Vulnerability The scoring basics page skipped a couple of details about undertricks and slam bonuses. But to explain them, we first have to understand what it means to be vulnerable. A partnership is vulnerable if they have won 1 of the 2 games necessary to complete the rubber. At the start of the rubber, no…

 Deal  North-South East-West Trick Score Bonus Defeat Trick Score Bonus Defeat 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … North-South Total East-West Total     End of Match Bonus: 700 for 2-0, 500 for 2-1     NS Grand Total EW Grand Total The above is a non-standard scoring table. The standard bridge…

Only one side can choose the trump suit. The way bridge decides who gets to choose is with an auction. In bridge we aren’t bidding with money. Instead we commit to take a minimum number of tricks. Rather than bidding tricks first and choosing a trump suit second, the choice of suit and number of…

The Power of trumps We have looked at trumps, and at having a Dummy hand exposed on the table. Now we’re going to look how changing the trump suit changes how many tricks you can take. Early versions of Bridge allowed one side to choose the trump suit directly, and alternated which side got to…

In every bridge hand, there is one declarer, one dummy and two defenders. The dummy puts their hand on the table after the opening lead. Their partner tells them what to play. Dummy should not make suggestions about what to play. Dummy’s partner is called the declarer. The other two players are defenders. Let’s take…

Some bridge deals are played with a trump suit. A trump suit means that if you can’t follow suit and you play that suit, you win the trick. You win unless someone else played a higher trump. Let’s modify an example from the tricks page. Trumps: ♥ Here East doesn’t have a spade, and plays…

The trick is the smallest unit of play in bridge. Tennis is played point > game > set > match. Bridge is played trick > hand > game > rubber. A trick consists of one card from each player. Play proceeds to the left, so if North played the first card, East would play next,…

Bridge is a game for 4 players in 2 partnerships. It is generally played on a square or round table. Partners sit opposite each other. If the two teams are the red and blue teams, then around the table it would go red, blue, red, blue. It is common to refer to the partnerships by…