Bridge is a popular card game played by four persons who form two teams of two partners each. Many people in numerous countries enjoy bridge. Some players enter highly competitive tournaments.
Bridge is sometimes called contract bridge. The game has two main parts, bidding and play. In bidding, the players compete to name the contract, which includes the number of tricks in excess of six a team proposes to win. In play, the team that has won the bid tries to fulfill its contract, and the opposing team attempts to prevent it from doing so. Teams receive points for fulfilling their contracts or penalties for failing to do so.
There are two chief types of bridge—rubber bridge and duplicate bridge. Rubber bridge is the most common kind. In this form of bridge, the two teams bid and play until one wins two games. The first team to win two games wins the rubber. Each team then adds its points, and the team with the most points wins. Duplicate bridge is played in the majority of tournaments. In duplicate bridge, the various teams play the same series of deals. A team wins a tournament by playing its hands more skillfully—and thus scoring more points—than the other teams. An older form of bridge, called auction bridge, is occasionally played today. It closely resembles a simple form of contract bridge.
Rubber bridge
The deal.
Rubber bridge is played with a standard deck of 52 cards. Partners sit across from each other at a table. The dealer passes one card at a time to each player until the entire deck has been distributed. Each player receives 13 cards.
After the deal is completed, the players separate their cards into suits and put them in order by rank. The rank of the cards, from highest to lowest, is ace, king, queen, jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, and 2.
Evaluating the hand.
The players must estimate the value of their cards to determine their bid. The most popular method of evaluating a hand is by point count. Using this system, a player assigns points for high cards and for certain card distributions. The player adds 4 points for each ace, 3 for each king, 2 for each queen, and 1 for each jack. He or she assigns 3 points for a void (no cards of a suit), 2 for a singleton (1 card of a suit), and 1 for a doubleton (2 cards of a suit).
A player seldom opens the bidding with less than 12 points in a hand. But the value of a hand may change during the bidding. For example, a hand may have added value if it includes several cards in the suit one’s partner is bidding. Experienced bridge players have elaborate bidding strategies based on point count.
Bidding
is also called the auction. In bidding, partners exchange information about the playing strength of their hands. This exchange helps them in trying to name the best contract.
A bid consists of two words, a number and a denomination. The number indicates how many odd tricks (tricks in excess of six) the bidder proposes to win. The denomination is the suit the bidder wants to name trump. The bidder may give the denomination no-trump if he or she wants to play the hand without a trump suit. A bid of two spades, for example, means the player proposes to win eight tricks with spades as the trump suit. A bid of three no-trump is an offer to win nine tricks without a trump suit. A grand slam is the highest possible bid. It commits the bidder to taking all 13 tricks. A small slam is a bid to take 12 tricks.
The dealer starts the bidding and is followed by the other players in clockwise order around the table. Each player may bid or pass—that is, choose not to bid. Players who pass may bid at their next turn. Each bid must be higher in value than the previous one. In bidding, the denominations are ranked. Their ranks, from highest to lowest, are no-trump, spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs. Thus, a bid of three spades is higher than a bid of three hearts. But a higher number outranks a higher denomination. Thus, a bid of two clubs is higher than one no-trump.
A player may double if he or she believes the opposing team cannot make its bid. Doubling increases the penalty against the team that won the bid if it goes down (fails to fulfill its contract). But doubling also raises the score of the team if it makes its bid. If an opponent has doubled, a player may redouble if he or she feels confident of making the bid. Redoubling further increases the penalty and the scoring of points.
Bidding continues until three players in a row pass, or all four pass during the first round of bidding. If there is no bid, the players go on to the next hand. The last bid becomes the contract. On the team that won the bid, the player who first named the denomination of the contract is called the declarer. The declarer may or may not be the one who made the last bid.
The play.
The player to the left of the declarer leads the first card. The declarer’s partner, called the dummy, then lays his or her cards face-up. The play proceeds around the table in clockwise direction. The declarer plays the dummy’s cards in turn. A player must follow suit—that is, play a card of the same suit as that of the lead card. A player who has no card in that suit may play a card of any suit. The highest card in the suit led wins the trick, unless someone plays a card from the trump suit. Then, the highest trump wins the trick. The player who wins the trick leads next. Play continues until all 13 tricks have been taken.
Scoring.
A team scores points if it fulfills its contract. The first six tricks it takes are called the book. Each trick over six scores a certain number of points. The total of these points is called the trick score. A team wins a game when it has a trick score of 100 or more points. Trick scores of less than 100 points, called part-scores, are forwarded from one deal to another until a team wins a game.
A team may gain extra points, called a premium score, in several ways. For example, the declarer’s team receives a premium score for each trick it takes in excess of the contract. These are called overtricks. A team that has won one game is vulnerable, which means that it may receive more points and penalties in certain cases. Premium scores do not count toward a game.
Duplicate bridge
In duplicate bridge, all the cards are predealt. The board indicates whether or not each pair is vulnerable. The contestants lay each card that they play in a pile in front of them on the table. After all the cards have been played, the hands are placed in a tray called the duplicate board. Other contestants later play the same hands. Duplicate bridge directly compares the skill of different teams.
The two most common forms of duplicate bridge are pairs play and team play. In pairs play, two persons enter a tournament as partners. The pair plays the same series of hands as a number of other pairs. Partners receive match points for scoring more points than other pairs. After all the deals have been played, the pair with the most match points wins the tournament. In team play, people compete in teams of four players. The four players form two partnerships that play at different tables. The partnership at one table plays the same series of hands as the opponents at the other table. The team that scores the most points wins the tournament.
Regulation of tournaments
The World Bridge Federation (WBF) governs international bridge tournaments. The WBF holds world team championships each year and world pairs championships every four years. About 60 national bridge associations belong to the WBF.
The American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) is the official WBF member organization in the United States. It awards master points for high finishes in local, regional, or national tournaments. Players receive ratings based on their total number of points. The lowest rating is Junior Master and the highest is Grand Life Master.
History
Bridge developed from various card games that were played in England during the 1500’s. These games led to the creation of whist, the direct forerunner of bridge. In whist, the suit of the last card dealt becomes trump, and the players do not bid. The rules of whist were first described in A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist (1742), by an English lawyer named Edmond Hoyle. See Hoyle, Edmond ; Whist .
During the 1890’s, a card game called bridge whist developed from whist. In bridge whist, the dealer named trump or “bridged” this right to his or her partner. In the early 1900’s, auction bridge became popular. This game featured the auction and new scoring methods, including slams and honors. Contract bridge was created by American yachtsman Harold S. Vanderbilt and others in 1925.
See also Card game .
