In the card game of contract bridge, to hold up means to play low to a trick led by the opponents, losing it intentionally in order to sever their communication. The primary purpose is to give as many tricks to opponents as needed to exhaust all the cards in the suit from one of their hands. If that hand regains the lead, it will not be able to put the partner on lead to cash its tricks. Hold up is one of basic techniques in play.
In trick-taking games, to ruff means to play a trump card to a trick. According to the rules of most games, a player must have no cards left in the suit led in order to ruff. Since the other players are constrained to follow suit if they can, even a low trump can win a trick. In some games, like Pinochle and Preferans, the player who cannot follow suit is required to ruff. In others, like Bridge and Whist, he may instead discard. Normally, ruffing will win a trick. But it is also possible that a subsequent player will overruff. This is not always a bad thing—see uppercut below.
In contract bridge, coup is a generic name for various techniques in play, denoting a specific pattern in the lie and the play of cards; it is a special play maneuver by declarer.
An endplay, in bridge and similar games, is a tactical play where a defender is put on lead at a strategic moment, and then has to make a play that loses one or more tricks. Most commonly the losing play either constitutes a free finesse, or else it gives declarer a ruff and discard. In a case where declarer has no entries to dummy, the defender may also be endplayed into leading a suit which can be won in that hand.
In contract bridge, the trump squeeze is a variant of the simple squeeze. In a trump squeeze, declarer has a suit that can be established by ruffing, but the defender being squeezed is guarding that suit. However, if he happens to also guard another suit, the squeeze card will force him to unguard one.
In contract bridge, an uppercut is a defensive play that involves one of the defenders ruffing high in the knowledge that an overruff by the declarer will result in the promotion of a trump card in his/her partner's hand into a winner. Thus, the technique presents a type of trump promotion.
The Devil's Coup is a declarer play in contract bridge that prevents the defense from taking an apparently natural trump trick - often called "the disappearing trump trick".
Morton's Fork is a coup in contract bridge that forces an opponent to choose between:
- letting declarer establish extra tricks in the suit led; or
- losing the opportunity to win any trick in the suit led.
The trump coup is a contract bridge coup used when the hand on lead has no trumps remaining, while the next hand in rotation has only trumps, including a high one that would have been onside for a direct finesse if a trump could have been led. The play involves forcing that hand to ruff, only to be overruffed. A similar motive is met in coup en passant, where indirect finesse is used instead of direct.
Coup en passant is a type of coup in contract bridge where trump trick(s) are "stolen" by trying to ruff a card after the player who has the master trump(s).
Trump promotion is a technique in contract bridge where the defenders create an otherwise non-existing trump trick for themselves. The most common type of trump promotion occurs when one defender plays a side suit through, in which both the declarer's hand and the other defender are void:
Loser on loser play is a type of declarer's play in contract bridge, usually in trump contracts, where the declarer discards a loser card on an opponent's winner, instead of ruffing.
In the card game contract bridge, a suit combination is a specific set of cards of a particular suit visible in declarer's and dummy's hands at the onset of the play of the cards. While the ranks of the remaining cards held in the two unseen hands of the opponents can be deduced precisely, their location is unknown. Suit combinations allow for all possible lies of the cards of the subject suit in the two closed hands.
In the card game of bridge, tempo refers to the timing advantage of being on lead, thus being first to initiate one's play strategy to develop tricks for one's side. Tempo also refers to the speed of play and more generally refers to the rhythm of play over several tricks.
The Belladonna coup is the play of a low card away from an accompanying high card, giving the opponents the impossible choice between setting up a winner for declarer and abandoning an attack on another suit.
A forcing defense in contract bridge aims to force declarer to repeatedly ruff the defenders' leads. If this can be done often enough, declarer eventually runs out of trumps and may lose control of the hand. A forcing defense is therefore applicable only to contracts played in a trump suit.
A knockout squeeze is a squeeze in three suits, one of which is the trump suit. The defender's trump holding is needed to prevent declarer from making a successful play involving trumps, including one as prosaic as ruffing a loser. Because the knockout squeeze does not threaten to promote declarer's trumps to winners it is termed a non-material squeeze. Other non-material squeezes include entry squeezes, single-suit squeezes and winkles.
Shooting is an approach in bridge to the bidding or play of a hand which aims for a favorable result by making a choice that is slightly against the odds. A player might decide to shoot toward the end of a pairs game, when he judges that he needs tops to win, not just average-plus results.
