not worth any points. THE BID: Alternating the start of the bid-ding, each participant can bid for theright to name the suit to be "trump". The bidding always starts at a pre-setvalue and represent the number of points the winner of the bid MUST take by the end of the hand. Both meldpoints and card counts will be com- bined to achieve these points. The bidding will stop when one side "passes" making the last bidder (non-passer) the owner of the bid. At that time, the top bidder must select the trump suit. The side taking the bid MUST havea marriage (K-Q) or a deece (9) in thesuit to be named as trump. Failing to have a suit with either of these will cause the winning bidder to go "set". If at the end of the hand the winner of the bid does not have enoughpoints through both the meld and the card count to reach or surpass the amount of the bid, he will go "set". Note that at the very beginning of the bidding session, it is possiblefor the player who should start the bid to immediately pass and thus "drop" the bid on the opponent. THE PLAY: The winning bidder begins the play by leading any card. The other player must respond in the same suit if possible. If the responder does nothave a card in the led suit, he may play any card he has from any other suit. The winner of the trick is the one who played the higher card in the led suit OR the higher trump. The winner of the trick is the one who leads out on the next trick. Note that no one is FORCED to take a trick. THE SCORE: In order to score any points at all, a player MUST take at least one trick during the play of the hand. If a player fails to take a trick, he simply scores nothing. If at least one trick was taken by a player, he will gain as points whatever meld he had prior to the playand any card count he took during the play. Should the winner of the bid go "set", he loses points equal to the amount of the bid. THE GAME: The game is over when a player has a score higher than the pre-set game limit. Should both players have scores above the game limit, the one with the higher score is the winner. þ PINOCHLE MELDING SYSTEM ----------------------- ITEM PNTS 1000 Aces (2 aces in each suit) 100 100 Aces (an ace in each suit) 10 800 Kings (2 kings in each suit) 80 80 Kings (a king in each suit) 8 600 Queens (2 queens in each suit) 60 60 Queens (a queen in each suit) 6 400 Jacks (2 jacks in each suit) 40 40 Jacks (a jack in each suit) 4 Double Trump Run (dbl A-K-Q-J-10) 150 Trump Run (A-K-Q-J-10) 15 Royal Marriage (K-Q in trump) 4 Simple Marriage (K-Q nontrump) 2 Round Robin (a mrg. in each suit) 24 Pinochle (Q-spades, J-diamonds) 4 Double Pinochle 30 Deece (9 of trump) 1 ÿ