Week 1 Beginner s Course

Transcription

1 Bridge v Whist Bridge is one of the family of Whist/Trump type games. It was developed from Whist mainly in the US - and shares a lot of its features. As Whist we play with a standard pack of 52 cards 13 cards of the 4 suits Clubs ( or C), Diamonds ( or D), Hearts ( or H), Spades ( or S). Why there are thirteen cards and 4 suits is perhaps lost in history but the western fascination with 13, the fact there are 4 seasons and 52 weeks in a year may all be relevant. It is commonly believed that the 4 suits in a deck of playing cards -- spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs, derive from French decks of cards of around In French decks, the suits represent the four classes: Spades represent nobility, hearts stand for the clergy, diamonds represent merchants, and clubs are peasants. As an arithmetic quirk there are 13 lunar months, each with 28 days = 364 days. If you add up the values of all the cards in the deck (with Ace=1,Jack=11,Queen=12,King=13) then you get )*4 = 364 But you read into that what you want! As in Whist there are 4 players involved and they play as pairs. Conventionally these are North/South and st/east Partners sit opposite each other though they do not have to be aligned with a compass! Each player receives 13 cards each known as a hand. A particular distribution of the 4 sets of 13 cards (i.e. the four hands) is known as a deal. But as is typical of the Bridge (and English) language we use the same word for different meanings, and sometimes different words for the same meaning. So sometimes we refer to a particular deal, for example the 3 rd one of the evening, as hand 3. also may refer to it as board 3 because at Duplicate Bridge all the cards are held in a plastic frame called a board. Again as in Whist the method of play is that a card is contributed (one at a time) from each player (in the clockwise direction North-East-South-st) and the best card wins the round or trick for that partnership. Whoever wins the trick, must lead to the next trick until all thirteen rounds have been completed; and of course the aim is to win as many tricks as possible once play has begun. But what is the best card? Like most whist type games the cards, in the suits, are ordered in descending order A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 This particular ordering is not common to all games but that is what we play in bridge. As in Whist there is frequently a trump suit and we often say a particular deal is played in, for example, Hearts, when the Heart suit is trumps. The trump suit varies from deal to deal, and any card of the trump suit may be played whenever another suit, (often called a side suit) should be played and the player has no cards left in that side suit. This action of playing a trump on a side suit is known as Trumping or more commonly in bridge Ruffing. However on some deals there is no trump suit, and these hands/deals are said to be played in or at No-Trumps. The suit, or no-trumps at bridge is termed the denomination for the hand. Page 1 of 9

2 Bridge/Whist Differences Thus we move on to the differences between Whist and Bridge. There are three major aspects of Bridge that make it different from other card games Bidding, Playing and Scoring. The mechanics and rules of playing are universal, (though techniques are varied), and the mechanics and rules of bidding are also universally defined, (but techniques and methods are myriad). Scoring is pretty standard however with only a few variations. Bidding Unlike Whist where the trump suit is dictated by chance, at Bridge the denomination (which suit as the trump suit, or to play in no-trumps) is determined by the players themselves for each deal. Of course it might well be that one of the players has lots of Clubs and would like Clubs as trumps, another has lots of Hearts would like Hearts as trumps and so on. So the determination of the trump suit (or no-trumps) is made by a series of suggestions (known as bids) by the players in turn. The bidding cycle starts with the person who dealt the cards surprisingly enough known as the dealer, and continues in the cyclic direction North/East/South/st until all four players have had a chance to suggest a suit (or no-trumps). If a player does not have a particular good hand - we will define what makes a hand good later - he will say Pass or No-Bid (both mean the same thing). Once there have been three consecutive passes (or no-bids) then the bidding cycle is over. A player will also pass (or nobid) when he feels he cannot suggest a better denomination to play the hand in than the previous player in the bidding cycle. The first person to make a bid is known as the Opening Bidder, and his partner who of course sits opposite him - is normally known as Responder. In many deals these are the only players to make any bid (other than pass of course). The bidding process is also known as an Auction. Of course, if we just suggested the suit to play in the bidding could go on all night North might have lots of Diamonds and East lots of Hearts, and they could argue, North offering Let s have Diamonds as trumps, and East contributing No, Hearts would be better and so on ad infinitum. And so we have a discipline and ordering system in the bidding cycle. Each bid has to be at a higher value than the previous rather like at an auction if somebody bids 50 you cannot make a bid of 45. Firstly when you make a bid you must specify how many trick you expect to make with your favoured trump suit. Thus in our example North might suggest I reckon I (with my partner s help) can make 7 tricks with Diamonds as trumps, and East might suggest That is nothing, I reckon we (st and East) can make 9 tricks with Hearts as trumps. North (or South) could counter that they could make 10 tricks in that Diamonds and would say so by making another bid; but might feel they were unable to do that, and so would pass, and East s suggestion of Hearts would win the day, and Hearts would be trumps. say that the East/st pair have outbid North/South and has contracted to make 9 tricks with Hearts as trumps. If they succeed then the East/st pair will be awarded a certain number of points, if he fails North/South will receive a certain (different) number of points. Thus by offering to make more tricks in a denomination than the opposition, a pair will buy or contract to make those tricks. would say in the example above that the contract is to make 9 tricks in hearts. ( use a shorthand version actually, but more of that in a moment.) Page 2 of 9

3 But back to our North/East contest above. The suits have a ranking order in Bridge, and a player electing to make tricks in a higher ranking suit, can do so at the same level (number of tricks) as the previous bidder. The ranking order happens to be alphabetic in bridge Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts and Spades; with Clubs the lowest ranking and Spades the highest ranking. Thus if North offers to make 7 tricks in Diamonds then East can outbid him by electing to make 7 tricks in Hearts (Hearts are higher ranking than Diamonds). If North (or South) desire to compete further in diamonds he must contract to make at least 8 tricks because Diamonds are of lower rank than Hearts. Now because there are 13 tricks to be won in a particular deal and we do not offer to make less than half the tricks in any denomination, the bidding cannot start with anything less than suggesting to make 7 tricks, i.e. 1 more than 6. The shortcut we use to say we wish to make 7 tricks in Diamonds as trumps is therefore 1, or 1D, or 1 Diamond. The first two forms are used when writing in book/publications, the third form when making a vocal bid at the table. A bid of 3 would mean 6+3 tricks with hearts as trumps, i.e. 9 tricks. Going back to our ranking order of suits Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, Spades the denomination of No-Trumps, i.e. playing without a trump suit out ranks Spades, and is normally designated NT as an abbreviation. Thus the complete range of bids in order in our shorthand is 1,1,1,1,1NT, 2,2,2,2,2NT,...6,6,6,6,6NT, 7,7,7,7,7NT Note that 7 is the highest we can bid to because that means 6+7 = 13 tricks. Making 12 tricks is known as a small slam, all 13 tricks is a grand slam. Of course, we would never get a bidding cycle like above covering all possible bids most contracts (auctions) are arrived at in 3 or 4 actual bids. Scoring Before we go into why and how we bid in detail and how we play, we must have a few words on scoring. Whereas at Whist scoring is simply based on the number of tricks one makes, Bridge is a tad more complicated! Table of Points Scored for Tricks Made (provided you make your contract) Denomination Points Example The Minors Clubs and Diamonds 20 points per trick over 6. 3, 9 tricks scores 60 (+50 bonus for part score) = 110 The Majors Hearts and Spades 30 points per trick over 6 3, 9 tricks scores 90 (+50 bonus for part score) =140 No Trumps 40 for first, then 30 per trick over 6 3NT, 9 tricks scores game bonus = 400 or 600 Page 3 of 9

4 Because Hearts & Spades score more points they are known as the major suits you may well infer that Diamonds and Clubs are the minor suits. Note that the points scored does relate to the rankings of the suits. There are two basic forms of Bridge that are commonly played with slightly different scoring methods. The two forms of Bridge are Rubber Bridge and Duplicate Bridge there are no significant differences between the play and bidding at Rubber and Duplicate. will be teaching you how to play Duplicate Bridge, but to appreciate scoring at Duplicate you really have to be aware of Rubber Bridge scoring. Duplicate Bridge is a game normally played at bridge clubs whereby the same hands are played by more than one set of 4 players (the hands are effectively duplicated) and the winners are the pair that did better with the cards they had than any other pair who had the same cards. There are no stakes normally at Duplicate Bridge though some clubs do give a cash prize to the winning pair(s). Rubber Bridge is the form of Bridge most normally played socially amongst 4 friends (well at least they started out as friends). It is normally played for a small amount of stake money at the end of a friendly session perhaps 40 or 50p may have changed hands. There are also Rubber Bridge Clubs and professional bridge players they do not play for pennies! At Rubber, each player maintains their score using a card drawn more or less as follows. When a player makes a contract he will be credited with three elements towards his side s score the first is for the contract he actually bid if he bids 3 he will score 90¹ points for having made his contract (each trick made above 6 scores 30 points if hearts are trumps). This score is written below the horizontal line thus 90¹ Page 4 of 9

5 The next element is a bonus for making more tricks than he hoped and bid if he made 10 tricks an additional 30¹ points (because he made one more trick with hearts as trumps) is scored above the line. 30¹ 90¹ There is another bonus available to those who elect to take 12 or 13 tricks if they are successful they will score a slam bonus of 500, 750, 1000 or 1500 depending on circumstances this is also scored above the line. A bonus very peculiar to Rubber occurs when you hold 4, or 5 of the top cards in the trump suit, or hold all 4 Aces if playing at no trumps It is called For honours. In all cases the opposition will make the same entries on their score cards but under the column. The aim of Rubber Bridge is first to score 100 points or more below the line. This can be scored in one deal (by electing to make 10 tricks in Hearts, 4 4*30 =120) or in more than one deal when you have scored 100 or more you are said to have made or scored a game. If you make a positive score below the line which is not game you are said to make a part-score, i.e. you are part way there to scoring a game. Suppose on the next hand/deal the opposition bid to make 10 tricks in Spades and are just successful for this they score 120² Spades count 30 per trick like Hearts, and because they bid to 4 they get the full 120 below the line. So our score card will look like this 30¹ 90¹ 120² Note they have 120 below the line and we have drawn an extra line. This is because at Rubber Bridge the aim is to score two games (winning two games wins a Rubber, and a maximum of three are played- c.f. Davis Cup Tennis where a Rubber consists of 5 matches each country hopes to win at least three). And because the opposition have scored their first game we start a new game below the line. All points scored to date will be added up at the end. The 90 we previously scored still counts towards the total points at the end of the session, but it no longer counts towards a game because the opposition have made the first game hence the expression to have drawn a line under it. Page 5 of 9

6 Once a side has scored a game they are said to be vulnerable. This is because any penalties they incur (for failing to make their contract) will be greater, normally doubled. Suppose now that we bid on the next hand and make 2 (scoring 60³ not added to the previous 90), then we bid 1NT but fail (making just 6 tricks for which will score 50⁴ above the line - remember only points for tricks bid and made are put below the line and count towards the 100 for Game; and on the next hand then 2 (scoring 60⁵). Our score card will now look like 30¹ 50⁴ 90¹ 120² 60³ 60⁵ Both sides are now said to be vulnerable, because we have made a game in two steps of 60. And again we draw a line under the game made. The opposition then bid to make 9 tricks in diamonds but fail and make just 8 tricks. say they have gone off or are down 1. For this we score 100⁶ twice the penalty we suffered in our failed contract because the opposition are vulnerable. 100⁶ 30¹ 50⁴ 90¹ 120² 60³ 60⁵ Finally we bid to make 11 tricks in clubs these score only 20 points each for those above 6. are successful and score 100⁷ points below the line scoring a seconds game. Thus we have won the rubber and get a bonus for doing so 500⁸ in this case. add up all the points and arrive at the following 500⁸ 100⁶ 30¹ 50⁴ 90¹ 120² 60³ 60⁵ 100⁷ Page 6 of 9

7 Thus we win by 770 typically at Rubber Bridge we play for 1p per 100 so the opposition give us a total of 8p each!! Incidentally if the opposition had not made their game, our bonus for winning the rubber would have been 700. At Duplicate Bridge we have the same aims to score as many points as possible but because each hand is an entity in itself we have slightly different bonus points available to us. If we bid and make a slam (12 or 13 tricks) we still make the same slam bonuses. However since we do not have the option of scoring a game in two (or more hands) whenever we bid and make a part-score, we are credited with a bonus of 50. Also when we make a game we are given a game bonus - of 300 or 500 according to our vulnerability. At duplicate, vulnerability changes from hand to hand according to the hand or board number. So Duplicate Scoring is based on Rubber Bridge Scoring. It is actually done on special pieces of paper but we will cover that in another lesson. Suffice it to say that the aim is as always to score as many points as possible. But enough of scoring, (but without scoring there is no logic to bidding, without bidding there is no point in playing, and without playing there can be no score!) Playing have already said that after the cycle of bidding we actually play the cards but we have to make a few definitions. Firstly assume that a pair has bought (or declared) the contract say 3. The first person of that pair who bid spades is known as Declarer. His partner, perhaps unfortunately will be known as Dummy. The Declarer s opposition is known as the Defence. The person on Declarer s left is referred to as LHO (Left Hand Opponent), and surprisingly the person on Declarer s right is RHO (Right Hand Opponent). The mechanics of playing cards at bridge require that the LHO is obliged to make the first lead; that is to play the first card this is known as the Opening Lead. It should be played face down so no one can see it in front of LHO. It is placed face down for two reasons first to make sure no mistake has been made as to who is declarer. (Spades might have been bid by both the members of the successful bidding team the opening lead must be made by the LHO of the person who first bid spades in our case.) The other reason for placing that card face down is that it gives RHO the opportunity to ask questions of the bidding but more of that and etiquette another day. Once the opening lead has been agreed it is turned over for all to see and Dummy s hand is placed face up, again for all to see, in front of Dummy. The cards should be in descending order in 4 columns one for each suit, with the trump suit (if any) to the left as viewed by Declarer. From that moment on Dummy s role is to play the card as directed by Declarer. Under no circumstances should Dummy play any cards without instruction by Declarer. Nor should dummy make any comments throughout the play of the hand which is why he/she is designated dummy - (there are some very minor etiquette exceptions but for the moment dummy says nothing). Cards are played in the normal fashion henceforth with Declarer effectively playing two hands dummy s and his own but as a card is played it is placed in front of the player and turned over once all 4 cards to that trick have been played. Once all 13 tricks have been played the score is agreed and the pairs proceed to the next deal/hand. Page 7 of 9

8 Note the cards are never mixed or reshuffled as they will be played again at another table in Duplicate Bridge. Bidding Systems So we have touched but lightly on mechanics of scoring and playing and bidding. But how do we ascertain the correct level to which to bid? There are many systems of bidding and they all share the same feature - none is perfect. Most will get you to the right contract at least 95% of the time. The system we will be using throughout will be based on the ACOL bidding system. This was developed at the Acol Road Bridge Club in the 1930s. Its main devisers were Maurice Harrison-Gray, Jack Mark, and S.J Simon. Some call it Standard English (ACOL), perhaps to distinguish it from Standard American another system popular in the US where most of Contract Bridge as we know it originated. Another system, popular at expert levels but seen occasionally in the UK at Bridge Clubs is Precision. All systems are faced with the same problem how to evaluate a hand to assess its trick taking potential or how to evaluate a hand. And the commonest (almost universal) method is known as the Milton Work Point Count named after an American called Milton Work. Before we go there though, it is time to address the English language again. If asked for the definition of the word Points in an English dictionary, there are about 30 different meanings so do not be surprised we use it in 2 or 3 (or 4 ) ways in Bridge. have already covered its use as a scoring attribute we are going to use it now as a method of hand evaluation. Please try not to be too confused (and please do not ask what is the point!) When we look at a hand we know that the Ace of a suit is almost certain to take a trick. The King quite likely, the Queen less likely, and on occasions the Jack will make a trick (especially if we have the A K Q as well). So the Milton Work Count allocates points (for evaluation not scoring) to a hand based simply on the presence of Aces, Kings, Queens and Jacks to arrive at the strength of your hand. For each Ace For each King For each Queen For each Jack Hand Strength Count 4 points Count 3 points Count 2 points Count 1 points Add up the total One adds up the total in your hand, and depending on the value you can justify bidding or not. A quick way of adding up is to note that if you have a set of A K Q J then that is 10 points if you spot you have say such a pattern and an additional Queen then you must have 12 points. Note that this method of evaluating a hand (like all methods) is not a perfect method, but it is perhaps the best we have. It is almost perfect when we come to bidding no-trump hands and pretty good at most suit (trump) hands. So we look at our cards, count up our points when do we bid? ll the doctrinaire answer is if you have 12 points or more (in terms of A K Q J) then you should open the bidding. But before we look at what you bid, let us just count the points in some sample hands. are known by the way as High Card Points (some call them Honour Card Points but we can agree on HCP) Page 8 of 9

9 1) K Q J 5 3 A Q J 10 A (17 HCP) 2) K Q J 5 3 A A (14 HCP) 3) K Q J Q J (9 HCP) 4) J 5 3 A K 8 7 Q J 10 Q J 2 (14 HCP) 5) (0 HCP). The least number of points. 6) A K Q J A K Q A K Q A K Q (37 HCP) The most. But that is enough for week 1. want you to play some hands. are going to use a very simplified version of bidding just for today. Starting with the dealer (remember he gets the chance to bid first), add up your High Card Points (HCP) and announce it. The player with the highest number of points will become the declarer; all the hands will be no trump hands. Once you have arrived at a contract and know who the declarer is, check that the number of points you all announced adds up to 40. Then play in the normal manner for bridge. Do not worry about scoring today we will just go around the room seeing who made how many tricks. Your target number of tricks can be deduced from the table below: Total Number of Points In Both Hands Target number of Tricks Normal Bidding Level Tricks Tricks Tricks Tricks Tricks Tricks tricks 7 Page 9 of 9