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Text File | 1989-06-12 | 16.2 KB | 373 lines

DOUBLE DECK PINOCHLE COPYRIGHT 1983 RALPH DAUGHERTY Welcome to Double-Deck Pinochle. This program is designed to let you learn and perfect the game. A learner's version is provided which simulates everybody playing with their hand on the table. The regular version lets you perfect your strategies. Double-Deck Pinochle is a team game with four players. The computer simulates the opposing team, the CHUMPS, and your partner, North. You are South. The cards used in this game are two pinochle decks minus the nines. There are 80 cards divided into the four suits. Within a suit, the 20 cards are distributed as: 4 Aces 4 Tens 4 Kings 4 Queens 4 Jacks There are two kinds of points added up to each teams score. The first are meld points which are counted when each hand is dealt. Various combinations of cards are worth certain points. The other points are accumulated during play. Aces, tens, and kings are worth a point each and are called counters. Queens and jacks are non-counters. Players bid for the opportunity to call trump by estimating the total points possible with their hand. The highest bidder calls his best suit trump and begins play. Play consists of each person playing in turn, constituting a trick. A trick is won by the highest card, with a trump card beating any other card. MELD POINTS Your hand appears at the top of the screen. Melding points is the first step. Meld points are gained by identifying certain combinations of cards, such as a Queen of Spades and the Jack of Diamonds. The more meld points you have, the higher you can bid, and the higher you can bid, the more successful you will be in calling your best suit trump. The person who calls his best suit trump will take the most tricks. And the team that does this the most will win. There are four categories of meld: 1. Arounds 2. Pinochle 3. Marriages 4. Trump Meld One card can be used more than once in different kinds of meld. One kind of card in each suit is called an around. Point values are: Aces Around 10 Kings Around 8 Queens Around 6 Jacks Around 4 -1- For example, to have Kings Around, you must have at least one king in every suit, not just four kings. If you have two of each card around, multiply the the point value by ten. Double Aces Around, for example, are worth 100 points. A pinochle is a Queen of Spades and a Jack of Diamonds and is worth four points. A Double Pinochle requires two Queens of Spades and two Jacks of Diamonds and is worth 30 points. A Triple Pinochle is worth 90 points and getting a Quadruple Pinochle means an instant win. A king and queen in the same suit is a marriage and worth two points each. You may have up to four marriages in each suit. The last category of meld points is trump meld. These points are counted only in the suit named trump. First, marriages in the trump suit are worth four points instead of two. Also, you may have a run which means that in the trump suit you have all five ranks (Ace, Ten, King, Queen, and Jack). This is worth 15 points altogether, including the marriage. A Double Run is worth 150 points, and any extra marriages in addition to a run is worth four points each. BIDDING After counting your meld, the person to the left of the dealer starts bidding. There are two purposes to bidding. One is to indicate to your partner how much meld you have, and the second is to indicate that you can call trump. The rules for bidding are: 1. Bidding starts at 51. 2. A player may bid higher than the previous hid or pass. Once a player passes, he is out of the bidding. 3. A player may bid anywhere between 51 and 60, but once the bid reaches 60 bids must be in increments of 5. For example, the first four bids may be: 51, 53, 60, 70. 4. The person who remains after everyone else passes wins the bid. He then calls trump. The only requirement for a suit to be named trump is that the player have a marriage in trump. In the process of bidding higher, you can indicate how much meld you have and the strength of your trump suit if your partner hasn't passed. The first time you bid, you can increment one for every ten meld you have. Take your meld points, disregarding trump meld, and round to the nearest ten. Now divide by ten and add to the previous bid. This indicates how much meld you have. Example: You have 16 meld. The bid to you is 53. You round your meld to 20 and divide by 10, giving 2. Add 2 to 53 giving 55, which is your bid. There are three restraints on this: 1. If you have less than 14 meld, don't give a meld bid. Assume your partner has 8 meld unless he gives a meld bid. If you have 14 meld, go ahead and round up to 20 if you have more than 3 aces. 2. Indicating meld stops at 59. If your meld increment added to the previous bid exceeds 59, you must bid 59 and indicate what you can. 3. If the bid reaches you at 60 or higher and you have 29 or more meld you can add 15 to the previous bid and this will indicate 30 meld to your partner. If you don't have meld to bid or have already given a meld bid, the second step is to indicate a trump suit. A trump suit must have a marriage and should have at least six cards, with at least one ace. Adding one to the previous bid indicates the ability to call trump. If you are bidding against your partner to call trump, the number of times you bid indicates the strength of your trump suit. -2- As soon as you determine you want to call trump, use the bid formula to determine how high you can bid. Your Meld +Partner Meld +Trump Meld +(# Aces + # Trump)*2 ------------------------- Maximum Bid (Round up to nearest 5) PLAYING There are 20 tricks up for grabs with a total of 50 points. The 16 aces, 16 tens, and 16 kings add up to 48, and there are 2 bonus points for the team that takes the last trick. There are four rules for playing: 1. You must follow suit, that is, play a card in the suit that is led, if you have one. 2. You must beat the highest card played if you can, if the suit hasn't been cut with trump. If you have more than one card that beats it, you can play just above it or play as high as you want. If you can't beat it, you can play any other card in that suit. 3. If you are out of the suit that is led, you must play trump if you have it. 4. If someone else has already trumped, and you must trump, you must beat that trump card if you can. If you can't follow suit and are out of trump, you may play any card you want. To play a card, type in the Rank Suit card code. The Rank codes are: Ace 5 or A Ten 4 or T King 3 or K Queen 2 or Q Jack 1 or J The Suit codes are: Spades 1 or S Diamonds 2 or D Clubs 3 or C Hearts 4 or H The highest trump played takes the trick, If no trump is played, the highest card in the suit led takes the trick. In any case, when there are more than one high card, the first one played is the winner. -3- SCORING The first step in scoring is making the board. This means you and your partner have at least 20 meld together. If you do, your meld is temporarily added to your score. In a game with other people, the players show their meld by laying down their meld cards on the table for all to see. In the computer version, you just input your total. The computer declares meld for all four players. If it declares more meld than you input, you can see what you missed. However, only the meld you input will be added to your score. The next step is called saving your meld, or if you called trump, saving your bid. To save your meld, you must pull at least 20 counters. If you don't, you lose both your counters and your meld. Even if you didn't make the board with 20 meld, if you pull 20 or more counters they will be added to your score. If you called trump, your team must make up the difference between your meld and your bid with counters, with the exception that you must pull a minimum of 20 counters. If your team fails to pull enough counters, your bid will be subtracted from your score. You will be board set (minus your bid without playing out the hand) if you win the bid and: 1.You don't have a marriage in your hand. 2.Your team doesn't have 20 meld. 3.You must pull more than 50 counters. The other team gets their meld if they have 20 or more in a board set. INPUT The program pauses and the cursor flashes to allow you to go at your own pace. Unless a specific response is required, as indicated below, pressing any key will allow you to continue. Questions to Answer 1. Learner's Version(Y/N)? - Answering yes, by pressing Y, allows you to see each player's hand as he bids and plays. This lets you learn how to play by watching other players. 2. Formula Option(Y/N)? - In the learner's version, this option allows you to see each player's formula and how he bids it. Data Inputs 1. Your bid? - Type in your bid and press <ENTER>. Bid 0 to pass. 2. What is trump? - If you win the bid, indicate trump by typing in a suit code. 3. What is your meld? - Type in your total meld and press <ENTER>. 4. Your play(RS)? - Type in 2 digits. The first digit is the Rank code and the second digit is the Suit code. Errors Error # - Press H for Help key to explain error, else clear error by pressing any other key. -4- STRATEGY And now, to play like a champ, here are some strategy techniques. 1. Be systematic when counting meld. If you look for meld in a hit or miss fashion you will miss some. 2. If your partner has given you meld and East passed, do your best to bid even if you don't have a good trump suit. The fact that North gave you meld doesn't mean he can call trump. Likewise, give your partner a meld bid even if you don't have a marriage. North will cover you. 3. The first player to 60 has an advantage. Sometimes it will cut off a meld bid and often 60 or 65 wins the bid. 4. Don't bid too high, but don't get caught bidding short. Only bid high enough to win because if you go set your bid is subtracted from your score. But don't bid 5 less than your maximum bid. If your maximum is 65 and you bid 60, the next person to bid will bid 65 and you cannot bid again. Go straight to 65 and force the opponent to bid 70 or pass. 5. Don't lead your Aces of Trump unnecessarily. In general, only lead them if you called trump and you are in some trouble, such as pulling more than 30 counters or your opponents are cutting. However, lead any ace which is unbacked, that is, when you don't have enough backers for it to keep from playing it if all aces are led. 6. Distribute your ace leads. Don't stay with one suit and lead two or three aces. If someone cuts that suit you will have lost the opportunity to play your other aces. 7. Lead a queen when you are out of aces. This forces a counter from West if North takes the trick, but is a non-counter if your opponents take the trick. 8. If you can only guess what suit to lead use this matrix. The YES and NO refer to whether the player has led yet. WEST NORTH YES YES Shortest suit in your hand YES NO Least aces played in game so far NO YES Longest suit in your hand NO NO Most aces played in game so far 9. In general, play jacks and queens on your opponent's aces, and kings and tens on your partner's aces. 10. When cutting, start with kings, then tens. Anytime your team takes a trick, try to put a counter on it. 11. If one player leads an ace and his partner plays an ace on it, it is an ace leadback and used to signal that the partner will take the trick if that suit is led again. Lead a counter. The author welcomes all questions and comments. Ralph Daugherty -5- 1 ┌──────────────────────┐ S │ CARDS OF EACH SUIT │ T └──────────────────────┘ JACKS................4...............40 R QUEENS...............6...............60 O KINGS................8...............80 U ACES.................10.............100 N D ┌────────────┐ O │ PINOCHLE │ 1 EACH 2 EACH 3 EACH F └────────────┘ B Q & J ...........4........30........90 (TOTAL) I D ┌────────────┐ D │ MARRIAGES │ I └────────────┘ N G K & Q OF SAME SUIT .......2 ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ 2 ┌────────────┐ N │ TRUMP MELD │ D └────────────┘ R K & Q OF TRUMP............+2 O U A RUN OF TRUMP ( A THRU 10).......+11 N D ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ ┌────────────┐ │ FORMULA │ └────────────┘ PARTNERS MELD + YOUR MELD + QUALITY COUNT = MAX YOU CAN GO QUALITY COUNT = TYPICALLY 20 (COUNTERS TO GET) ALSO CAN BE FIGURED Q.C.=(# OF A + # OF TRUMP)*2 * YOU MUST GET 20 COUNTERS TO COLLECT MELD * YOU MUST HAVE 20 MELD TO ADD IT TO SCORE ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ AFTER YOU'VE LED YOUR ACES AT THE BEGINNING │ │ OF THE GAME: │ ├────────────┬───────────┬──────────────────────────────────┤ │ LEFT │ PARTNER │ ACTION │ │ OPPONENT │ │ │ ├────────────┼───────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤ │ 0 │ 0 │ LEAD SUIT WITH MOST ACES PLAYED │ ├────────────┼───────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤ │ 0 │ 1 │ LEAD LONGEST SUIT │ ├────────────┼───────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤ │ 1 │ 0 │ LEAD SUIT WITH LEAST ACES PLAYED│ ├────────────┼───────────┼──────────────────────────────────┤ │ 1 │ 1 │ LEAD SHORTEST SUIT │ └────────────┴───────────┴──────────────────────────────────┘ * TO PUNT............ LEAD A QUEEN (USUALLY TRUMP) -6-