Winning Bridge

Bridge Basics - Terminology

Acol: a bidding system.

Auction: the process where players bid to decide on the contract.

Contract: a level, and a suit or no trumps. The level indicates the number of tricks to be made (6+level = number of tricks); the suit indicates the trump suit or no trumps. A contract may also be doubled or redoubled.

Declarer: the player in a partnership that won the auction that first bid the contract suit. The declarer plays both hands for the partnership. (In this program, if North/South won the auction, south always plays both hands.)

Discard: playing a card that is not a trump when you are void in the led suit.

Doubled: a bid that increases the points, bonuses and penalties that are scored after a contract has been played, depending on the result. You can only double an opponents bid.

Doubleton: holding of two cards in a suit.

Dummy: Declarer's partner. Dummy's hand is laid out on to the table after the first card has been led and is played by the declarer.

Duplicate: an alternative way of scoring and supplying cards. In duplicate hands are dealt once or prepared independently and placed in boards. The hands can then be played by different people. Each board is played independently and part scores are not carried over to the next board.

Finesse: an attempt to make a trick with a card that is not a certain winner by exploiting the possible relative positions of the cards.

Game: bidding and making sufficient contracts to score at least 100 points "below the line".

Guard: a potentially winning card that stops the opposition running a suit; it is both the card itself and any cards that protect it (e.g. an Ace or a King + a low card). Also called a stop or stopper. ( I hope that this helps with your crossword.)

Honour: Ace, King, Queen, Jack or 10.

Minor Suit: clubs and diamonds.

Major Suit: hearts and spades.

No Trumps: a type of contract that is played without a trump suit.

Partner: your partner is the player who sits opposite to you at the table; the player that you play with.

Redoubled: a bid that doubles the doubled points. You can only redouble your opponents double.

Rubber: one side winning 2 games. The winner of the rubber is the pair with the most points scored.

Ruff: the play of a trump on a trick when the player is void in the led suit.

Singleton: holding one card in a suit.

Standard: a bidding system.

Suit: clubs, diamonds, hearts or spades.

Trick: four card that have been played in sequence by each player.

Trump: any card in the contract suit or the act of ruffing.

Void: holding no cards in a suit.