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bridge
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What is the card game bridge?
Bridge is a card game played with a standard 52-card deck, involving four players in two partnerships. The goal is to score points by bidding and winning tricks.
The game has three main versions: rubber, Chicago, and duplicate. Rubber bridge is a casual game, while Chicago is suited for card parties, allowing players to rotate partners. Duplicate bridge is for serious competitions, minimizing luck by using duplicate boards to compare results with identical cards.
Bridge likely evolved from three-hand whist games. Bridge whist gained popularity for exposing the dummy hand, creating new opportunities for skillful play.
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How many players are needed to play bridge?
Bridge is a card game played with a standard 52-card deck. The game requires four players, who play in two partnerships against each other, with partners sitting opposite each other at the table. The goal is to win tricks, with each player contributing one card per trick.
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What is the main objective in a game of bridge?
The main objective in contract bridge is to score as many points as possible while simultaneously preventing opponents from scoring points. The best players use strategy, deductive analysis, psychology, and mental dominance over their opponents to achieve this goal. Players estimate their hand's trick-taking power, share information with their partner, and develop strategies to inform their partner without helping their opponents.
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How are teams and partnerships formed in bridge?
In bridge, a standard 52-card deck is used with four players in two partnerships facing each other across a table. To determine partners, players draw cards from a facedown pack, excluding the four cards at either end. The two players drawing the highest cards become partners.
The highest card gets to choose seats and cards and becomes the first dealer. If five or six players are in the game, the lowest-ranking player sits out until the end of the first rubber, then replaces the next lowest.
Bridge is essentially a partnership game where partners must communicate the nature and strength of their hands to decide on the best contract. The object of contract bridge is to score as many points as possible and allow opponents to score as few points as possible.
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What happens during the bidding phase in bridge?
In contract bridge, the bidding phase is crucial for partners to exchange information about their hands and determine the optimal contract. This involves estimating the trick-taking potential of one's hand, informing one's partner about its strength and characteristics, and strategically withholding information from opponents. Bidding systems, like the Vanderbilt Club system, Culbertson system, and Goren's point count, help players value their hands and communicate effectively. Control-showing bids, such as the Blackwood convention, Gerber convention, and cue bidding, are employed to ensure the partnership can secure enough tricks. The ethics of the game dictate that information can only be conveyed through bids and plays, with conventions assigning specific meanings to certain actions.
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How do players score points and win in bridge?
In bridge, players score points by fulfilling contracts and winning tricks. The suits rank from highest to lowest: spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs.
Provided the declarer's side fulfills its contract, it scores bonus points for each trick over six, depending on the contract suit. Diamonds and clubs score 20 points for each odd trick. Spades and hearts score 30 points. No trump scores 40 points for the first odd trick and 30 for each additional odd trick.
A side wins a game when it has scored 100 or more trick points. When a side has won two games, it wins the rubber and receives a bonus of 700 if its opponents have not won a game or 500 if its opponents have won a game. The side with the higher total wins the difference from its opponents’ score. The object of the game is to score as many points as possible and permit the opponents to score as few points as possible.
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bridge, card game derived from whist, through the earlier variants bridge whist and auction bridge. The essential features of all bridge games, as of whist, are that four persons play, two against two as partners; a standard 52-card deck of playing cards is dealt out one at a time, clockwise around the table, so that each player holds 13 cards; and the object of play is to win tricks, each trick consisting of one card played by each player. Another feature is that one suit may be designated the trump suit (i.e., any card in that suit may take any card of the other suits), but the methods of designating the trump suit (or of determining that a deal will be played without trumps) differ in the various bridge games, as explained below.
Since about 1896 bridge whist, auction bridge, and contract bridge have successively been the principal intellectual card games of the English-speaking countries. The third game of the series, contract bridge, spread throughout the world and in some respects constituted a social phenomenon unparalleled in the history of games. In addition to millions of casual players worldwide, there exist numerous national federations affiliated with the World Bridge Federation (WBF), which organizes international tournaments for more-serious competitors. Its largest affiliated member is the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) with nearly 160,000 members.
The arrival of personal computers and the Internet opened up new opportunities for instruction and play. In addition to being a venue for casual play, some Internet sites host tournaments recognized by ACBL and WBF at which participants can earn international master points.
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The bridge games
The first game of the series was originally called, simply, bridge, but it is now called bridge whist to distinguish it from the two later games. Upon its introduction to New York in 1893 and to London in 1894, it almost immediately supplanted whist in the card rooms of men’s clubs, and before 1900 it was the favourite diversion of fashionable mixed gatherings. Bridge whist was itself supplanted with almost equal rapidity by auction bridge, which was introduced in England about 1904 and which became, from 1907 to 1928, the most universally popular card game theretofore known. Auction bridge had at least 15 million adherents when it was supplanted by contract bridge about 1930 and began to die out.
Bridge whist
In bridge, as in whist, there are four players in two partnerships, each player being dealt 13 cards. But in whist there is always a trump suit, determined by turning up the last card dealt to the dealer, and each player holds and plays his own hand. The principal innovations of bridge whist were: selection of the trump suit by the dealer or the dealer’s partner after they saw their hands; the option of playing at no trump; the exposed dummy (the hand of dealer’s partner), which was played by the dealer; a different method of scoring; and the right to double (the scoring values).
In bridge whist, after the cards were dealt, the dealer could make the declaration (name any suit as trump, or decide to play without any trump), or he could transfer this duty to his partner. Before leading, the player on the dealer’s left (eldest hand) could double or could pass that privilege to his partner; and if either doubled, dealer or his partner could redouble, and so the redoubling might continue indefinitely (except that many clubs placed a limit upon the number of redoubles).
The player on the dealer’s left then led. Dealer’s partner, called the dummy, placed his entire hand faceup on the table in front of him, and dealer played both his own cards and dummy’s, from each hand in proper turn. Otherwise play was as at whist.
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The side that won the majority of the tricks scored, for each odd trick (trick over six): if spades were trumps, 2 points; clubs, 4; diamonds, 6; hearts, 8; no trump, 12; these values doubled and redoubled as previously determined. The first side thus to score 30 or more points won game, and a fresh game was begun. The first side to win two games won rubber and received a 100-point bonus. Other bonuses, which did not count toward game, were awarded for a side holding three or more honours (ace, king, queen, jack, and 10) of the trump suit or, at no-trump declarations, three or more aces; for making slams (12 or 13 tricks won); and for chicane (a player’s holding no card of the trump suit).
Auction bridge
The essential features added by auction bridge were that all four players bid for the right to name the trump suit and that the high bidder or his partner (not necessarily the dealer) became declarer and played the dummy’s hand. In other respects the procedure at auction bridge underwent constant and frequent change.
Contract bridge
In its mechanics, contract bridge differs from auction bridge only in the scoring. At auction bridge, declarer’s side scores toward game each odd trick that it wins, whether or not it contracted to win such a trick. At contract bridge, the odd tricks won by declarer cannot be scored toward game unless declarer’s side previously contracted to win those tricks. Values of tricks, penalties, and premiums are higher in contract bridge than in auction bridge, and large bonuses are awarded for bidding and making slam contracts. See below Scoring.