Pitch

I'm going home for Xmas on Saturday and my sister will be there.  That means a few things: 1) we'll play lots of TCM Scene It, 2) We might watch Centennial, and 3) we'll play some cards.

I think I'm gonna try to get people to play pitch.  My sister and I used to play it with my Great Aunts and Uncles on my Dad's side (we are talking like ~15 years ago here) and we both used to be good at it.  So much so that the very competitive Leus would frequently get cranky that they were being beat by a twelve year old and an eight year old.

Anyways, I haven't played it in quite a while, but I thought I'd post up the rules for people who might be interested in playing some time.

You start with a 53 card deck (52+one joker).  The deal rotates each hand (just like poker!) and you are supposed to deal out six cards to each person, three cards at a time.  One of my cousins always had an issue with the deal out three at a time, and it probably doesn't matter if you deal one or three in the long run, but it's supposed to be three. 

So after the cards are dealt, players bid the number of points they think they can make on the hand clockwise from the dealer.  There are five possible points and you can bid between 0 (a pass) and 5 (shoot the moon).  The five points are high (the highest card of trump), low (the lowest card of trump - aces are high not low), jack (the jack of trump), joker, and game (all tens are worth 10 points, all jacks are worth 1, Q=2, K=3, A=4.  The total in the tricks you took at the end of the hand are added to determine the winner.)  Only high, low, and game are guaranteed to be out in any given hand, depending on the number of people playing.

So the person with the highest bid then gets to determine trump suit (if no one bids, the dealer must bid at least 1).  The highest bidder determines trump by playing whatever card they want to first.  The suit of this first card played is then trump for the hand.  Then it plays like hearts, only trump is obviously broken immediately.  Card ranking is: 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 T joker J Q K A, with trump taking precedence over the other suits.  High and Low are determined not based on who took them in the trick, but who played the lowest or highest trump card (i.e. whoever was dealt the lowest/highest card).  Sometimes in the middle of a hand you will pull out your contender for low or high and set it to the side instead of putting it with the taken trick because you don't necessarily know if someone has a better card, unless it is the A or 2 of trump.  The other points (jack and joker) are up for grabs; they go to whomever takes them in the trick they are played in. 

At the end of each hand, the bids are determined and if people did not make their bid they lose that number of points.  Otherwise they gain that number of points.  A game generally goes to 11 points and if someone shoots the moon successfully they win the game regardless of how many points they or anyone else have.

To my degenerate friends...oh yes, you can also play for $$$.  LOL