Pitch comes in many variants and the rules here apply to one of them. If yours differs, the bidding rules on these pages may not carry over. In particular this variant has no "game" point, only trump is ever played, and each player bids exactly once.
Players and cards
- Four players in two partnerships, partners sitting across from each other.
- A 54-card deck: the standard 52 plus two identical jokers.
- Each hand is worth exactly 10 points. A game is usually played to 52, and the team that reaches it must be the bidding team on that hand.
Trump
Once a suit is named, 16 cards are trump: the 13 of that suit, the jack of the other suit of the same colour (the off-jack), and both jokers. They rank, high to low:
A > K > Q > J > off-jack > joker > joker > 10 > 9 > 8 > 7 > 6 > 5 > 4 > 3 > 2
The jokers are identical until played; if both land in the same trick, the first one played beats the second.
The ten points
| Card | Points | Goes to |
|---|---|---|
| Ace of trump (high) | 1 | whoever captures it |
| Jack of trump | 1 | whoever captures it |
| Off-jack | 1 | whoever captures it |
| Each joker | 1 | whoever captures it |
| Ten of trump | 1 | whoever captures it |
| Three of trump | 3 | whoever captures it |
| Two of trump (low) | 1 | whoever was dealt it |
The king, queen and 9 down to 4 are trump but score nothing.
A hand, start to finish
- Deal. Nine cards each; 18 stay in the deck.
- Bid. Starting left of the dealer, each player once: a number from 4 to 10, higher than the current bid, or pass. If the first three pass, the dealer must bid 4. The high bidder names trump.
- Refill. Starting left of the dealer, each player throws in every card that is not trump and draws back to six cards. Drawn cards that are not trump are dead: they stay in hand but are never played. Whatever is left in the deck goes to the bidder, who keeps the trump in it. Everyone can see how many cards each player drew, which tells the table how many trump each hand started with.
- Bury. A bidder holding more than six trump buries the extra ones face up. They are captured by whoever wins the first trick.
- Play. The bidder leads. Only trump is ever played, any trump may be played on any trick, and the highest trump wins. A player with no trump left drops out. Play continues until no one has trump.
- Score. If the bidding team took at least its bid, both teams score the points they captured. If not, the bidding team loses its bid and the other team scores what it captured. Bidding 10 and taking all 10 wins the game outright.
What this means for bidding
Naming trump is powerful: the bidder picks the suit and collects every trump left in the deck, so even a modest hand usually takes more than half the points. Everyone bids exactly once, so there is no raising later, and the dealer bids last with full information. Those two facts shape every rule on the ladder.