Printable Pitch (Setback) Score Sheet

Pitch (also called Setback or High-Low-Jack) scores around four named points available every hand — High, Low, Jack, and Game — but only the bidding side's success or failure determines whether their points count for them or against them, which is the part a plain trick-tally sheet doesn't capture on its own.

The four points available each hand

• High: to whoever holds the highest trump dealt out that hand — 1 point.
• Low: to whoever holds (or, in some variants, captures in a trick) the lowest trump — 1 point.
• Jack: to whoever captures the Jack of trump in a trick, if it was dealt — 1 point.
• Game: to whoever captures the most card value in tricks that hand, counted as 10 per Ten, 4 per Ace, 3 per King, 2 per Queen, and 1 per Jack captured — 1 point.

That's up to 4 points on the table most hands (fewer if the Jack of trump wasn't dealt to anyone this round). A sheet needs all four marked per hand, not just a single winner, since High, Low, Jack, and Game can go to four different players in the same hand.

Why the bid changes everything about how points are scored

The player who wins the bidding auction names trump and needs to actually win points equal to or greater than their bid that hand — if they do, they score exactly what they won (not the bid amount itself; a bid of 2 that ends up winning 3 points scores the full 3). If they fall short of their bid even by one point, they're "set back," and lose the full bid value instead, while every other player still scores whatever points they individually won that hand as normal.

The smudge bid: an all-or-nothing shortcut

A "smudge" bid (worth the maximum, effectively a bid of 5, since taking all four named points plus the trump Jack covers all points available) that succeeds ends the whole game immediately in that player's favor, regardless of the running score — but failing a smudge bid only sets that player back the standard 5 points, exactly like failing any other maximum bid.

Reading a hand's result off the sheet

Each row should record who won the bid and for how much, then mark High, Low, Jack, and Game individually with whichever player earned each one. If the bidder's own points won that hand meet or beat their bid, add the bidder's total as usual; if not, subtract the bid value from the bidder's running total instead, while every non-bidder's points are added exactly as won either way.

Playing to a target score

Most Pitch games are played to an agreed target — 11, 21, or 52 points depending on the group — with the running total simply adding (or subtracting, for a set-back bidder) hand after hand until someone crosses it. Because a set-back can push a bidder's total backward, it's entirely possible for a player's running score to still be negative several hands into a game, which isn't an error; it just reflects a run of failed bids.

The bidding auction, trump selection, and minimum bid requirements are all explained on the full Pitch (Setback) rules page, with bid-and-point totals worked through on the scoring deep-dive. A contested Jack capture comes up often enough at a Pitch table that it has its own answer on the dispute page.

Can the bidder score points from High or Low even if they fail their overall bid? No — a failed bid means the bidder's entire hand (everything they would have scored, including High, Low, Jack, or Game they individually won) is replaced by the negative bid value instead. Points they "won" during play don't get separately credited on a failed bid.

Do the non-bidding players ever get set back, the way the bidder can? No — being set back only applies to whoever won the bid and then failed to reach it. Every other player at the table simply scores whatever combination of High, Low, Jack, and Game they individually captured that hand, with no risk of a negative score from a bid they didn't make.

Pitch is one of the bidding-based trick games on this site's Card Games category hub.