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Contract bridge, or simply bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard 52-card deck. In its basic format, it is played by four players in two competing partnerships, with partners sitting opposite each other around a table. Millions of people play bridge worldwide in clubs, tournaments, online and with friends at home, making it one of the world's most popular card games, particularly among seniors. The World Bridge Federation (WBF) is the governing body for international competitive bridge, with numerous other bodies governing bridge at the regional level.
Precision Club is a bidding system in the game of contract bridge. It is a strong club system developed in 1969 for C. C. Wei by Alan Truscott, and used by Taiwan teams in 1969. Their success in placing second at the 1969 Bermuda Bowl launched the system's popularity.
The Strong Club System is a set of bidding conventions and agreements used in the game of contract bridge and is based upon an opening bid of 1♣ as being an artificial forcing bid promising a strong hand. The strong 1 ♣ opening is assigned a minimum strength promising 16 or more high card points. All other bids would therefore be limited to a maximum of 15 high card points. There are several variants of the strong club system and all are classified as artificial because the bids are highly codified.
The card game auction bridge was the third step in the evolution of the general game of bridge. It was developed from bridge whist in 1904, possibly by 1900. Auction bridge was the precursor to contract bridge. Its predecessors were whist and bridge whist.
Spades is a trick-taking card game devised in the United States in the 1930s. It can be played as either a partnership or solo/"cutthroat" game. The object is to take the number of tricks that were bid before play of the hand began. Spades is a descendant of the Whist family of card games, which also includes Bridge, Hearts, and Oh Hell. Its major difference as compared to other Whist variants is that, instead of trump being decided by the highest bidder or at random, the Spade suit always trumps, hence the name.
Duplicate bridge is the most widely used variation of contract bridge in club and tournament play. It is called duplicate because the same bridge deal is played at each table and scoring is based on relative performance. In this way, every hand, whether strong or weak, is played in competition with others playing identical cards, and the element of skill is heightened while that of chance is reduced. Duplicate bridge stands in contrast to rubber bridge where each hand is freshly dealt and where scores may be more affected by chance in the short run.
John Terence Reese was a British bridge player and writer, regarded as one of the finest of all time in both fields. He was born in Epsom, Surrey, England to middle-class parents, and was educated at Bradfield College and New College, Oxford, where he studied classics and attained a double first, graduating in 1935.
Elie Almon Culbertson, known as Ely Culbertson, was an American contract bridge entrepreneur and personality dominant during the 1930s. He played a major role in the popularization of the new game and was widely regarded as "the man who made contract bridge". He was a great showman who became rich, was highly extravagant, and lost and gained fortunes several times over.
The Bridge World (TBW), the oldest continuously published magazine about contract bridge, was founded in 1929 by Ely Culbertson. It has since been regarded as the game's principal journal, publicizing technical advances in bidding and the play of the cards, discussions of ethical issues, bridge politics and leading personalities, and reports of major tournaments.
The Blue Team represented Italy in international contract bridge tournaments, winning sixteen world titles from 1957 through 1975. From 1964 to 1969 and during a 1972 comeback, the team comprised three regular pairs: Walter Avarelli–Giorgio Belladonna, Pietro Forquet–Benito Garozzo, and Massimo D'Alelio–Camillo Pabis Ticci. Eugenio Chiaradia and Guglielmo Siniscalco played in early years; Dano De Falco, Arturo Franco, and Vito Pittalà in late years. The spiritual father, long-time coach, and non-playing captain through 1966 was Carl'Alberto Perroux.
A bidding system in contract bridge is the set of agreements and understandings assigned to calls and sequences of calls used by a partnership, and includes a full description of the meaning of each treatment and convention. The purpose of bidding is for each partnership to ascertain which contract, whether made or defeated and whether bid by them or by their opponents, would give the partnership their best scoring result.
These terms are used in contract bridge, using duplicate or rubber scoring. Some of them are also used in whist, bid whist, the obsolete game auction bridge, and other trick-taking games. This glossary supplements the Glossary of card game terms.
Edgar Kaplan was an American bridge player and one of the principal contributors to the game. His career spanned six decades and covered every aspect of bridge. He was a teacher, author, editor, administrator, champion player, theorist, expert Vugraph commentator, coach/captain and authority on the laws of the game. He was the editor and publisher of The Bridge World magazine for more than 30 years (1967–1997). With Alfred Sheinwold he developed the Kaplan–Sheinwold bidding system. He was from New York City.
Optimum contract and par contract are two closely related bridge scoring terms in the card game contract bridge.
In the game of contract bridge, the principle of fast arrival is a bidding treatment widely used in game forcing auctions whereby:
A bidding box is a device used for bidding in bridge, usually in duplicate bridge competitions. Made in various configurations and sizes, it is typically a plastic box with two holding slots, each containing a set of bidding cards: one with 35 cards with symbols of bids, and the other with cards for other calls.
Inverted minors refers to a treatment introduced by the Kaplan–Sheinwold (K–S) bidding system for the popular card game bridge. The original structure of Precision, another bidding system, also employed inverted minors over a 1♦ opening. However, the treatment is no longer restricted to users of these bidding systems. although partnerships that use a Short club system tend also to use the convention only after a 1♦ opener.
Vugraph is a method of displaying the bidding and play of bridge hands on a screen for viewing by an audience. The basis of the current computer-generated display was originally developed by Fred Gitelman for the American Contract Bridge League in 1991 under a grant from the estate of Peter Pender, a champion player. Then known as PenderGraph, the software program was first used at the 1991 Summer North American Bridge Championships at Las Vegas. The program was substantially revised in 1993 to work under the Microsoft Windows operating system. Archived Vugraph data can be found from various databases and the most complete collection of bridge data is the Vugraph Project.
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.
Cheating in bridge refers to a deliberate violation of the rules of the game of bridge or other unethical behaviour that is intended to give an unfair advantage to a player or team. Cheating can occur in many forms and can take place before, during, or after a board or game.
References
- 1 2 Manley, Brent; Horton, Mark; Greenberg-Yarbro, Tracey; Rigal, Barry, eds. (2011). The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge (7th ed.). Horn Lake, MS: American Contract Bridge League. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-939460-99-1.