How to play setback card game

You can't play one of the other suits, except for the trump suit, unless you don't have the suit that was led. Give the trick to the player with the highest card in the led suit. If someone plays a trump card, the highest trump card wins.

Award the points as described in Step 2 and Tip 1. Any team can score points, not only the team that won the bid. If the team that bid did not make it, subtract the amount they bid from their score. This is called a setback. If a team has three setbacks, they lose. Other teams can continue if there is more than one team left. Only trumps can be played; players who run out of trumps drop out of the play.

The high bidder leads to the first trick, on which the called trump must be played. The bidding team each win the number of points they made if these are enough to fulfill the bid; otherwise they lose the amount of the bid. Each member of the opposing team acores the points made by that team. If the called trump is held by the high bidder for example if it was in the kitty , the bidder plays alone against a team of four opponents.

Game is 42 points. If more than one player reaches or exceeds 42 in the same hand, and the bidder is one of these, the bidder wins; if none of them is the bidder, further hands are played until a player has 42 ort more points after a successful bid. Like normal pitch this is for four players, two against two, with partners facing each other, but as the name suggests, nine cards are dealt to each player.

The possible bids are three , four , five and six. After the pitcher has declared trumps, each player may discard up to four cards, to be replaced by cards from the undealt part of the deck. The play is as in normal Pitch, except that the pitcher is not required to lead a trump to the first trick. Each team begins with a score of 21, and their score for a hand is subtracted from this if they are successful.

If they fail in their bid, they are said to "go up", and their bid is added to their score. The winners are the first team whose score reaches zero or less, but it is only possible to win on a hand where you succeed in a bid, or the opponents fail in their bid.

If a team's points won in play would cause them to reach or pass zero while they were playing against a successful bid, that team's score becomes one. Each of the four players is dealt 12 cards from a 52 card pack: 6 for their hand and 6 which are kept face down in front of them. The bidding is as in normal Pitch.

In the first trick everyone must play from their hand, but from then on, players can either play from their hand or 'fish' a card from the unknown 6 in front of them. There are 12 tricks played in all, and all but 4 cards are out, so the two and jack of trumps are usually in play. You can try to take a trick that you really, really want by fishing a card on it, and sometimes you can make it.

However, sometimes, you give the opposite team low or an extra ten towards game. In this variant, even if you are dealt a poor visible hand, you are still in the action, as nobody knows what you will throw next. It also makes it difficult and fun to 'count cards' for two reasons - all the cards are out, and you can seemingly violate following suit by fishing a card. You can't tell for certain if a person is out of trump altogether, only that they are out of trump in their hand!

This variant is really a lot of fun, and should be tried. The version of Pitch in which the five is an additional scoring trump worth 5 points making 9 points in all is now described on the Pedro page , along with Double Pedro or Cinch, in which the other five of the same colour is also a trump scoring 5 for a total of 14 points.

Pitch can also be played by two or more players, each playing for themselves. The rules of bidding and play are the same as for the partnership game. In the game with more than two players, the opponents will tend gang up against the bidder to try to prevent the bid being made. Ben Butzer reports that at UCLA, instead of playing up to 21 points for game, they would play for 10 cents per point.

The game is played without partners. The scoring is as in the partnership game, except that each player individually scores the points they make. If you are the high bidder you are set back if the points you make are less than your bid. Players can join or leave the game after any hand. When the personnel change, the game is settled up: each player's score is compared to the average - winners receive 10 cents for each point they are above the average and losers lose 10 cents for each point below.

The smudge bid in this version is called shooting the moon or mooning. Mooning has no effect on your points score. Tom Price reports a version in which Moon can only be bid over a bid of 4 by another player. The only person who can bid over Moon is the dealer, who can still "steal" the bid. If you bid Moon and make it you gain 4 points, just as though you had bid 4; if you lose your score goes to 4 in the hole i. In this game the players other than the eventual winner have to pay the winner an additional stake for each time they were set as in the money version of Smear.

A player who bids Moon and fails is charged for two sets. Patrick Mathews describes a version of the money game above, called Racehorse. This is usually played by 5 or more people, each playing for themselves. In either case, the other players do not receive anything for the points they make. The play of the hand ends as soon as it is clear whether the bid has succeeded, since further points won by either side do not affect payment. A pitcher whose bid fails is said to be "upped". Presumably this term derives from the practice of scoring in reverse in some Pitch variations - see for example Nine Card Pitch above.

A pitcher who wins deals the next hand. If the pitcher is upped, the player to the pitcher's right deals the next hand, so that the upped pitcher has the first bid. This game from Pennsylvania is somewhat related to the first version of partnership point Pitch described above. It is normally played "cutthroat" by four people, but can also be played as a partnership game.

A 54 card pack including two jokers is used -the off-jack, high joker and low joker rank in that order as trumps just below the jack.

There is a six card deal and after the bidding three cards are discarded and the hands replenished. The minimum bid is 3, maximum is smudge equivalent to 15 , which is a bid to take all 14 points and six tricks. Dealer can steal the bid with an equal bid, and must bid three if the others all pass. The points are high, low, jack, off-jack, high joker, low joker, game, last trick, high spade worth one point each and five 5 points.

The suit of the first card led is trump for the hand. If no one bids i. In order to win the game, a player must win at least four points. If you are up , or love, and win one more point, you win the game. Play begins with the dealer dealing nine cards to each player with the remainder being held until later.

Score is kept for two teams. Your email address will not be published. In each hand a player can win up to four points. If you have the highest trump, the lowest trump or the jack of trump then you can win one point each. The number of game points of every player needs to be tallied which were taken in the tricks. If one team bids that does not mean that they can automatically score points, instead points can be scored from any team. The amount a team bid before failing needs to be subtracted from their score.

This is known as a setback.