Bridge
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Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game of skill and chance (the relative proportions depend on the variant played). It is played by four players who form two partnerships (sides); the partners sit opposite each other at a table. The game consists of the auction (often called bidding) and play, after which the hand is scored.
The bidding ends with a contract, which is a declaration by one partnership that their side shall take at least a stated number of tricks, with specified suit as trump or without trumps. The rules of play are similar to other trick-taking games with the addition of the fact that one player's hand is displayed face up on the table as the "dummy".
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Game play
Two partnerships of two players each are needed to play bridge. The 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 several hands. A hand is dealt, the bidding (or auction) proceeds to a conclusion and then the hand is played. Finally the hand's result is scored.
The goal of a single deal is to achieve the highest score with 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. The concept of contract, which distinguishes contract bridge from its predecessors, refers to a statement by one partnership that they shall take at least a certain number of tricks, with given suit as trumps, or without trumps. It consists of two components: level and denomination (also called strain). Level represents the number of tricks to be taken above the first 6 (referred to as the book)—that ensures that at least a majority of the tricks must be taken by the partnership who wins the contract. Since there are 13 possible tricks, there are 7 levels, numbered 1-7, corresponding to 7-13 tricks to take. Five denominations are ranked, from lowest to highest, as clubs (Template:Cs), diamonds (Template:Ds), hearts (Template:Hs), spades (Template:Ss), and no trump (NT). For instance, the contract of "3 hearts" asserts that his partnership can take nine tricks (book plus three) with hearts as the trump suit. Thus, there is 7×5 = 35 possible basic contracts; 1Template:Cs being the lowest, followed by 1Template:Ds etc., up to 7NT.
In the bidding stage, the pairs compete to see who proposes the highest-ranked contract, and the side which wins the bidding must then fulfill that bargain by taking at least the contracted quantity of tricks in play to obtain a score. Broadly speaking, there is an incentive to accurately bid to the optimum contract and then to play to make the contracted number of tricks (or more if good play or luck allows). If the side which wins the auction then takes the contracted number of tricks (or more), it is said to have fulfilled the contract and is awarded a score; otherwise, the contract is said to be defeated and points are awarded to the defenders.
In finding an optimum contract, it can sometimes pay to bid slightly too high (or bluff), and lose a small number of points, rather than allow the opposing side to bid and make a larger score. This is known as a sacrifice, and is quite common if both sides are contesting the final contract. This aspect is more common in duplicate bridge (as played in competitions and many clubs) where the goal is to get a better score than any other partnership facing the same hands, by however small a margin and in whatever way possible.
Dealing
The game is played with a standard deck of 52 cards. On each game, one player is the dealer, who distributes the cards and also bids first. The dealer changes on each game, usually going clockwise around the table.
In rubber bridge (or other non-duplicate games), the cards are shuffled before every game, 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 dealer's left-hand opponent will deal next. Each hand in rubber bridge is therefore random and unrelated to other hands played, and a lot of the time the score depends on the cards as well as the skill of play.
In duplicate bridge, the hands are shuffled only once, at the beginning of the session, and dealt into the same four hands of 13 cards, and these deals are preserved for the entirety of the tournament. In this way, each time they are played, the results for different players will be comparable and any element of chance due to some players having better cards is eliminated. Cards in duplicate are passed around from table to table in bridge boards, plastic containers which clearly mark the hands, identifies who holds which cards, and also contains a folded slip of paper to record each teams' scores after the game. In some competitions, boards are pre-dealt prior to the competition, especially if the same hands are to be played at multiple locations (for example in a large national or international tournament). There are also special machines for pre-dealing on large tournaments. At each subsequent table, the four players pull their cards from the board and count them to ensure that there are 13 cards in their hand.
Unlike rubber bridge and most other trick-taking games, in duplicate games players do not throw their cards to the middle of the table; instead, played cards are placed immediately in front of each player and turned face down once each trick has been completed. This allows each player to return his hand, intact, to the board after he has finished it, so subsequent tables can play the same deal unaltered. It also allows that in case of a review or other irregularity during the play, it is clear exactly who played which cards, and the order in which they were played.
The auction
The auction determines the declaring side and the final contract. Only one of partners of the declaring side, referred to as declarer, will play the hand, while the other will become the dummy (i.e. doing nothing). In addition, the final contract may be doubled (by the opponents) or redoubled (by the contracting partnership), in which case the scoring of the hand is increased, whether the contract is made or defeated.
During the auction, each player makes a call at his turn, which must be one of the following:
- Bid (stating a level and a denomination)
- Double (when the last call other than pass was a bid by an opponent)
- Redouble (when the last call other than pass was a double by an opponent)
- Pass (when unwilling to make one of the three preceding calls, i.e. "abstain")
(Note: although technically incorrect, the word "bid" is also often used informally in place of "call")
The auction starts with the dealer and proceeds clockwise with each player, having first evaluated their hands, making a call in order. The auction ends when 3 successive passes occur after a bid, double or redouble (or if all 4 players pass in the first round).
A bid specifies a level and denomination, and ostensibly denotes a proposition to play the corresponding contract. A player wishing to bid must make a bid that is higher than the preceding bid. A bid is higher if it specifies any denomination on a higher level, or a higher-ranked denomination on the same level. Thus, after a bid of 3Template:Hs, bids of 2Template:Ss or 3Template:Cs are not allowable, but 3Template:Ss or 4Template:Ds are.
A double can be made only after the opponents have made a bid. At its simplest, this 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. However, in modern bridge, the double is often used in conventional sense, to ask partner to bid or to pass information to partner. A "redouble" is a bid which can be made only following an opponents' "double"; it increases the points scored yet further. In practice, the redouble can also be used systemically for other purposes. Double and redouble are in effect only until the next bid, i.e. any subsequent bid invalidates them.
Once the auction ends, the last bid (together with any double or redouble that followed it) becomes the contract, and the level of this bid determines the number of tricks required to achieve the contract and its denomination determines what suit, if any, will be trumps.
It should be noted, though, that the primary purpose of the early bids is to exchange information rather than to determine the final contract. Most bids are not made with the intention to become the end contract, but to describe player's hand strength and distribution, so that the partnership can make an educated guess which contract is the optimal one. The set of agreements between partners about meanings of each bid is referred to as a bidding system.
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 denomination of the final contract becomes the declarer and their partner becomes the dummy.
The play of the hand
The play consists of thirteen tricks, each trick consisting of one card played from each of the four hands. Aces are high in bridge, followed by kings, queens, jacks, 10s, 9s ... down to 2s, the lowest card in each suit. The first card played in a trick is called the lead, and players play a card clockwise around the table. Any card may be selected from a hand 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. If a hand contains no cards of the led suit then 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 played cards are of the trump suit, in which case the hand that plays the highest trump card wins the trick. 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/her hand face up on the table in four columns, one for each suit, with the column of the trump suit (if there is one) on the right as dummy looks at the table. The declarer is responsible for selecting cards to play from the dummy's hand and from own hand in turn. The defenders each choose the cards to play from their own hands. Dummy is allowed to prevent declarer from infringing the rules of play but otherwise must not interfere with the play; thus dummy may attempt to prevent declarer from revoking (by asking eg "No more spades partner?") but must not comment on opponents' actions or make suggestions as to play; even seemingly trivial comments such as "You won that trick partner" are not permitted. In casual bridge games the dummy often does nothing but in duplicate bridge dummy must play cards from the dummy hand at declarer's verbal instruction (eg "jack of hearts please partner"). This is a less ambiguous method of card selection than declarer leaning over the table and touching a card.
The contract level sets up a specific target: in the example above, the declarer must manage to take 10 tricks (the assumed "book" of 6, plus 4 as bid, with spades as trumps), to make the contract and get a score. 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 (declarer has gone down), and are rewarded points for doing so.
Scoring
In the end, the goal for each pair is to make as high a score as possible. However, if the contract is made, its level is the primary factor affecting the scoring, rather than the number of tricks taken in play: for example, if the declarer takes all 13 tricks without trumps, there is still a huge score difference between the cases of contract being 1NT and 7NT. That ensures competitiveness: even if a partnership holds a majority of the high cards and the opponents have no interest in bidding, they are still encouraged to bid high in order to achieve the best possible score, which in turn often results in contracts on the verge of making.
When the declarer makes the contract, the declarer's side receives points for:
- Every trick bid (20 for minor suit contracts, 30 for major suit and notrump ones, with additional 10 points for notrump)
- Overtricks (tricks taken over the contract level)
- Bonuses for contract level
- Other specific 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.
Because of the structure of bonuses, certain bid levels have 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 notrump 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). Because of attractiveness of the game bonus, much of the bidding revolves around investigating a possibility to bid a makeable game. High bonuses are also awarded for bidding and making small slam (level 6) and grand slam (level 7, i.e. all the tricks).
The concept of vulnerability affects scoring and introduces a wider range of tactics in bidding and play. Every partnership is beforehand assigned one of two states: vulnerable or non-vulnerable. When a pair is vulnerable, game and slam bonuses are higher, as well as penalties for failure to make the contract. Methods for assigning vulnerability differ for duplicate (see board (bridge)) and rubber bridge.
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 ranked. The resulting scores for each board are expressed in matchpoints or international match points (IMP). Regardless of the actual contract, the competitor (pair or team) with the best performance on each board gets the highest number of points for that board and vice versa. The competitor with highest total number of match points becomes the winner of the tournament. Thus, even with bad cards, a competitor can win the tournament if it has bid better and played better than the other players who played the same set of cards.
Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge
Template:Main Rules of contract bridge are standardized by World Bridge Federation and published in the book Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge. The last edition is issued in 1997 and consists of 93 laws (articles). All duplicate bridge sponsoring organizations on lower levels must apply these rules. A large portion of the laws, though, is devoted to dealing with various irregular situations, and as such it is mostly used by tournament directors (referees) as the reference book.
They do not apply to rubber bridge, which has its own set of Laws, the Laws of Contract Bridge, issued in 1993. In fact, simpler rules for dealing with irregularities are often applied by the players themselves or house rules are applied at rubber.
Tournaments
Bridge is a game of skill played with randomly dealt cards, which makes it also a game of chance, or more exactly, a tactical game with inbuilt randomness, imperfect knowledge and restricted communication. The chance element is in the deal of the cards; in competitions and clubs the chance element is largely eliminated by comparing results of multiple pairs in identical situations. This is achievable when there are eight or more players, sitting at several tables, and the deals from each table are preserved and passed to the next table, thereby duplicating them for another 4 (or more) participants to play. At the end of a session, the scores for each deal are compared, and most points are awarded to the players doing the best with each particular deal. This measures skill because each player is being judged only on his ability to bid with, and play, the same cards as other players.
This form of the game is referred to as duplicate bridge and is played in clubs and tournaments, which can gather as many as several hundred players. Duplicate bridge is a mind sport, and its popularity gradually became comparable to that of chess, which it is often compared with for its complexity and mental skills required for high-level competition.
The basic premise of duplicate bridge had previously been used for whist matches as early as 1857. Initially, bridge was not thought to be suitable for duplicate competition; it wasn't until the 1920s that (auction) bridge tournaments became popular.
In 1925 when contract bridge first evolved, bridge tournaments were becoming popular, but the rules were somewhat in flux, and several different organizing bodies were involved in tournament sponsorship: the American Bridge League (formerly the American Auction Bridge League, which changed its name in 1929), the American Whist League, and the United States Bridge Federation. In 1935, the first officially recognized world championship was held. By 1937, however, the American Contract Bridge League had come to power (a union of the ABL and the USBF), and it remains the principal organizing body for bridge tournaments in North America. In 1958, the World Bridge Federation was founded, as bridge had become an international activity.
Bidding boxes and bidding screens
In tournaments, "bidding boxes" are frequently used. A bidding box is a box of cards, each bearing the name of one of the legal calls in bridge. A player wishing to make a call displays the appropriate card from the box, rather than making a verbal declaration. This prevents unauthorized information from being conveyed via voice inflection. In top national and international events, "bidding screens" are used. These are diagonal screens which are placed across the table, preventing a player from seeing his partner during the game.
