A Beginners Guide to Contract Bridge - Boston University Physics

A Beginners Guide to Contract Bridge

January 16, 2009

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Contents

1 Introduction

6

1.1 Beginning a New Hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

1.2 Bidding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

1.2.1 Legal Calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

1.2.2 Meaning of Bids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

1.2.3 An Example Auction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

1.3 Play of the Hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

1.4 Scoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

2 Hand Valuation

14

2.1 High Card Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

2.2 Distribution Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

2.2.1 Long Suits and Short Suits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

3 Opening the Bidding

20

3.1 Opening Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

3.2 Order of Preference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

3.2.1 Opening 1 NT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

3.2.2 Suited Openings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

3.2.3 Opening 1 / . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

3.2.4 Opening 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

3.2.5 Opening 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

3.2.6 Opening 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

3.3 Final Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

4 Responding to the Opening Bid

25

5 Overcalls and Doubles

25

6 Conventions I: The Bare Essentials

25

6.1 Stayman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

7 Conventions II: Clever Additions

25

8 Conventions III: Heavy Artillery

25

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9 Defense

25

9.1 Leads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

9.2 Signaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

9.3 False Carding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

10 Card Combinations

25

10.1 The Finesse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

10.2 The Drop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

10.3 Endplay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

11 Ethics

25

12 Variations I: ACOL

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13 Variations II: Two Over 1 (2/1)

25

14 Variations III: Strong 1 Systems and Precision

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List of Tables

1 Scoring Bonuses for Duplicate Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 2 Undertrick Penalties in Duplicate Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

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List of Figures

1 An Example Deal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2 An Example of an Auction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 3 Contracts and their Bonuses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 4 Counting High Card Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 5 Counting Distribution Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 6 Counting Distribution Points with a Fit . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 7 Holdings that Should not be Double-Counted . . . . . . . . . 18 8 Long Suits Produce Tricks in No Trumps . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 9 A Balanced Hand with a Strong Club Suit . . . . . . . . . . . 21 10 Opening Bids: Order of Preference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 11 Responding to Partners Suited Opening . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 12 Responding to Partners 1 NT Opening . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 13 Responding to Stayman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

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1 Introduction

Contract bridge is a four-handed trick-taking card game played with a standard 52-card deck between two cooperative partnerships, each consisting of two players who sit opposite one and other. The goal of the game is simple: win as many tricks for your side as possible in each hand. There are various ways of keeping score depending on how many players are competing but techniques and strategies involved in the play of the hand are largely independent of the scoring method.

1.1 Beginning a New Hand

The dealer deals out the entires deck, one card at a time, beginning with his left-hand opponent (LHO), then his partner, then hi right-hand opponent (RHO), and finally himself. Players arrange their cards as they see fit (we recommend the player sort his hand by suits (club, diamonds, hearts, then spades left to right) and then by rank (deuce (low) through ace (high)) and wait for the dealer to make the first call. An example deal is show in Figure 1. Note that the four players are labeled according to the cardinal directions of the compass.

S, N?S

K9853 J8 65 6432

QJ6 Q52 J10432 J5

N WE

S

A107 A763 KQ7 AK8

Board 1

42 K1094 A98 Q1097

Figure 1: An Example Deal

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