Penchant is a two-person trick-taking card game invented in 1893 by John Smith McTear (aka “Jack Sharpe”), but lost to history. It is in the “marriage” family of traditional card games, along with Bezique and Pinochle, and uses a "piquet" deck of 7-A in four suits. Penchant’s unique scoring, method of setting trump, and the addition of blocking melds add extra dimensions of skill to the basic bezique framework.

Each round consists of two phases: the first ten tricks and an end-game of six tricks played from each player's melds drawn back into his or her hand.

Players score for winning aces, 10s, and 7s in tricks (“brisques”), and for melding combinations. Scoring combinations include four of a kind, marriage (king and queen of same suit), sequences, and Penchants (queen and jack). Players systematically block and unblock each other from melding by playing “elder” (face) combinations. Scoring includes a “book bonus” of the most brisques reminiscent of Whist.

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