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.
A trick-taking game is a card or tile-based game in which play of a hand centers on a series of finite rounds or units of play, called tricks, which are each evaluated to determine a winner or taker of that trick. The object of such games then may be closely tied to the number of tricks taken, as in plain-trick games such as contract bridge, whist, and spades, or to the value of the cards contained in taken tricks, as in point-trick games such as pinochle, the tarot family, briscola, and most evasion games like hearts. Trick-and-draw games are trick-taking games in which the players can fill up their hands after each trick. In most variants, players are free to play any card into a trick in the first phase of the game, but must follow suit as soon as the stock is depleted. Trick-avoidance games like reversis or polignac are those in which the aim is to avoid taking some or all tricks.
Bezique or Bésigue is a 19th-century French melding and trick-taking card game for two players that came to Britain and is still played today. The game is derived from Piquet, possibly via Marriage (Sixty-six) and Briscan, with additional scoring features, notably the peculiar liaison of the Q♠ and J♦ that is also a feature of Pinochle, Binokel, and similarly named games that vary by country.
Black Lady is an American card game of the Hearts group for three to six players and the most popular of the group. It emerged in the early 20th century as an elaboration of Hearts and was initially also called Discard Hearts. It is named after its highest penalty card, the Queen of Spades or "Black Lady". It is a trick-avoidance game in which the aim is to avoid taking tricks containing hearts or the Black Lady. American author and leading bridge exponent, Ely Culbertson, describes it as "essentially Hearts with the addition of the queen of spades as a minus card, counting thirteen" and goes on to say that "Black Lady and its elaborations have completely overshadowed the original Hearts in popularity."
Skat, historically Scat, is a three-player trick-taking card game of the Ace-Ten family, devised around 1810 in Altenburg in the Duchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. It is the national game of Germany and, along with Doppelkopf, it is the most popular card game in Germany and Silesia and one of the most popular in the rest of Poland. A variant of 19th-century Skat was once popular in the US. John McLeod considers it one of the best and most interesting card games for three players, and Kelbet described it as "the king of German card games."
Sheng ji is a family of point-based, trick-taking card games played in China and in Chinese immigrant communities. They have a dynamic trump, i.e., which cards are trump changes every round. As these games are played over a wide area with no standardization, rules vary widely from region to region.
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.
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.
Backwash squeeze is a rare squeeze which involves squeezing an opponent which lies behind declarer's menace. A variation of this, known as the "Sydney Squeeze" or "Seres Squeeze", was discovered in play at a rubber bridge game in Sydney, Australia in 1965, by the Australian great Tim Seres; it was later attested by famous bridge theorist Géza Ottlik in an article in The Bridge World in 1974, as well as in his famous book Adventures in Card Play, co-authored with Hugh Kelsey.
Two-ten-jack is a Japanese trick-taking card game for two players that takes its name from the three highest-scoring cards in the game: the 2, 10 and Jack in three different suits.
Svoyi Koziri, Svoi Kozyri or Vsyak svoi kozyri, is a Russian going-out card game for two players which some consider an elaboration of the Czech game Sedma. This game is one of perfect information and hence entirely of foresight and calculation. It differs from almost all other card games, in that the element of luck is eliminated, as, at any one time in the game, a player will know exactly which cards his opponent has.
Gong Zhu (拱猪) is a Chinese four-player trick-taking card game that is similar to Black Lady, the leading member of the Hearts family. However, it differs in that it assigns quite different point values to cards. The objective of the game is to score positive points and avoid penalty points. Gong Zhu means: Chase the Pig, for "pig" is the name given to the Q♠.
Newmarket is an English card game of the matching type for any number of players. It is a domestic gambling game, involving more chance than skill, and emerged in the 1880s as an improvement of the older game of Pope Joan. It became known in America as Stops or Boodle before developing into Michigan. In 1981, Newmarket was still the sixth most popular card game in Britain.
Maw, formerly also Mawe, was a Scottish card game for two players, popularised by James I, which is ancestral to the Irish national game of Twenty-five as well as the Canadian game of Forty-fives. Maw appears to be the same as Five Cards, a game described by Charles Cotton in the 17th century. The game disappeared from the literature after the period of the English Commonwealth, only to emerge in Ireland in the 19th century in new forms for two or more players and known as Five and Ten, Spoil Five and Forty-Five. These new variants are still played today, the latter has evolved into the Canadian game of Forty-fives.
Bruus, formerly Brausebart or Brusbart, is a very old north German card game for four players in two teams of two. It was once highly popular but has since died out except for a few pockets in the state of Schleswig-Holstein. As Brusbart, it was the ancestor of a family of similar games in northern Europe, including Swedish Bräus and Danish Brus which are still played today. Bruus features 'daring and tormenting' which has been said to give the game a certain charm. Once considered the national game of Hamburg, Bruus is a descendant of Karnöffel, the oldest identifiable European card game in the history of playing cards with a continuous tradition of play down to the present day. The game is named after the Bruus or Brusbart, once its top card, but now its second-highest trump.
Baśka is a fast-moving, Polish card game for four players played using traditional French-suited playing cards. It uses a shortened pack of just 16 cards and is similar to Kop which is also played in Poland. Both are derived from German Schafkopf.
Skærvindsel is a Danish card game for four players that is a member of the Schafkopf family. Today it is mostly played in Jutland and is therefore often spelled Sjervinsel, but was previously widespread throughout Denmark. It was the first Danish game where the winner of the auction, the declarer, could choose a partner by calling an Ace. This principle has since been transferred to Call-Ace Whist (Esmakkerwhist).
Sjavs is a Danish card game of the Schafkopf family that is played in two main variants. In Denmark, it is a 3-player game, played with a shortened pack of 20 cards; in the Faroe Islands, where it is very popular, it is a four-hand, partnership game using a standard Piquet pack of 32 cards.
1001 is a point-trick card game of German origin for two players that is similar to Sixty-Six. It is known in German as Tausendundeins and Tausendeins ("1001") or Kiautschou. The winner is the first to 1001 points, hence the name. Hülsemann describes the game as "one of the most stimulating for two players", one that must be played "fast and freely".
Kop is a minimalist Polish card game of the Schafkopf family for four players played using traditional French-suited playing cards. It uses a shortened pack of just 16 cards and is similar to Baśka, another fast moving Polish game. Both are derived from German Schafkopf.
