🎯 Pitch

🎯 The idea

Everybody bids for the right to name trump. Win the bidding and you lead the first card — whatever suit you lead is trump. There are only four points in a hand however it falls, and you have to take at least as many as you said you would.

⚡ The rule that catches everybody

Even if you can follow the suit that was led, you may play a trump instead. Always. The only thing you may not do is throw away a different suit while you still hold the one led.
This is not how Hearts, Spades or Euchre work, and it is most of what makes Pitch its own game. Cards you may not play go grey.

4️⃣ The four points

High — the highest trump anybody played.
Low — the lowest trump anybody played.
Jack — the jack of trump, if it was dealt at all. It goes to whoever wins the trick it falls in, which may not be who played it.
Game — count the cards you took: ace 4, king 3, queen 2, jack 1, and a ten is worth ten. Most points takes Game; a tie gives it to nobody.
The ten beating the ace is the strangest thing in this game, and it is right.

🪜 The bidding

Bid 2, 3 or Smudge, or pass. Smudge says you will take all four. There is no bid of 4 — that is what Smudge is.
If everybody passes, the dealer is stuck with it at two. The dealer may also match a bid to take it; everybody else must beat it.
Make your bid and you score everything you took. Miss it and you are set back by the amount you bid — that is the "setback" the game is named after, and it can put you below zero. Everybody who did not bid always scores what they took.

🙂 Levels

🌱 Sprout: two opponents, honest bidding.
🧭 Scout: three opponents who count their points first.
🏆 Ace: four opponents who will trump your good suits.
A level sets the switches in ⚙️ Settings.

🤖 Auto

Tap 🤖 Auto at the top and the game plays your hand too — your bid, the pitch, every card, and on into the next hand — at the same pace as everyone else. Handy when you need to put the phone down. Tap it again to take over; the game finishes the card it is on and then waits for you.

It plays for keeps. It will bid, and if it wins the bid it also chooses the card it leads — which means it picks trump. Miss the bid and you are set back by the amount of it, so a hand can cost you four points of an eleven-point game while you are not looking. It bids the gold number and plays like an opponent at your level, seeing only what you see. The button stays lit the whole time, so it is never a mystery who is playing.

📖 There is no official Pitch

This is a folk game with a dozen published versions that disagree with each other. These are our rules, not the rules. Common differences:

• Low going to whoever takes it rather than whoever plays it. (Here every card is played, so ours also means "whoever was dealt it".)
• Smudge winning the whole game outright.
• A flat setback of three, whatever you bid — that one is in ⚙️ Settings.
• Bids of 4, or playing to 11 or 21.
• Pedro: a six- or ten-point game with the fives counting.

📜 The rules

🖨️ A card for the table

Print the rules on one sheet, fold it into a card and keep it in the deck box. One side, no scissors. Open the printable rules card

🔎 What everything means