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 it at the regional level.
Charles Henry Goren was an American bridge player and writer who significantly developed and popularized the game. He was the leading American bridge personality in the 1950s and 1960s and widely known as "Mr. Bridge".
Auction bridge was first form of Bridge where players bid to declare a contract in their chosen trump suit or no trumps. It was first recorded as being played in Bath around 1904. The Bath Club and Portland Club met in 1908 and issued a super-set of rules for Bridge that covered the bidding and penalty for failing to make a contract in Auction Bridge. Early forms were rudimentary and unbalanced and the British and Americans could not agree over the bidding ranking and use of artificial bids, resulting in The Whist Club of New York and The Portland Club issuing competing sets of rules.
Rubber bridge is a form of contract bridge played by two competing pairs using a particular method of scoring. A rubber is completed when one pair becomes first to win two games, each game presenting a score of 100 or more contract points; a new game ensues until one pair has won two games to conclude the rubber. Owing to the availability of various additional bonus and penalty points in the scoring, it is possible, though less common, to win the rubber by amassing more total points despite losing two games out of three. Rubber bridge involves a high degree of skill but there is also a fair amount of luck involved in who gets the best cards. A popular variation of rubber bridge is known as Chicago.
Duplicate bridge is a variation of contract bridge where the same set of bridge deals are played by different competitors, 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. This stands in contrast to Bridge played without duplication, where each hand is freshly dealt and where scores may be more affected by chance in the short run.
In duplicate bridge, a board is an item of equipment that holds one deal, or one deck of 52 cards distributed in four hands of 13 cards each. The design permits the entire deal of four hands to be passed, carried or stacked securely with the cards hidden from view in four pockets. This is required for in-person duplicate bridge tournaments, where the same deal is played several times and so the composition of each hand must be preserved during and after each play of each deal. When bridge is played online, the functions of the physical boards are replaced by the software.
Vint is a Russian card-game, similar to both bridge and whist and it is sometimes referred to as Russian whist. Vint means a screw in Russian, and the name is given to the game because the four players, each in turn, propose, bid and overbid each other until one, having bid higher than the others care to follow, makes the trump, and his vis-a-vis plays as his partner.
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.
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.
While a deal of bridge is always played following a unique set of rules, its scoring may vary depending on the type of event the deal is played on. There are two main categories of scoring: rubber and duplicate. Rubber scoring, and its popular variant Chicago, are mostly used in social play. Duplicate scoring is focused on tournament competition and has many variations that compare and rank the relative performance of partnerships and teams playing the same deals as their competitors.
In duplicate bridge, a sacrifice is a deliberate bid of a contract that is unlikely to make in the hope that the penalty points will be less than the points likely to be gained by the opponents in making their contract. In rubber bridge, a sacrifice is an attempt to prevent the opponents scoring a game or rubber on the expectation that positive scores on subsequent deals will offset the negative score.
A traveling scoreslip is a form used for recording the results of each deal in a duplicate bridge tournament. In these tournaments, the four hands of each deal are placed into a board so that the same deal can be played by different competitors. Each time the deal is played, the result is entered into the appropriate row of the traveling scoreslip, which is placed in a pocket in the board. At the end of the tournament, the traveling scoreslips are gathered and the tournament results calculated.
In contract bridge, various bidding systems have been devised to enable partners to describe their hands to each other so that they may reach the optimum contract. Key to this process is that players evaluate and re-evaluate the trick-taking potential of their hands as the auction proceeds and additional information about partner's hand and the opponent's hands becomes available.
Optimum contract and par contract are two closely related bridge scoring terms in the card game contract bridge.
The Laws of Duplicate Bridge is the official rule book of duplicate bridge promulgated by the World Bridge Federation (WBF). The first Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge were published in 1928. They were revised in 1933, 1935, 1943, 1949, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1997, 2007 and 2017. The Laws are effective worldwide for all duplicate bridge tournaments sponsored by WBF, zonal, national and subordinate organizations.
The history of contract bridge, one of the world's most popular partnership card games, may be dated from the early 16th-century invention of trick-taking games such as whist. Bridge departed from whist with the creation of Biritch in the 19th century, and evolved through the late 19th and early 20th centuries to form the present game.
The following is a glossary of terms used in card games. Besides the terms listed here, there are thousands of common and uncommon slang terms. Terms in this glossary should not be game-specific, but apply to a wide range of card games played with non-proprietary packs. It should not include terms solely related to casino or banking games. For glossaries that relate primarily to one game or family of similar games, see Game-specific glossaries.
Olive Stone Avery Peterson was an American bridge player and teacher from St. Davids, Pennsylvania, on the Philadelphia Main Line.
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.
Why You Lose at Bridge is a book about the game of contract bridge by the Russian-born English bridge player S. J. "Skid" Simon (1904–48), first published in 1945. It contains practical advice directed mainly towards rubber bridge players, and introduces to the world four stereotypical bad players: Mr Smug, the Unlucky Expert, Mrs Guggenheim, and Futile Willie. It has been much admired by duplicate bridge players as well as by rubber bridge players, and Simon's fictional characters have passed into legend.
