How To Play Pinochle by Lloyd Edwin Smith First Ed 1935 RARE Out of Print OOP

This is the original first edition from 1935, not the reprint sold online.

If you are into games, this is really a great book to own.

Good condition.  No dust jacket.

Pinochle, 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 literally meaning "two eyes", or "eyeglasses" or "binoculars", and was a reference to the mythical notion that the German game of Binocle was invented with a special deck where the Queen of Spades and Jack of Diamonds were pictured in side profile with just one eye each. There are also suggestions that the word pinochle comes from bis (until) and Knöchel (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 of Binokel 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. Auction Pinochle for three players has some similarities with the German game Skat, although the bidding is more similar to that of Bid Whist.