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I am told by the Freeverse Ministry that this game is also known as "Setback," and they go on to explain that the former name is used on the West Coast and the latter on the East Coast. I think they probably made this whole bit about the east coast/west coast thing up, perhaps to fuel the Suge Knight/Puffy Combs feud. Or maybe it had something to do with avoiding breaking some tax or copyright law. Regardless, having grown up in New York State, and then spending six years all over the west coast, I've only ever heard this game called Pitch. As a youngster on the swim team, there was a LOT of time in between events for us to do various things, and it was during these periods that countless games of Pitch were played amongst my sister and me, and our friends. My mother figured that as long as we were playing cards, the chances were greatly reduced we were going to crack our skulls open doing something dangerous and/or stupid. Granted, any competition between my sister and I always had the chance to turn violent and therefore potentially skull-cracking, but having avoided killing each other in various aborted plots before we turned 10, my mom basically figured neither of us had the guts and stopped supervising. Anyhow, the point is that this a game that can be learned quickly and played quickly as well, making it a great way to pass the time while proving yourself superior to someone you're close to.

Pitch is like a number of trick-taking trump-suit games, only faster-paced. It can be played with four or more people. 4 people can play it as partner game, like spades, or the game can be played cutthroat with, from my recollection, as many as 7. Actually, mathematically, 8 people could play, although I can't imagine what that would be like.

The Object
Missing!

The Play
Each person is dealt out 6 cards. (note: When I learned to play, for some reason the deal was always three cards at a time to each person. I have no idea why, nor do I have any idea if anyone else anywhere plays this way. Maybe it's an "east coast/west coast" thing.) Upon looking at their cards, the person to the left of the dealer starts the bids or passes, based on how many points they think they will take in that hand, from 2-5. The minimum bid is 2, and the maximum bid is one to "shoot the moon" or take all the tricks possible. If everyone passes on bidding, the dealer is forced to accept the bid at 2. The person who wins the bid chooses the trump suit and starts the play. Players must follow suit or you can play a trump card, and the highest suit led or the highest trump card wins the trick. While playing partners, of course, any trick taken by you or your partner counts towards your cumulative bid. When counting up points in your tricks towards the high point total ("game"), the values are: Ace-4, King-3, Queen-2, Jack-1, and 10's are 10 points, so they are important cards to win.

The Winner
There are 4 points to be gained by winning the tricks in Pitch: high card in trump, low card in trump, Jack of trump, and "game" in the collective number of points in your captured tricks. You are awarded whatever points you have in your collected winnings after all six tricks have been played. If you do not win the bid but end up with, say, the low card in trump, you still get that point. If you bid 3 and end up with only 2 points, you do not get any of the points you won, but instead are assessed the full negative value of your bid (in this case, -3). The game is played until someone makes it to an agreed upon number of points, 11, 15, 21, maybe 5001 if you are in prison somewhere.

Tips
As the game is so brief, per hand, my strategy tips are as well:

Always pick up a bid of two, as having the trump will almost always bring you the bid, if not a few more points.

Don't bid four without having the Jack in your hand, and never forget that bidding 4 is NOT the same as bidding to shoot the moon.

Unless playing to 11, don't sweat much of what occurs, as there will be another hand in a few more tricks. But if the game IS to 11, do just the opposite- don't let anything escape your attention, as each hand is important.

Variations
MISSING.
we need the gambling variation and obviously all the variations in our card games.

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Personal Use Is Encouraged, Have A Wonderfull Time!

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