Pedro (game)

About 7 pages (2,144 words)

Pedro (pronounced "peedro") or sometimes known as Pidro or Petro is a card game usually played by four people, who are usually divided into two partnerships sitting across from each other. It is a point-cards, trick-taking game played with a standard deck of 52 cards and, in some variations, one Joker. Each hand consists of four phases:

The deal
The bid
The wash and the second (fill) deal
The play

1 Introduction
2 The deal
3 The bid
4 The second deal
5 The play
6 Variations
7 External links

Introduction

In Pedro, the following point values are assigned to the following cards of the trump suit:

Ace - 1 Point
Jack - 3 Point
Ten - 1 Point
Five - 5 Points
Pedro ("Off-Suit Five") - 5 Points
Two (the Keeper) - 1 point

The Pedro ("Off Suit Five") refers to the same-color-as-trump Five Card of a different suit. For example, if Spades are being played, the Five of Clubs is the "Pedro" and considered trump. The trump suit 5 has a bigger value than the pedro. There are fourteen points for each hand. The rank of cards is as follows: [In trump suit:] A,K,Q,J,10,9,8,7,6,5,Pedro,4,3,2. NOTE: The Pedro is trump! A game is won when a team reaches 91 points, if both teams reach 91 points after the same hand the team who bid is the winner. This is called "bidder goes out".

The deal

The four players are divided into two teams, with partners sitting opposite each other at the table. The dealer shuffles the card and has the preceding player cut the deck. The dealer deals out nine cards, three at a time, beginning with the player to the immediate left.

The bid

Beginning with the first player to the left of the dealer, the players bid in turn as to how many of the 16 possible points they believe their team can take in play. The minimum bid is 6. Each successive player must bid at least one point higher or pass. Once a player passes he may not bid again. Players may outbid their partner. If no other player bids, the dealer takes the bid for 6. Total points in any hand are 16. One may double the total points to 32 with a "16 for 32" bid. The player must have the Ace and two of trump to make the bid, and must finish with all points to get 32 points.

The second deal

Whichever player bids the highest point value, that player then declares the suit of play for that hand, the trump suit. All players retain the on-suit cards in their hand (including the Pedro "off-suit five") and place all other cards in the middle of the table. The dealer than takes the remaining cards and deals each player up to six cards, beginning with the player to the immediate left. For example, if the player has 4 trump cards, he will receive 2 cards from the dealer. In many variations, a player may retain more than 6 cards in their hand, provided they are all trump. In the event that a player has more than 6 trump, he must play all but 5 of those cards on the first play. Only one of the cards played in this manner can be a point card. After the second deal to the other three players, the dealer may view all remaining cards in the deck. They may retain more than 6 cards, provided they are trump. If the remaining deck does not have enough cards to give the dealer six cards for the play, then the dealer must take enough cards from the "wash" to make a six-card hand.

The play

Winner of the bid starts play. If trump is led, players must follow with trump. Trump or highest trump takes the book (the trick) for that team. Winner of each book starts the next book. If nontrump (off suit) is led, any other nontrump can be followed, it does not need to be the same suit. If non-trump is led and all other players play non-trump cards, then the same player must lead again. Highest trump played in a round led off suit will take the lead on the next round. If nontrump is led, a player can play any card in their hand. It is not necessary to follow the suit led in an off suit round. Trump must be followed. If trump is led, and a player does not have trump, they must fold. The Two Card (Keeper) stays with the team that has it, i.e., if it’s thrown in a book and that book is lost, it still just goes right back to the team that had it in the first place. At the end of the hand the point cards won in the books are counted for each team. Both teams receive the points they win in a hand, unless the bidding team didn’t reach their bid, then they will lose the amount they bid.

Variations

Most variations involve differences in the point assignments.

One Canadian Variation

Here is a popular system of points played in Canada:

Ace - 1 point
King - 25 points
Jack - 1 point
Ten - 1 point
Nine - 9 points
Five - 5 points
Five of other color - 5 points
Two (keeper) - 1 point

Total of 48 points.

Isle Madame Variation

In Isle Madame and surrounding areas on Cape Breton Island (Province of Nova Scotia, Canada) the game is called Pede and is played in both French and English. The point system is as follows:

Ace (High) - 1 point
King - 25 points
Jack - 1 point
Ten - 1 point
'Good' Pede - 5 points
Pede - 5 points
Two (called 'The Low') - 1 point

Total of 39 points. The Isle Madame version is generally played with the following variations:

The Joker is not used.
Bidding is from 25 to 39.
Sometimes players will bid without a King to lure the other team into bidding higher. This can be costly since the King is required to make any bid.
The dealer has an advantage since he/she does not discard. After all other players have received their second fill, the dealer mixes the remaining cards into his own nine cards and then sorts through all the cards. Thus, no one knows how many trump the dealer had in his original nine cards.
No one can ever have more than six cards. If someone has more than six trump, they must discard non-scoring cards. Should they have all seven point scoring cards, they must discard a card worth 1 point, usually the Ten.
Winner of the bid must lead trump on the first trick (book). If they have no trump, they can play anything (rare).
When a nontrump ('offsuit') card is led, players must follow suit, unless they wish to play a trump. If they cannot follow suit, they may play anything. The rank of nontrump is exactly the same as trump, with the Pede as the only exception. Although the trick is worth nothing, it decides who leads the next card. Thus, the nontrump cards that the dealer decides to keep might influence the outcome of the play. Note that trump cards always take any nontrump cards.
When players run out of trump they may fold their hand by throwing it face down on the table. They are out of play for all remaining tricks of this round.
If the winners of the bid lose the King, this is referred to as the 'death' of the King since the score of the team that won the bid goes down significantly and the score of the other team goes up significantly.
Winner of the game is the first team to reach 221. Once a team reaches any score over 199, their score is locked in place. The only way that their score will change (including winning the game) is if they take the bid OR make the other team's bid. If they make the other team's bid this is an automatic win at any score above 199.

Tennessee Variation

In central Tennessee, the game is played as described above with a few variations in point cards, trump cards, and scoring.

Rules for first deal, bidding, second deal, and play are as described above.
More trump cards are defined, and a 54 card deck (standard with two jokers) is used. Both jokers, and the off-suit Jack (same color as trumps) are defined to be trumps along with the suit called by the winning bidder. One joker is deemed the "Main Joker" and the other is deemed the "Off Joker" - usually the joker with the small print describing the playing card manufacturer copyright and information is the "Off Joker".
Rank is A-K-Q - Main Jack - Off Jack - Main Joker - Off Joker - 10-9-8-7-6 - Main 5 - Off 5 - 4-3-2. This defines 17 trump cards in each hand.
Single point cards are the Ace, both the Jacks (Main and Off), both the Jokers (Main and Off), 10, and 2. Each 5 - Main and Off - is worth 5 points each, for a total of 17 points per hand.
The "keeper" rule does not apply to the 2.
Minimum bid is 9. If none of the three players bid, the dealer gets the bid for 9 - called a "push up". Maximum bid is 17. The minimum bid is 9, because it is more than half of 17.
The game is played to 52 points, thus forcing 4 hands (only 51 points can be scored in 3 hands).
In the event of a tie, with both teams having 52 points or more, the bidding team wins.
"Shooting the Moon" is sometimes allowed. To win, the team must capture all 17 points. The team shooting the moon does not necessarily have to catch every trick.
If a team has a negative score, ("in the hole") then the first bidding player is required to "shoot the moon" and the second bidding player is required to "double shoot the moon". This situation forces the calling of trumps to the second player in the bidding rotation, on the team desiring to shoot the moon.
"Shooting the moon" is not necessarily allowed, depending on the rules established between players at the beginning of the game.
There is no rank among non-trump cards. Example: spades are trumps, a 2 of hearts is led, no other player plays a trump card -- the player playing the 2 of hearts catches the trick and plays first again, even if the ace of hearts is played by someone else on top of it. Any trump card catches any non-trump card.
The cards that are left after the second deal are referred to as the "widow". If the bidder has 6 or more trumps after having sorted through the widow, he/she may slide trump or non-trump cards to his/her partner. If receiving trumps causes the receiving partner to have more than 6 trumps, he/she then gives a trump card (usually of no value) to the opposing player to his/her right.
Players on the non-bidding-team may elect to give up and "throw in" or "throw down" to save time, thus awarding the team that won the bid all 17 points. Sliding non-trump cards can sometimes bluff the non-bidding team into giving up, when perhaps a point or two could have been captured.
In the (unlikely) event that a player on the non-bidding-team has more than 6 trumps, then he/she she may slide to his/her partner as above.
A "misdeal" may be called if a player has no point cards during the first 9-card deal. A slight variation on this rule adds no point cards or face cards.
When a player runs out of trumps, he/she must state that they are "down" and discard the remaining part of his/her hand after the lead player plays on the next trick; even if non-trumps are led.
With a 54 card deck in use, there are 18 cards remaining for the second deal. The total number of cards held by the 3 players not winning the bid, will be the number of cards that the bidder gets in the widow. If all 3 players call for 6 cards each - none has any trumps - then the bidder gets no widow.