Spades and Hearts have boomed in popularity through play on the Internet. In the case of Euchre, there are also local clubs and leagues . This game, which uses the standard 52-card pack, is said to have been invented in 1909 in New York by E. T. Baker . It became very popular in the 1940s and was said to played by film stars in Hollywood. Pinochle is a trick-taking game with bidding, usually played by four players in partnerships.
Players score points for melding combinations of cards, and for taking certain cards in tricks.
There are bidding systems which, as in Bridge, are used to convey information to the partner. Or it can be an 80-card double Pinochle deck, made by combining two of the single decks and dropping the 9s. This National Card Sharks site has information about Pinochle and Bid Whist in the USA, with details of tournaments and clubs . There is a National Pinochle Association , with affiliated clubs in 20 states, the greatest concentration of them being in Georgia and Florida. A National Pinochle Title was contested in Augusta, Georgia in September 1998 and the winners were Miriam Lucia and Lester McCray .