Bidding box

Two partnerships of two players each are needed to play bridge. The four players sit around a table with partners opposite one another. The compass directions are often used to refer to the four players, aligned with their seating pattern. Thus, South and North form one partnership and East and West form the other.

A session of bridge consists of many deals (also called hands or boards); the game play of each deal consists of four phases: the deal, the bidding (or auction), the play of the cards, and scoring.

The goal is to achieve as high a numerical score as possible with the given cards. The score is affected by two principal factors: the number of tricks bid in the auction, and the number of tricks taken during play, where the latter must be higher than or equal to the former. Broadly said, the highest score is achieved when the number of tricks won is equal to (or close to) the number that was bid, so there is incentive to the players to accurately bid the number of tricks that their hands are capable of delivering. Thus, in the bidding stage, the pairs compete to see who proposes the highest number of tricks (and associated trump suit), and the side who wins the bidding must then fulfill that bargain by taking at least the specified number of tricks in play. The number of tricks bid and the trump suit (or lack thereof) are referred to as a contract. If the side who wins the auction then takes the contracted number of tricks (or more), it is said to have fulfilled the contract and is awarded points; otherwise, the contract is said to be defeated and points are awarded to their opponents.

Dealing

The game is played with one complete deck of 52 cards. One of the players is the dealer. In rubber bridge (or other "friendly" games), the cards are shuffled and the dealer distributes all the cards clockwise one at a time, starting with his left-hand opponent and ending with himself, so each player receives a hand of thirteen cards. At the same time, for convenience, the dealer's partner usually shuffles a second deck, to be ready for use on the following deal. The deal rotates clockwise, so the dealer's left-hand opponent will deal next.

In duplicate bridge, the hands are shuffled only once, at the beginning of the tournament, and dealt clockwise one at a time (there are also special machines for pre-dealing on large tournaments), and placed into bridge boards. At each subsequent table, each player pulls his cards from the board and counts them to ensure that the deal has not been corrupted. Unlike in other trick-taking games, the players do not throw their cards to the middle of the table in each trick; instead, each player keeps his played cards before him, to allow the completed deal to be returned to the board unaltered.

The auction

To prepare for the play of the cards, the auction phase determines several things: the contract, which consists of the trump suit and the intended number of tricks; which partnership will play for the contract; and which of the players in that partnership will play the hand. In addition, doubling and redoubling may occur, which represents a "raising of the stakes" when the played hand is scored.

During the auction, each player makes a call at his turn, which consists of any one of the following:

  • Pass
  • Make a new bid
  • Double or Redouble

The auction consists of each player making a call, starting with the dealer and continuing clockwise until three players in a row have passed after any bid. (The word "bid" is also often used informally in place of "call".)

A player may always pass when it is his or her turn.

A bid specifies how many tricks the bidder believes that he can take using his hand and his partner's hand, and with which suit as trump. Any bid starts with the assumption that the bidder can make at least six tricks, called book, plus the stated number of additional tricks. So the bid includes a level (from one to seven, representing how many tricks beyond six the bidder proposes to make) and a denomination (also called strain), which is either a suit or "no trump." For instance, "3 hearts" suggests that his partnership can take nine tricks (book plus three) with hearts as the trump suit.

A player may bid at his turn as long as the bid is higher than the most recent bid. A bid is considered higher if it specifies either a higher level or the same level but with a higher-ranking suit. The denominations are ordered, from lowest to highest, as clubs (♣), diamonds (♦), hearts (♥), spades (♠), and no trump (NT). Thus, after a bid of 3♥, bids of 2♠ or 3♣ are illegal, but 3♠ or 4♦ are legal.

If the most recent bid was made by the opponents, a player may "double" that bid if his partner has not already done so. This essentially states that the player is so confident that the opponents cannot make their bid during play that the player is willing to double their score if they do (and the penalty if they do not). If the most recent bid was made by the player or the player's partner, and it has been doubled by an opponent but not yet redoubled by the player's partner, the player may "redouble," further increasing the potential score or penalty.

The auction ends either if all four players pass initially (in which case the hand is not played or scored) or when three players pass in a row after any bid(s) have been made. The last bid becomes the contract, and its denomination determines whether there will be a trump suit, and if so, what it is. The pair that did not win the contract is called the defense. The pair that made the last bid is divided further: the player who first made a bid in the strain of the final contract becomes the declarer and his or her partner becomes the dummy. For example, suppose West is the dealer and the bidding goes:

South West North East
  pass 1♥ pass
1♠ pass 2♦ double
3♠ pass 4♠ pass
pass pass    

Then East and West would be the defenders, South would be the declarer (since South was the first to bid spades), North would be the dummy, and spades would be the trump suit.

The play of the hand

The play of the hand is similar to other trick-taking games. To summarize, the play consists of thirteen tricks, each trick consisting of one card played from each of the four hands. The first card played in a trick is called the lead, and each player plays a card sequentially around the table clockwise. Any card may be selected as the lead, but the remaining hands must follow suit (meaning, they must play a card in the same suit as the lead), unless they have no more cards of that suit, in which case any card may be played. The hand that plays the highest card in the suit of the lead wins the trick, unless any of the cards are in the trump suit, in which case the hand that plays the highest trump card wins the trick. (Aces are high in bridge, followed by Kings, then Queens, and so on, with 2s the lowest card in each suit.) The hand that wins each trick plays the lead card of the next trick, until all the cards are played.

The first lead, called the opening lead, is made by the defender to the left of the declarer. After the opening lead is played, the dummy lays his entire hand face up on the table. The declarer is thereafter responsible for selecting cards to play from the dummy's hand at the dummy's turn, and from his own hand at his turn. The defenders each choose the cards to play from their own hands. The player who is dummy has practically no rights and must not interfere with the play; (s)he may only play cards from the dummy hand at declarer's order (so that the declarer does not have to lean over the table).

In the end, the goal for each pair is to take as many tricks as possible together (it doesn't matter which player takes them). However, the level of the contract makes a more relevant specific target: the number (level) of the contract is the number of odd tricks the declarer must take, that is, the number of tricks beyond 6. Thus, the declarer is always attempting to take at least a majority of the tricks. In the example above, the declarer must manage to take 10 tricks—6 (assumed) + 4 (bid)—with spades as trump, to make the contract. Success in this goal is rewarded by points in the scoring phase for the declarer's side. If the declarer fails to make the contract, the defenders are said to have set or defeated the contract, and are rewarded points for doing so.

Scoring

When the declarer makes the contract, the declarer's side receives points for:

  • The contract bid and made
  • Overtricks (tricks taken over the contract level)
  • Other bonuses

When the declarer fails to make the contract, the defending pair receives points for undertricks – the number of tricks by which declarer fell short of the goal.

Most bidding revolves around efforts to bid and make a game. Because of the structure of bonuses, certain bid levels are given special significance. The most important level is game, which is any contract whose bid trick value is 100 or more points. Game level varies by the suit, since different suits are worth different amounts in scoring. The game level for no trump is 3 (9 tricks), the game level for hearts or spades (major suits) is 4 (10 tricks), and the game level for clubs or diamonds (minor suits) is 5 (11 tricks). Slam is any contract on level 6 or 7, and it is given very large bonuses.

There are two important variations in bridge scoring: rubber scoring and duplicate scoring. They share most features, but differ how the total score is accumulated. In rubber bridge, points for each pair are tallied either "above the line" or "below the line". In duplicate bridge, all the points are accumulated and present a single score, expressed as a positive number (sum of trick points and bonus points) to the winning pair, and by implication, as a negative number to the opponents. "Chicago" bridge is a form of friendly game which uses duplicate scoring, that is, a set consists of four deals with different vulnerabilities (whether a team has already made game), and every deal is scored as a single number.

In duplicate bridge, the same hand is played unchanged across two or more tables and the results are compared using various methods. The differences are expressed in matchpoints or IMPs. They are summed for every pair for every board they play, and the pair with highest total score becomes the winner of the tournament. Thus, even with bad cards, a pair can win the tournament if it has bid better and played better than the other players who played the same set of cards.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

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