Pinochle

I have always been intrigued by the game pinochle. Of the many games I have tried in the past, I had not until recently played pinochle^[1] and knew no-one who had. I wondered why. During the second half of the 19^th Century, the British public appeared to have had an insatiable appetite for card games, particularly those designed for two or three players when there was not enough for a four at whist, or later bridge. Wherever you look in the literature of that period, whether in books or adverts for games, there are a host of other games referred to but references to pinochle are few and far between. I have no explanation for this phenomenon, and would be happy to receive suggestions. The scoring system seems to a beginner, at least, to be very complex, but the same is true for many other games which overcame this potential problem and became popular.

If you look, for example, at the range of card game booklets produced by Goodall & Son^[2], we find – in alphabetical order – Ace Major, Auction Bridge, Auction whist, Bezique, Bridge Whist, Chinese Bezique, Cribbage, Drawbridge, Écarté, Euchre, Five Golf Patience, Hundred, Hearts, Heartsette, Hindooly, Khanhoo, Kuhn Khan, La Main, Lily Auction, Loo, Manx, Napoleon, Ombre, Outlaw bridge, Penchant, Piquet, Poker, Poker patience, Pool Whist, Quinto, Rover Bridge, Royal Spades, Rubicon bezique, Rum, Skat, Solo whist and Whist, not to mention a bewildering array of Patience games. Some of these, including Penchant by Jack Smarte and Quinto by Professor Hoffmann, were invented specifically to help meet this huge demand for something new. All of these, but no Pinochle.

If you look at Cassell’s Book of In-Door Amusements, Card Games and Fireside Fun, 1881, he lists 34 card games including, in addition to those covered by Goodall’s Guides, Albert Smith, All Fours, Beggar my Neighbour, Cassino, Catch the Ten, Cheat, Commerce, Go Round, Happy families, Lottery, Matrimony, Old Maid, Pope Joan, Put, Quince, Ranter, Sift Smoke, Snap, Snip-Snap-Snorum, Spade & Gardener, Speculation, Spinado, Truth, Vingt-un, and Zetema. Not all of these used standard packs of playing cards, but you get my drift. No Pinochle.

In Frederick Jessel’s exhaustive “Bibliography of Works in English on Playing Cards and Gaming”, 1905, (including 1733 publications) in addition to numerous mentions of the well-known card games, there are frequent references to a host of others, perhaps less well-known: All-Fours, Biritch or Russian Whist, Boodle, Brag, Call-Ace Euchre, Cayenne Whist, Cinch, Domino Whist, Draw poker, Draw-Pedro, Drole, Faro, Foose, Hazard, Heart Jackpot, Loo, Nap, Newmarket, Quadrille, Quinze, and Solo-Sixty. In all of this recorded literature, there are only two publications concerned exclusively with Pinocle (sic), and both of these are specific to America.^[3] Other similar games popular in America, such as Skat, are frequently mentioned. Reference to pinochle was presumably confined to the pages of the many game compendiums, such as those named after Hoyle, that were available.

Clearly pinochle, despite being a well-developed card game, had no place in the pantheon of card games in Britain in the 19^th Century. In America, on the other hand, it seems to have been very popular indeed and, judging by the huge number of American-produced packs of cards designed specifically for pinochle, it remains so today.^[4] This in itself seems very odd, because the Pinochle pack is very specific to that game and is of little use otherwise. A pack contains two sets of 24 cards each, comprising the Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Ten and Nine of all four suits, shuffled together, and can be used for little else other than the prescribed game. (Confusingly, the ten is second only to the Ace in rank and stands above the King, Queen and Jack!) A full pack of 52 cards plus jokers, on the other hand, can be used for an almost infinite variety of games, discarding jokers or other cards as required.

According to Wikipedia it is thought that German immigrants brought the game of Binokel to America in the latter quarter of the 19^th century, where it was mispronounced and misspelled “Pinochle.” “Pinochle was the favourite card game of American Jewish and Irish immigrants, while Skat was the preferred game of a majority of German immigrants. Auction Pinochle for three players has some similarities to the German game Skat, although the bidding is more similar to that of Bid Whist.”

Given the enthusiasm for pinochle in the States, and the lack of it in Britain, it is not surprising that R. F. Foster (based in America) includes various forms of the game in his Complete Hoyle. An Encyclopedia of all Indoor Games Played at the present day, 1907, published simultaneously in New York and London.

And while Foster was not initially writing on the topic for a British audience, he was certainly involved in marketing pinochle for the American consumer. I have found this delightful, diminutive pinochle set (5” x 3½”) comprising one pack of pinochle cards, a removable tray of counters or chips, a drop-down front panel and a cloth-bound book of “The Pocket Laws of Pinochle with Hints for Beginners” by R. F. Foster, dated 1908.

Above: the closed black case of a Pinochle set.

Above: the opened Pinochle set, showing four colours of counters and the cards beneath them.

The booklet was published by The Chas. H. Elliott Co., North Philadelphia, and was clearly designed exclusively for the American market. The adverts reveal that Foster was not only marketing this set, with a booklet of instructions, but also personalised scoring pads for Pinochle and for the closely related game of Skat, also popular in the US.

Above: R. F. Foster's Pinochle score pad and his 1908 Pocket Laws of Pinochle with Hints to Beginners.

Above: Foster's Skat score pad alongside Elliott advertising material and a magazine-subscription card.

In his Complete Hoyle, Foster describes the game as it is played by two players, and versions suitable for three or four. He describes the three-handed game, perhaps a little insensitively to modern ears, as playing “with a widow”, claiming it to be “certainly the most fascinating form of the game”.

As far as I can discover, Foster appears to be the only contemporary writer including pinochle in his range of games offered to readers. His second and by far the most important publication in this regard was his “Comprehensive Handbook to the Card Games”, 1906 or 1907.^[5] This volume is particularly fascinating in the context of the literature on card games at the turn of the century. The Publishers’ Preface describes the book as “original from cover to cover. It is the only entirely original book on games that has appeared for 150 years. Instead of being a compilation of various authors, hastily gathered together in book form and published without regard to completeness or accuracy, and without any of the careful revision needed to bring the various games up to date, this work is that of a single author, who has made the subject of games a lifelong study, and every word in the description of each game is written expressly for this book.”

In this way the publishers put the boot in to every previous author of compendiums of games since the mid-18^th century (including, incidentally, Foster himself whose Complete Hoyle was published on both sides of the Atlantic at roughly the same time). The game descriptions are certainly different from those which have gone before, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the fourteen pages devoted to what is designated as “Pinocle” in the Alphabetical Contents and “Binocle” in the Sectional Contents in which the game is classed as part of the “Bezique Family”. While Foster was content to present “The Pocket Laws of Pinochle” in his pocket guide and boxed set (see above), not so here. He takes the opportunity of more space to be far more discursive and in doing so makes a real contribution to the understanding of the game and its origins. He also demonstrates that he is almost as much of a pedant as I am!

Under the uncompromising heading “Binocle” he writes: “Binocle is spelt in many different ways, all of which are, however, phonetic equivalents of the correct one. The word is evidently from the Latin ‘binus’, double, and ‘oculus’, an eye, and was probably adopted on account of the importance of the double combinations which are the chief counting elements in the game. In all German works on card games the name is spelt as we give it, but the pronunciation of the initial ‘b’ in the German is so near that of ‘p’, that ‘Pinocle’ is nearer the correct spelling than any other form. There is no authority for the introduction of the ‘h’, which has led some persons to think the word a compound of ‘bis’ and ‘knochle’, and has given rise to the forms: binochle, pinochle, pinuchle, pinucle, penucle, penuchle, penuckle, and pinuckel, all of which may be found in various works on card games.”

If he thought that this analysis would bring to an end this huge variation in spelling the name of this game and settle on “Binocle”, he would by now be disappointed. There is a greater level of agreement than before but virtually all of the modern literature on the game, and the vast majority of packs of cards designed for the purpose, carry the title as “Pinochle” including the much-despised “h”, although “Pinocle” is still in evidence.

Indeed, the only other item from this game in my collection is a pair of “pinocle” markers using the familiar Chas. Goodall design with pop-up tabs, in a variety of woods. They are small (3¾” x 2½”) and in perfect working order. For reasons discussed above, it is unlikely that these were British made for the local market. Yet the spelling (omitting the “h”) suggests they are not manufactured in America. My best guess is that they were made in France or Germany for the local market, or even for export.

Above: two Pinochle scoring boards with numbered counters for tracking the score to 1,000 points.

Returning to Foster’s description of the game, he helpfully explains the use of the counters in the set pictured above. “The game is 1,000 points, and is usually scored with counters, each player being provided with four white, worth 10 each; four blue, worth 100 each; one red, worth 50; and a copper cent or button, which represents 500. These counters are placed on the left of the player at the beginning of the game, and are moved over to his right as the points accrue. The game is sometimes kept on a cribbage board, each player starting at 21, and going twice round to the game-hole, reckoning each peg as 10 points.”

With this same degree of detail, Foster describes the various forms of the game (for two, three or four players) and offers advice on the most effective ways of playing. He also has some fascinating sections on Cheating, how to spot it and how to manage those who are discovered.

But finally, as if to underline my point in writing this article, he lists at the end of this section on Binocle, the “Text-Books” which players might find most useful. Some of these are well known; others less so^[6], but all of them – without exception – are about Bezique, Royal Bezique or Rubicon Bezique. There is no single text book which deals specifically with the game Binocle, or Pinochle, or whatever you decide to call it! The reason for the failure of this game to break into the British card game market remains a mystery.

Footnotes

1. Although I know no-one who plays, I found a number of playing options available online which fortunately do all the calculations which are otherwise mind-boggling, at least for a beginner. ←
2. Michael H. Goodall, Goodall Card Game Booklets, 1868–1922, 2016. ←
3. Lewis Levy, The Pinocle Primer, NY, 1886, and T. S. Ford, “Double Pinocle for Two, Three or Four Players”, Chicago, 1898. ←
4. Glance at eBay where there are always many dozens of Pinochle packs, new and old, available for sale. ←
5. The book, published by Simkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., in London and Thomas D. Morison in Glasgow, is not dated. But it does not appear in Jessel’s comprehensive bibliography of card game writers in 1905 and my copy is inscribed, probably by the original owner, in 1907. ←
6. Bezique and Cribbage, by Berkeley; The Royal Game of Bezique, by Chas. Goodall; Pocket Guide to Bezique, by “Cavendish”; Bezique by J. L. Baldwin; Rubicon Bezique, by “Cavendish”; Bezique by Reynolds & Son; Bezique, by English; Regle du Bezique Japonais. ←