Pinochle score sheet
Three lines a hand, because three numbers decide it: what was bid, what the meld came to, and what the tricks brought in. The pad prints the meld table beside the grid and applies the rule that matters most — a bidder who falls short loses the whole bid, not the difference.
Keep score in the browser
The grid below is the sheet. Type into it and the totals, bonuses and thresholds are applied as you go; press Print at any point and the paper version comes out with whatever is in the boxes.
Two partnerships, a column each.
Names and scores stay in this browser and nothing is uploaded. Where a game has competing conventions the sheet says which one it applies. Check this before you rely on it. This score sheet and scorekeeper is provided free and without warranty, and its results are not professional advice.
Pinochle score sheet
Date ____________
| Score | Player 1 | Player 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Hand 1 — bid | ||
| Hand 1 — meld | ||
| Hand 1 — tricks | ||
| Hand 1 — total | ||
| Hand 2 — bid | ||
| Hand 2 — meld | ||
| Hand 2 — tricks | ||
| Hand 2 — total | ||
| Hand 3 — bid | ||
| Hand 3 — meld | ||
| Hand 3 — tricks | ||
| Hand 3 — total | ||
| Hand 4 — bid | ||
| Hand 4 — meld | ||
| Hand 4 — tricks | ||
| Hand 4 — total | ||
| Hand 5 — bid | ||
| Hand 5 — meld | ||
| Hand 5 — tricks | ||
| Hand 5 — total | ||
| Hand 6 — bid | ||
| Hand 6 — meld | ||
| Hand 6 — tricks | ||
| Hand 6 — total | ||
| Total |
What each meld is worth
- Run in trump 150
- Marriage in trump 40
- Marriage, plain suit 20
- Queen of spades with jack of diamonds 40
- Both of those pairs 300
- An ace of every suit 100
- A king of every suit 80
- A queen of every suit 60
- A jack of every suit 40
- Nine of trump 10
Bid, meld and tricks on separate lines, because a bidder who falls short loses the bid instead of scoring it.
Add up a meld, then test it against the bid
Tick what you are holding and the meld total appears. Put the bid and the tricks beside it and the line turns negative the moment the two together fall short, which is the swing that decides the hand.
A worked example
The same side bidding twice: 300 with 210 to show for it, then 250 with 280.
| What happened | Points |
|---|---|
| Bid 300, made 210 — the bid is lost, not the difference | -300 |
| Bid 250, made 280 — the whole 280 counts | 280 |
| Total | -20 |
Falling short costs the bid, not the shortfall
Bid three hundred, show a hundred and twenty in meld, take ninety in tricks, and you do not score two hundred and ten. You lose three hundred. The meld goes with it. That is a six-hundred-point swing against a hand that was only ninety short, and it is the single fact that makes bidding in this game frightening.
Keeping the bid on its own line is what makes the rule enforceable on paper, because the figure being compared has to still be visible when the tricks are counted. The keeper applies it directly: enter a bid and the line goes negative the moment meld plus tricks falls under it.
The meld table, printed where you need it
A run in the trump suit is a hundred and fifty. The queen of spades with the jack of diamonds is forty, and both of those pairs together jump to three hundred rather than eighty. An ace of every suit is a hundred, kings eighty, queens sixty, jacks forty, and the nine of trumps ten. A marriage in trumps is forty; in any other suit it is twenty.
Nobody remembers all of that, and passing the rulebook round after every deal is how a session slows to a crawl. The table prints beside the grid, so the meld can be counted where it is being written down. The double-pair figure in particular is worth having in front of you, since it is far larger than doubling the single one would suggest.
Two hundred and fifty in the tricks
Counting cards taken during play total two hundred and fifty across the whole hand, with the last trick worth ten. Since meld and tricks are added together against the bid, knowing that ceiling tells a bidder how much of their contract has to come from cards they can already see — which is precisely the calculation made while the bidding is still going.
Keeping the trick figure separate from the meld also makes a hand checkable. The trick totals for both sides must add to two hundred and fifty; if they do not, something was miscounted, and finding that out on the spot is much easier than discovering it three hands later.
Common questions
Which version of the game is this sheet for?
The partnership game with a single forty-eight card deck, scored on the scale where a run in trumps is a hundred and fifty and the tricks total two hundred and fifty. Double-deck play uses larger figures throughout but the same three-line structure per hand.
What happens to the other side when a bid is set?
They score their own meld and tricks as normal. Only the bidding side loses its bid, which is why a set hand is such a large swing — one side goes backwards while the other banks a full hand.
Does the non-bidding side need to meld anything to score?
In most versions they must take at least one trick to keep their meld; failing that, the meld is lost. It is a rule that catches a side that has been thoroughly outplayed, and it is worth agreeing before the first deal.
What is the game played to?
Fifteen hundred is common, and a thousand or two thousand are both played. The pad has six hands, which usually gets there; a longer game continues on a second page with the totals carried across.
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