Pedro (card game)

Pedro, also known as Cinch, High Five or Double Pedro, is a trick-taking card game for four players in fixed partnerships, with partners sitting opposite one another. It is played with a standard 52-card pack. The high bidder in each hand chooses the trump suit, and the five of trumps, the pedro itself, is worth five points; the other five of the same colour also counts as a trump worth five points and is called the low or left pedro. The game was developed in the United States in the nineteenth century as a variation of Pitch and was extremely widely played there by the end of that century, though its popularity declined during the twentieth. It is still played in the southern United States and on the West Coast, with strong local followings such as the Louisiana parishes of Lafourche and Terrebonne. Related forms are played in Nicaragua, in the Finnish region of Österbotten under the name Pidro, in parts of Italy and in the Azores, and further games such as King Pedro, Sixty-three and Eighty-three add more scoring cards.