How to play contract bridge
- Related Topics:
- Plafond
- biritch
- bridge whist
- contract bridge
- auction bridge
The standard 52-card deck is used. The suits ranking downward in order are spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs; and the cards ranking downward in order are ace, king, queen, jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.
There are four players, two against two as partners, who face each other across the table. To determine partners, a pack may be spread facedown for each player to draw a card (not valid are any of the four cards at either end). The players drawing the two highest cards would then play as partners, the highest having choice of seats and cards (when two packs are used) and becoming the first dealer.
If five or six wish to play in the same game, the draw establishes precedence: the player lowest in order of precedence sits out until the end of the first rubber, when he replaces the next lowest in the order. If two players draw cards of the same rank, the card of the higher-ranking suit takes precedence over the other.
Deal
The player at dealer’s left shuffles the cards. Preferably two packs are used so that one may be shuffled while the other is being dealt. Dealer transfers the shuffled pack to his right, where his opponent cuts it into two packets, each containing at least four cards. Dealer completes the cut.
The rotation in contract bridge is always from player to player to the left. Dealer deals the cards in rotation, one at a time facedown, the first card to the player at his left and the last card to himself so that each player has 13 cards.
Auction
The deal completed, each player in rotation beginning with the dealer has a chance to call. A call is a pass, a bid, a double, or a redouble. A pass signifies disinclination to contract to win any number of tricks. A bid contracts to win a specified number of odd tricks with a specified trump or at no trump. Thus, a bid of one heart assumes a contract to win seven tricks with hearts as trumps; a bid of one no trump, seven tricks with no trump suit. The highest possible bid is seven, a contract to win all 13 tricks.
Each successive bid must overcall—that is, be higher than—any preceding bid. It must name a greater number of odd tricks, or the same number of odd tricks in a higher-ranking suit, with no trump as highest ranking. Thus, two no trump will overcall a bid of two in any suit but may be overcalled by three clubs or any higher bid.
A player may double the last preceding bid if it was made by an opponent and has not previously been doubled. A player may redouble the last preceding bid if it was made by his own side, doubled by an opponent, and not previously redoubled. A bid may be overcalled as usual whether or not it has been doubled or redoubled.
Each time a player’s turn comes in rotation, he must make a call, and he may not change that call once it is made. A call out of rotation or a change of call is subject to penalty.
The auction continues until any call is followed by three consecutive passes. If there was no bid, the next player in rotation deals. If any bid was made, the highest bid becomes the contract. The suit (if any) named in the contract becomes trump. The contractor who first named that suit (or no trump) becomes declarer, and his opponents become defenders. The auction is ended, and trick play commences.
Trick play
The object of play is to win tricks. A trick consists of four cards, one played from the hand of each player in rotation. The first card played to a trick is the lead.
The defender at declarer’s left leads to the first trick. Declarer’s partner then spreads his hand faceup before him on the table, grouped in suits with the trumps, if any, to his right; this player, and his hand, are the dummy. Declarer plays both his own cards and dummy’s, but each in proper turn.
Each player in rotation must follow suit to the card led (play a card of the same suit). A player unable to follow suit may play any card, including a trump, if desired. A trick is won by the highest card of the suit led or by the highest trump, if it contains any. One member of each side gathers in all tricks won by the partnership, turns them facedown, and keeps them separated sufficiently to make their number and sequence apparent. The winner of each trick leads to the next.
When all 13 tricks have been played, the result is scored. The next dealer in rotation distributes the cards for a new deal.
Scoring
Each player is entitled to keep score; it is preferable for one member of each side to keep score. Scores are entered on a score sheet (U.S.) or bridge block (British): scores earned by the scorekeeper’s side (conventionally designated “We”) are to the left of the vertical line, scores earned by the opponents (designated “They”) are to the right; below the horizontal line is the trick score, and above that line is the honour score.
Provided declarer’s side has at least fulfilled its contract, it scores bonus points, depending on the contract suit, for each trick over six. Diamonds and clubs score 20 points for each odd trick, spades and hearts score 30 points, and no trump scores 40 points for the first odd trick and 30 points for each additional odd trick.
Such of these tricks as were included in the contract go in the trick score; the value of additional tricks (overtricks) goes in the honour score. If the contract was doubled, trick points scored below the line count twice their normal value, while overtricks count 100 each above the line if declarer’s side was not vulnerable (a term explained below) and 200 points each if declarer’s side was vulnerable. If the contract was redoubled, these values are again multiplied by two. A side fulfilling any doubled (redoubled) contract also receives a bonus of 50 (100) points on its honour score.
When either side has scored 100 or more trick points below the line (whether they were scored in one or more deals), it wins a game. Another horizontal line is drawn across the score sheet, below the trick score, to signify the end of the game, and a new game is begun. Only trick scores count toward game; all other points score above the line.
When either side has won two games, it wins the rubber and receives a bonus of 700 if its opponents have not won a game or 500 if its opponents have won a game. All the trick and honour points of each side are totaled, and the side with the higher total wins the difference from its opponents’ score. For purposes of settlement or of keeping a running score, this difference is usually reduced to the nearest 100, a difference of 50 or more counting as 100 and a smaller portion of 100 being disregarded. After each rubber there may be a new draw for partners, seats, and deal.
When a side has won a game, it is said to be vulnerable and is exposed to heavier undertrick penalties but receives larger bonuses for overtricks at doubled and redoubled contracts and for slams. Vulnerability also may be determined by rotation.
If declarer fails to fulfill his contract, his opponents score for each trick by which he falls short (“goes down” or “is set”), as shown in the table.
| if declarer was not vulnerable | if declarer was vulnerable | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| undoubled | doubled | redoubled | undoubled | doubled | redoubled | |
| *If declarer fails to fulfill the contract, opponents score for each trick by which declarer falls short ("goes down," or "is set"). | ||||||
| first undertrick | 50 | 100 | 200 | 100 | 200 | 400 |
| each subsequent undertrick | 50 | 200 | 400 | 100 | 300 | 600 |
The ace, king, queen, jack, and 10 of the trump suit are honours. If any player holds four trump honours in his hand, his side scores 100 above the line; if any player holds all five trump honours, or all four aces at a no-trump contract, his side scores 150.
For bidding and making a contract of six (small slam), a bonus of 500 is scored if not vulnerable, 750 if vulnerable. For a grand slam (all seven odd tricks) bid and made, the bonus is 1,000 if not vulnerable, 1,500 if vulnerable. A side bidding six and making seven scores only the small-slam bonus plus one overtrick. A side bidding seven and making only six has not fulfilled its contract, and its opponents score an undertrick penalty.
If a player has to leave before a rubber is completed and no satisfactory substitute is available, a side having the only game scores 300 points; a side having the only partscore (trick score of less than 100) in an unfinished game scores 50.
The development of the game
Bridge was probably born of three-hand whist games. Inveterate whist players, unwilling to forgo their game merely because there were only three available players, played a game called “dummy” (with one hand exposed) long before any bridge game was known or willingly played.
The origin of bridge whist is not definitely known, but a similar game appeared in Constantinople before 1870, under the name khedive, and almost the same game had been played in Greece before that. Khedive, whose name had for some reason become biritch, was played on the French Riviera in the 1870s. A pamphlet titled Biritch; or, Russian Whist, was issued in London in 1887 and very nearly described bridge whist. There is a story that Ludovic Halévy, in 1893, tried to persuade some whist-playing friends in Paris to play bridge with him, but they refused. In the same year, however, it was played at the Whist Club in New York City, and in 1894 Lord Brougham, penalized for failure to turn the last (trump) card in a whist game at London’s Portland Club, apologized with the excuse that he forgot he was not playing bridge, “the finest card game ever introduced.”
Whist players were prompt to deplore the arrival of bridge, almost unanimously asserting that whist, with all four hands hidden, was far more scientific than bridge. The fallacy of this soon became apparent, for exposure of the dummy provided clarity in thousands of situations in which the whist player had to guess blindly. This provided new opportunities for analysis and greatly stimulated the study of skillful play. By 1897 almost all the leading whist players had succumbed to the attractions of the new game, and even the whist authority “Cavendish” (Henry Jones), who had refused for a period in 1897–98 to enter the Portland Club because whist had been all but abandoned there, was converted to bridge before his death in 1899.
Bridge whist was the first game of the whist family to appeal to women as much as to men. It quickly became the favoured game of the fashionable world but did not supplant euchre and the other card games among the middle and lower classes, as auction bridge did later.
Development of auction bridge
Several accounts of the origin of auction bridge have been advanced. It is probable that just as bridge whist developed from three-hand whist, auction bridge developed from three-hand bridge whist. A letter in the London Times, Jan. 16, 1903, signed by Oswald Crawfurd, describes “auction bridge for three players.” A book by “John Doe” (F. Roe), published in Allahabad, India, in 1904, presents three-hand auction bridge as an invention of Roe and two other members of the Indian civil service when, at an isolated post, they had no “fourth” for bridge whist. Experimental games in England and America apparently followed immediately on the publication of the Crawfurd letter, for by 1904 the best club players were turning to auction bridge. London’s Portland Club adopted auction bridge in 1907, New York City’s Whist Club and other American clubs in the two years following. By 1910 bridge whist was all but obsolete and auction bridge was virtually the only card game played by fashionable society and its emulators.
The widespread appeal of auction bridge is attributable partly to the character of the game and partly to the social conditions into which it was born. The science of auction bridge, more complex and more nearly inexhaustible than that of any previous game, created a demand for large numbers of instructors in skillful play. The instructors, as a professional class, served as proselytizers. Concurrently, the rapid growth of the leisure class increased the demand for means for the entertainment of guests, and auction bridge was found to fill this need ideally. The gradual relaxation of church opposition to card playing, but not to gambling, stimulated acceptance of auction bridge, a game most often played without stakes and never for high stakes in the sense that gambling games are.
Development of contract bridge
This game was developed almost concurrently with auction bridge but was slower to win popularity. At least as early as 1915, auction bridge players tried a variant in which one could score toward game only the odd tricks one had bid. The committee on laws of the Whist Club considered incorporation of this principle into the auction bridge laws in 1917 and again in 1920. They refrained in both instances because they thought such a difficult game would compromise the popularity of auction bridge.
Harold S. Vanderbilt (see Vanderbilt family) of New York was one of the expert auction bridge players who had experimented with contract bridge. While on a long sea voyage in 1926, Vanderbilt played plafond, a French version of auction bridge. In the course of these games, he devised a new system of scoring values, multiplying auction bridge values five times or more; large slam bonuses; and the factor of vulnerability. (With minor changes this became and remains the contract bridge scoring system.)
Until 1931 most casual players continued to play auction bridge. The publicity whereby contract bridge found its way to such players was supplied by another of the former auction bridge experts, Ely Culbertson of New York. Culbertson established contract bridge as the leading card game and himself as its principal authority by a succession of tournament victories and by various maneuvers devised to publicize contract bridge and Culbertson personally. In 1930 Culbertson’s teams won nearly every one of the principal American tournaments, then went to England and defeated three leading British teams. In the winter of 1931–32 Culbertson and his wife, Josephine Culbertson, played and defeated in a 150-rubber match one of the most prominent players among the former auction bridge authorities, Sidney S. Lenz. The progress of the match, called by American newspapers “the bridge battle of the century,” was featured for more than a month on their front pages. The unprecedented publicity made contract bridge a fad not only in the United States but also in South America and Europe.
By 1935 the white heat of the fad had cooled. Nevertheless, the sales of books and playing cards for contract bridge increased steadily. By the start of the 21st century, bridge had become so commonplace that it was no longer a remarkable phenomenon and most newspapers in the United States and Great Britain carried regular columns. In particular, bridge was thriving in Europe, with many young players attracted to the game. In contrast, few young people were playing the game in the United States, although it remained popular with older generations. One of the main factors that has limited the growth of the game has been the small or nonexistent prizes awarded at tournaments. The only way to make a living from bridge has been to be hired by wealthy clients as a partner or teammate—“play for pay”—or through writing about the game. Another factor limiting the growth of bridge has been that, like chess, it is not very telegenic and requires considerable prior experience before a television viewer can appreciate the play.
At the top level, bridge became much more scientific at the end of the 20th century, with experts having bidding-system notes that often ran to well over 100 pages in an attempt to cover all possible contingencies, and various unusual conventions and systems were developed. In the 1980s, forcing-pass methods were in vogue, especially in Poland (where they started), Australia, and New Zealand. An initial pass showed a good hand, usually at least 13 high-card points. Any other bid denied 13 points, and there was one call that indicated a very bad hand, normally 0–7 points. It was, of course, dangerous to have to open with no points, especially when vulnerable, but these systems gained popularity primarily because they put the opponents in unusual situations. Also, an opposing pair got to use its bidding system only if it dealt and opened immediately. Toward the end of the 1980s, these systems were banned from international play.
