Games like pinochle

Pinochle (English: ), also called pinocle or penuchle, is a trick-taking, Ace-Ten card game typically for two to four players and played with a 48-card deck. It is derived from the card game bezique; players score points by trick-taking and also by forming combinations of cards into melds. It is thus considered part of a "trick-and-meld" category which also includes the game belote. Each hand is played in three phases: bidding, melds, and tricks. The standard game today is called "partnership auction pinochle".

Pinochle is thought to have two possible origins. One is that it is a cousin of binokel, with both games evolving from the game of bezique. A second alternative is that pinochle actually developed from the Swiss and, later, South German, game of binocle or binokel which in turn is a descendant of bezique. The word pinochle has several different potential derivations. It may come from the French word binocle meaning "eyeglasses" or "binoculars". There are suggestions that it comes from bis (until) and knochle (knuckle) because originally the game ended when a player rapped their knuckles on the table. The term may also be related to the French word binage for the combination of cards called "binocle". This latter pronunciation of the game was adopted by German speakers. German immigrants brought the game to America in the latter quarter of the 19th century, where it was mispronounced and misspelled "pinochle." Pinochle was the favorite card game of American Jewish and Irish immigrants, while skat was the preferred game of a majority of German immigrants.