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Singaporean bridge (also known as floating bridge [1] ) is a re-invention of the traditional game of contract bridge deriving its name from where it is believed to have been invented, Singapore. There are many variations to the game which is primarily social, has no official book of rules and no formal organizing authority.
Players assume fixed seats, but unlike contract bridge, the partners are not determined at the outset by virtue of prior pairing — they are determined at the end of the bidding. [1] Using a standard 52-card deck, each player is dealt thirteen cards. There is a round of bidding to establish who is declarer, the trump suit, if any, and the number of tricks to be taken by declarer. Declarer then announces the rank and suit of a card and the holder of that card becomes declarer's undisclosed partner. Either declarer or the player on his left makes the first lead and normal trick-taking play ensues. Although declarer and his partner cooperate to take the most tricks, the partner does not immediately identify himself, strategically playing to tricks to assist declarer and revealing himself only by inference from the play.
There are no pre-determined number of deals or games to be played and hands are not duplicated for subsequent players, if any. Scoring may be by deals-won totals or the total of tricks won in successful contracts. Since partnerships change, players accumulate their individual scores to determine an overall winner.
Bidding is initiated by the dealer or the player on his left. Suits are ranked as in contract bridge and the level of bidding is based on a 'book of six, i.e. an bid of '1' commits a contract to take seven tricks. Player make calls in clockwise fashion but there are no calls of 'double' or 'redouble'. The declarer is the player making the highest bid which is followed by three 'pass' calls.
In some game variants, bidding will only commence if every player has a sufficiently 'playable' hand to make the game meaningful. Hands are determined to be playable through a point system where aces are valued at 4 points, kings at 3, queens at 2 and jacks at 1. Further, every card after the 4th in each suit is also worth an additional 1 point. A playable hand must contains at least four points, or as may otherwise be agreed. If any one player does not have a playable hand, the deal may be abandoned (referred to as a 'wash') and the cards shuffled and redealt.
The player to the left of declarer makes the opening lead and normal trick-taking play ensues with the optional inclusion of some local rules, such as:
Once the bidding has concluded, declarer establishes his partner by calling for the holder of a particular card - the 'called card'. It is known only to the card holder who the partner is and this fact remains undisclosed when the play to the first trick starts.
By way of strategy, if declarer has a strong trick-taking hand but lacks a key ace in one suit, he may call for the holder of that ace to be his partner. Or, if holding a very long suit lacking the ace, it may be better to call the holder of the ace of another suit in which he holds a singleton so that he can later ruff.
The partner can choose to "reveal" himself at any point in the game but only through his card play, or when forced to play the called card. Until then, declarer does not know who his partner is and can only infer it from the play of the cards. Partners usually try to reveal themselves early so as not to have their side-suit winners trumped by declarer. Alternatively, partner can pretend not to be the partner in order to mislead the opponents. However, partner is obliged to reveal himself by verbal declaration should the opponents be one trick away from winning.
Most of the time, the called card is one that declarer does not hold. However, it is legal for declarer to call a card he holds if he is confident that his hand is strong enough to make the contract unassisted and so he opts not to share any victory points with a partner. This may be strategically advantageous if the three opponents are unable to coordinate their defensive play until the farce is revealed and it is too late.
The foregoing contrasts with contract bridge where the dummy, his hand and the partnerships are known at the start.
Singaporean bridge is a social game with a friendly informality. Players voice their bids and conversation during games is common.
There is no single or official point-scoring system but two concepts prevail:
The points for each game are recorded in four columns for four players. In each game, only the columns of the winning players have scores entered. Points are summed at the end of a gaming session to determine the overall winner.
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.
Pinochle, also called pinocle or penuchle, is a trick-taking ace–ten card game, typically for two to four players and played with a 48-card deck. It is derived from the card game bezique; players score points by trick-taking and also by forming combinations of characters into melds. It is thus considered part of a "trick-and-meld" category which also includes the game belote. Each hand is played in three phases: bidding, melds, and tricks. The standard game today is called "partnership auction pinochle".
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.
500 or Five Hundred is a trick-taking game developed in the United States from Euchre. Euchre was extended to a 10 card game with bidding and a Misère contract similar to Russian Preference, producing a cutthroat three-player game like Preference and a four-player game played in partnerships like Whist which is the most popular modern form, although with special packs it can be played by up to six players.
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.
Solo whist is the English form of Wiezen, a simple game of the Boston family played in the Low Countries. It is a trick-taking card game for four players in which players can bid to make eight tricks in trumps with any partner, or a solo contract playing against the other three players. Thus it combines both partnership and cut-throat play. Scoring is with small stakes won or paid out on each hand.
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.
Sixty-six or 66, sometimes known as Paderbörnern, is a fast 5- or 6-card point-trick game of the marriage type for 2–4 players, played with 24 cards. It is an ace–ten game where aces are high and tens rank second. It has been described as "one of the best two-handers ever devised".
Pedro is an American trick-taking card game of the All Fours family based on Auction Pitch. Its most popular variant is known as Cinch, Double Pedro or High Five which was developed in Denver, Colorado around 1885 and soon regarded as the most important American member of the All Fours family. Although it went out of fashion with the rise of Auction Bridge, it is still widely played on the western coast of the United States and in its southern states, being the dominant game in some locations in Louisiana. Forms of the game have been reported from Nicaragua, the Azores, Niobe NY, Italy and Finland. The game is primarily played by four players in fixed partnerships, but can also be played by 2–6 individual players.
Briscola is one of Italy's most popular games, together with Scopa and Tressette. A little-changed descendant of Brusquembille, the ancestor of briscan and bezique, Briscola is a Mediterranean trick-taking ace–ten card game for two to six players, played with a standard Italian 40-card deck. The game can also be played with a modern Anglo-French deck, without the eight, nine and ten cards. With three or six players, twos are removed from the deck to ensure the number of cards in the deck is a multiple of the number of players; a single two for three players and all four twos for six players. The four and six-player versions of the game are played as a partnership game of two teams, with players seated such that every player is adjacent to two opponents.
Bid whist is a partnership trick-taking variant of the classic card game whist. As indicated by the name, bid whist adds a bidding element to the game that is not present in classic whist. Bid whist, along with spades, remains popular particularly in U.S. military culture and a tradition in African-American culture.
Pitch is the American name of the English trick-taking game of Blind All Fours which, in turn, is derived from classic All Fours. Historically, Pitch started as "Blind All Fours", a very simple All Fours variant that is still played in England as a pub game. The modern game involving a bidding phase and setting back a party's score if the bid is not reached came up in the middle of the 19th century and is more precisely known as Auction Pitch or Setback.
Preferans or Russian Preference is a 10-card plain-trick game with bidding, played by three or four players with a 32-card Piquet deck. It is a sophisticated variant of the Austrian game Préférence, which in turn descends from Spanish Ombre and French Boston. It is renowned in the card game world for its many complicated rules and insistence on strategical approaches.
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.
Bid Euchre, Auction Euchre, Pepper, or Hasenpfeffer, is the name given to a group of card games played in North America based on the game Euchre. It introduces an element of bidding in which the trump suit is decided by which player can bid to take the most tricks. Variation comes from the number of cards dealt, the absence of any undealt cards, the bidding and scoring process, and the addition of a no trump declaration. It is typically a partnership game for four players, played with a 24, 32 or 36-card pack, or two decks of 24 cards each.
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.
Shelem, also called Rok or similar, is an Iranian trick-taking card game with four players in two partnerships, bidding and competing against each other. Bidding and trump are declared in every hand by the bidding winner. Both the name and the point structure of this game are similar to the American game Rook, there being a possible connection between the two games. Though it isn't clear from which game it is derived.
Dummy whist is one of many variants of the classic trick-taking card game Whist. The general rules of dummy whist are similar to that of bid whist, with two notable exceptions. Bid whist is played by four players, whereas dummy whist is played by only three. Secondly, instead of dealing a kitty, a dummy hand is dealt to be on the team of the player who wins the auction.
Mariáš or Mariasch a three-player, solo trick-taking game of the king–queen family of ace–ten games, but with a simplified scoring system. It is one of the most popular card games in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but is also played in Bavaria in Germany as well as in Austria. The Hungarian national card game Ulti is an elaboration of Mariáš.
Call-ace whist or Danish whist is a card game for four players playing in variable partnerships. It is the most popular form of Whist in Denmark, where it is often just called "Whist". It has a well developed bidding system and has imported from the traditional Danish game of Skærvindsel the feature of determining the partnerships by 'calling an ace'. John McLeod records that there is also a version of Danish whist in which there are fixed partnerships.