The Basics
Pitch is the name of the game itself, but it is also a verb: to pitch means to lead the first card of the hand, and its suit becomes trump. The player who wins the bidding does the pitching, which is why the game is called Pitch in the first place.
Trump is the suit chosen for the hand; any trump card beats any card of the other three suits. A trick is one round of play in which each player contributes a card, and the highest card wins it. To follow suit means to play a card of the suit that was led, which you must do if you can. To trump in means to play a trump when you cannot follow a non-trump lead, capturing the trick.
One rule surprises players coming from other games: in most Pitch rules you may play a trump on any lead, even when you could follow suit. You are only required to follow suit if you choose not to trump. This is sometimes called trumping at will, and it gives every hand more tactical options than a strict follow-suit game.
Bidding Terms
A bid is a promise to capture at least a certain number of points, two, three, or four in the standard game. To pass is to decline to bid, staying out of the auction. The highest bidder wins the right to name trump and must make the bid or suffer the penalty.
Stick the dealer is a popular rule that forces the dealer to take the bid at the minimum if everyone else passes, so no hand is thrown in. A smudge is a bid of four, claiming all the points at once; many groups reward a made smudge with bonus points or an outright win. Shooting the moon is another informal name for going all in on the maximum bid.
Dealer may steal, sometimes called the dealer's privilege, is a house rule that lets the dealer take the contract by matching the current high bid rather than topping it. A misdeal is any deal with the wrong number of cards or an exposed card, usually fixed by reshuffling and dealing again with the same dealer.
The Four Points
High is the point awarded for the highest trump dealt in the hand; whoever holds it scores it automatically. Low is the point for the lowest trump captured, and it goes to whoever wins the trick containing that card, not necessarily the player dealt it. Jack is the point for capturing the jack of the trump suit, and it only exists if that jack is in play.
Game is the point for taking the most card-value points across all your tricks. For the Game count each ten is worth ten, each ace four, each king three, each queen two, and each jack one; all other cards count nothing. These counting cards are often just called counters, and tens are the most prized because they carry the most value.
A quick example ties the four points together. If hearts are trump and you hold the ace of hearts, you score High no matter who wins that trick. If your partner later captures the two of hearts, your side takes Low. Some regional rules give Low to whoever was dealt the lowest trump instead, so check which version your table uses.
Making, Missing, and Being Set
To make a bid is to capture at least as many points as you promised, after which you score every point you took. To be set, also called being setback, is to fall short of your bid; the full amount of the bid is then subtracted from your score, and you keep none of the points you won that hand.
Because a set subtracts points, a player can go into the hole, meaning below zero. That risk is the central tension of Pitch: only the bidding side can be set, while the defenders always keep whatever points they capture. The name Setback, another common title for the game, comes directly from this penalty.
What Do Going Out and Counting Out Mean?
Going out means reaching the target score, commonly 7, 11, or 21, and winning the game. When two sides could both reach the target on the same hand, most tables follow the bidder goes out first rule, meaning the bidding side counts its points first. Some groups instead count the points in a fixed order, High, Low, Jack, Game, and the first side to cross the line wins.
When the Game count is tied, the most common rule is that nobody scores the Game point that hand. A few groups award it to the bidder or the dealer instead. Being on the board means having a positive score, while being in the hole means your score is below zero.
What Are the Common Strategy Terms in Pitch?
To pull trump, or draw trump, is to lead trump repeatedly to strip it from your opponents' hands. A void is a suit you hold no cards in, which lets you trump that suit when it is led. To slough, throw off, or dump is to discard a worthless card on a trick you cannot or do not want to win.
To protect a card means holding enough cover to keep it from being captured, such as keeping a low trump behind the jack. To feed a counter is to throw a valuable card, often a ten, onto a trick your partner is already winning. To cash is to play a sure winner, like an off-suit ace, before an opponent can trump it.
Finally, a renege is a breach of the follow-suit rule, discarding an off-suit card when you could have followed the suit led. Because trumping at will is legal in Pitch, playing trump is never a renege. Penalties vary, but many groups set the offending side for its bid or award the hand's points to the other side.
Cards in the Popular Variants
The off-Jack, sometimes called the jick, is the jack of the suit that matches the trump suit's color. In variants that use it, the off-Jack becomes a trump ranking just below the true jack and scores a point when captured. It works much like the left bower in Euchre.
A pedro is the five of trump in Pedro and Cinch games, worth five points; the left pedro is the five of the same color, also worth five and ranking just below the right pedro. The ten of trump is a scoring card in some higher-point variants, and a joker is added by some groups as an extra trump and point. Which of these appear depends entirely on the version you are playing.
Around the Table
The deal is the distribution of cards to begin a hand, and the dealer rotates each time. To lead is to play the first card of a trick; the winner of one trick leads the next. Cutthroat describes a version with no partnerships, where every player scores for themselves, common in three-handed Pitch.
A partner is your teammate in the four-player partnership game, sitting across the table and sharing your score. House rules are the local variations a group agrees on before playing, the target score, whether stick the dealer is used, how a smudge is rewarded, and which extra cards count. Because Pitch has so many variants, settling the house rules first is always wise. You can see many of these options in action at pitch.ac.
What Terms Will You See When Playing Pitch Online?
Online Pitch adds a few words of its own. A room is a private table, usually joined with a short room code that the host shares with friends. A bot or AI player fills any empty seat so the game can start right away. A quick game is a short match, often played to 7 points instead of 11 or 21.
On pitch.ac you will also see house-rule toggles like dealer-may-steal and stick-the-dealer that the host switches on before the game, plus the Showdown, a free 64-seat tournament held every Wednesday and Sunday at 7pm ET where players compete for gems.