Buckpitch (the card game)

Buckpitch is a trick-taking game, played with a regular deck of poker cards.

Rules for Buckpitch

* A regular deck of 52 playing cards is used.
* 4 players, 2 teams (players sitting across from each other are team)
* everyone gets dealt six cards, the rest of the deck is set aside

The deal

After the cards are dealt everyone bids how many points they think that their team can catch. You can bid 2, 3, 4, or SHOOT, or you can choose to PASS. The player to the left of the dealer bids first. You only get to bid or pass once, if someone after you bids higher than your bid, then your chance to win the bid is over. If a player bids 2, then the next player can only bid PASS, 3, 4, or SHOOT. If a player bids SHOOT, then only the dealer has the option to bid SHOOT over that player or PASS.

Bidding

If you have the Ace of clubs and the two of clubs then you definitely want to bid. This is because you would want to use the clubs as your trump suit, and you would be guaranteed 2 points because you have the high trump card and the low trump card. Now, let’s say that you have the four of clubs and the Queen of clubs. Should you bid on that? Well, yes, because there is a chance that the four is the lowest club out there and the Queen is the highest club out there. Don’t forget that after the dealer dealt out 6 cards to each person, there were 28 cards left that are thrown out of the game. So you never know what the high and low cards of the suit are until the hand is played. Taking chances is the key to this game. Another situation where you would want to bid is if a majority of your cards are one suit even if they are low numbers. You can always play a trump card to catch high cards that count for points. for instance if the player to your right plays an Ace of a non-trump suit then you can trump it and your partner can throw a point card if he has one in the lead suit.

Play

The player who wins the bid gets to pick the trump suit. The trump cards always beat non-trump cards. If a trump card is played by the first player, then each player after has to follow suit. The highest trump card wins the trick and gets to lead the next trick. If a non-trump card is played by the first player, then each player has the choice to follow suit or play a trump card if they think they might be able to catch a point card. Once again the highest card wins the trick. If everyone follows suit with non-trump cards, then the highest non-trump card wins the trick. But if a trump card is played on the non-trump cards then the highest trump card wins the trick. If you do not make your 2, 3, or 4 bid then that means you went buck (set) and you get a sawrack (X) on the score sheet and your score is reduced by the amount of your original bid as long as you don’t go past 0. If the reduction would put you in the negative then your score is set to 0. There are no negative scores in this game. If you SHOOT and do not make your bid then you get two sawracks (XX) on the score sheet and your score is reduced by 4 points as long as it doesn’t reduce your score to less than 0. You can only bid a SHOOT if your score is greater than 0, unless it is the first hand of the game. You can SHOOT on the very first hand even though you are currently at 0. The game is over when a team reaches a score of 7.

coring

A total of 4 points can be won per hand
* 1 point for holding the lowest card of the trump suit
* 1 point for holding the highest card of the trump suit
* 1 point for catching the JACK card of the trump suit
* 1 point for most total points caught during the hand
** Ace = 4 points
** King = 3 points
** Queen = 2 points
** Jack = 1 point
** 10 = 10 points