PITCH

OBJECTIVE OF PITCH: To be the player that scores the most points by winning tricks during hands.

NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 2 – 4, more can play, but it’s best to have even numbers of players.

RANK OF CARDS: Ace, K, Q, J, Jick, High Joker, Low Joker 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.

TYPE OF GAME: Trick-taking

AUDIENCE: Teens and up, families.

PITCH – HOW TO DEAL

The dealer will deal clockwise starting to their left. They should deal three cards at a time to each player. Each player should have nine cards.

HOW TO BID:

Starting with the player who is on the left of the dealer, each player must state their bid which is the equivalent to how many hands they think they can win in that round.

Once a bid has been made the next player to follow must bid higher or pass. The player to state the highest bid is the winner and gets to determine the trump suit.

Draw Back

All players except for the player that won the bid must give the dealer all the cards in their hand that do NOT match the trump suit. They are then dealt new cards until they have a total of six total cards in their hand.

Once players have six cards in their hand the remaing deck is given to the bid winner and they take all the remaing trump cards in the deck and add it to their hand and discard any remaining non-trump suited cards. If they have more than six trump cards in hand then they must discard non-point cards face up for others to see until they have only six cards in hand. Once this is done play can begin.

HOW TO PLAY PITCH

Once the bids have been made, it’s time to commence gameplay. The player that won the bid is the first to play. Only trump suited cards can be played. Following the suit selected by the winner of the bid, a player has two choices: Follow suit or, if the player cannot follow the suit then they must flip their hand over and are done playing for that round.

The player that plays a card which is the highest card of the suit chosen wins the “trick” and starts the next round. There is one exception, the player that plays the two of the trump suit gets to keep that point card even if they don’t win the round. Remember that only the trump suit can be played and the ranking is as follows from high to low – Ace, K, Q, J, Jick, High Joker, Low Joker 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.

The Jick is the jack of the matching suit color and is also considered a trump card. For example, if the Trump suit is Spades, then Jack of Spades as well as the Jack of Clubs will both be considered trumps and the jack of clubs is called the “Jick”

There are six rounds (or “tricks”) in total, hence the six cards that are dealt to players at the beginning of the game. Players should keep a count of how many rounds they win.

SCORING SYSTEM

At the end of each round, players’ cards are scored like this:

One point for each point card with the exception of the three, the three is worth three points.
A team must win the number of tricks they bid otherwise they will get negative the amount of tricks that they bid. For example if team A bid four and only won two then they will get (-4) points for that game.
Game is played to 52 points or whatever number is set by the players before the start of the game.

HOW TO WIN

The first team to reach 52 points (or whatever number set at the beginning of the game) is the winner. The number of points that is possible to win varies, depending on how many rounds the players want to keep going for.

Speacial Rule

If a player bids 10 points (known as shooting the moon) and they win all 10 points then that team automatically wins the game as long as they were not negative points beforehand. Being negative on the score sheet is known as being “in the hole”.

STRATEGIES FOR WINNING

Only bid once you’ve seen the cards in your hand and considered how to play them. If you have weak cards, do not bid a high number. If you have an Ace, bid a 2 or a 3. If you have an Ace and a King of the same suit, bid a 4.

Try not to bid based on any Jack cards that you hold in your hand. You may not be playing the same suit.

SIMILAR GAMES

If you’re looking for other Trick-Taking card games, you might try one of these:

Euchre – a simple game played with 24 cards, where your goal is to be the first player to reach the points goal by grabbing tricks during rounds.

Spades – a popular and classic card game where you estimate how many tricks you can take during a round based on the cards you’ve been given by the dealer.

Hearts – a game where your aim is to lose tricks rather than gain them.

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6 thoughts on “PITCH”

Colleen
September 21, 2020 at 4:27 pm | Reply
When playing pitch are you allowed to go through the cards that have been played to see what is left? I thought you were supposed to remember what has been played. That is the idea of playing well. To see if the high cards have all been played, remembering is all part of a good player.
Amber Crook
September 21, 2020 at 9:55 pm | Reply
Hi Colleen, I have never seen this rule specified for pitch but with similar games there usually is a rule stating players may not look through previously won tricks. I suppose it could be played either way as long as players agree at the start of the game. I hope this helps!
Mary Anne Morris
January 9, 2021 at 11:39 pm | Reply
Is there such a thing as taking a “set” if your are the dealer and no one has bid? Also if no one has a counter card or face card, can the call for a redeal?
Amber Crook
January 11, 2021 at 10:39 pm | Reply
Hi Mary, yes the dealer must make a bid of 2 or more if all other players have passed during bidding. AS far as redealing, I have not heard of this or a variation allowing for it. I hope this helps.
Gerald Schnurr
June 12, 2021 at 3:25 pm | Reply
If a person took the 10 (Game) put another person took the A (4Points) the K ( 3points) Q(2points) and the J (1point), is it considered no game?
Amber Crook
June 15, 2021 at 8:15 pm | Reply
Hi Gerald, I am not sure what your question is referring to totally. If you are asking about bidding 10 to win the game, you will have to win all 10 points in the round. if you do not then you lose and lose 10 points. The scorable cards available in a round include the Ace of trump, Jack of trump, Jack of matching color, high joker, low joker, 10 of trump, 3 of trump, and 2 of trump. All these are worth 1 point with the exception of 3 which is worth 3 points. I hope this helps.