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PINOCHLE STRATEGY

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Basics		Bidding		Tactics		Glossary

	Unlike Bridge, where numerous complicated bidding systems have been developed, Pinochle is a game in which players are pretty much on their own to devise bidding strategies. Since bidders who fail are greatly penalized, it's best to be conservative and bid only as much as you're reasonably sure you can make. One time to stretch a bit is when you have an unusually long and powerful trump suit that will lose most of its value if another suit is named trump. When naming trump, you should almost always name your longest suit in preference to a shorter but stronger suit. When both sides are competing in the bidding, it can be difficult for a partnership to know how high it can afford to bid. A player knows the value of his or her own melds, of course, and can usually expect to take over half the trick points (perhaps 30 out of the available 50) if allowed to name one's own best suit as trump. What's harder to know is how many points partner can contribute, especially in melds.  Back to Top Bidding can be used to convey this important information. Instead of just opening 50, a bidder can use opening bids of 51, 52, or more to show hands of increasing meld totals. For example, many players use an opening bid higher than 50 to show 10 meld points for each number bid above 50 (e.g., 52 would show meld values of around 20). In general, any bid a player makes that is higher than the minimum required bid can be taken to show extra strength of some kind, giving partner a clearer idea of how high it's reasonable to compete in the bidding. Since systems vary, players should discuss them in advance. One partner, most often the opening bidder, will generally have a much better trump suit than his or her partner. Partners should discuss how to convey situations in which the non-opener has an extremely good trump suit to name and wants to become the final bidder. If your partner raises your bid unnecessarily--that is, when the opponents have not bid--you can infer that he or she has a very good potential trump suit. For you to outbid partner in this situation, your own suit should be extremely good.  Back to Top