Bridge

What you need

Four players in two partnerships, partners facing each other across the table, and one standard 52-card pack with no jokers. In every suit the ace is high and the two is low: ace, king, queen, jack, ten, and on down to the two.

Most tables keep two packs with different backs. While one is dealt, the other is shuffled, so the next deal is ready the moment a hand ends. Keep a pad and a pencil too. Bridge is scored on paper with a line across it, and the line is half the game.

A hand is 13 tricks. A game is 100 points in trick score. The first side to win two games wins the rubber.

The deal

The player to the dealer's left shuffles the pack, and the player to the dealer's right cuts it. The dealer deals the whole pack clockwise, one card at a time, 13 to each player. Meanwhile the dealer's partner shuffles the second pack and sets it to the right, ready for the next deal. The deal passes to the left after each hand.

Pick up your cards and sort them into suits. Nothing is drawn and nothing is discarded. The 13 cards you hold are the hand you bid and play.

The auction

Before a card is played, the four players bid for the contract: how many tricks one side promises to win, and which suit will be trump, if any.

A bid is a number from one to seven and a denomination. The number is the tricks promised beyond the first six, so a bid of two hearts promises eight tricks with hearts as trump, and a bid of seven notrump promises all 13 with no trump suit. The denominations rank, from low to high: clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades, notrump. The lowest bid is one club and the highest is seven notrump.

The dealer speaks first, and the turn passes to the left. At your turn you do one of four things.

1. Bid. Your bid must be higher than the last one: more tricks, or the same number of tricks in a higher denomination. Two spades beats two hearts, and three clubs beats two notrump.
2. Pass. A pass keeps you in the auction. You may bid, double or redouble at a later turn.
3. Double, when the last bid came from an opponent and nobody has doubled it yet. A double raises the stakes on that contract both ways, and the scoring tables below spell out how far.
4. Redouble, when the last bid was your side's and an opponent has doubled it. It raises the stakes again.

Any new bid cancels a double or redouble, and the bidding goes on from there. Once anyone has bid, the auction ends when three players pass in a row. The last bid is the contract, with any double or redouble that still stands on it. If all four players pass at their first turn, the hand is passed out: throw the cards in and the next dealer deals.

The side that won the contract is the declaring side. The declarer is the player on that side who first named the denomination of the contract during the auction, which is not always the player who made the final bid. The declarer's partner is the dummy.

Partners agree what their bids mean, and serious players learn a whole system. None of that is needed at a kitchen table. Bid what you think your hand and your partner's hand can make, and settle any conventions before the first deal.

The play

The player to the declarer's left leads any card to the first trick. Then the dummy lays the whole hand face up on the table, sorted into suits in four columns, with the trump suit on the dummy's right. From here on the dummy takes no part in the hand. The declarer plays both hands, calling the card from the dummy at the dummy's turn, and the dummy may not comment or advise.

1. Follow suit if you can. If you hold a card of the suit led, you must play one.
2. With no card of the suit led, play any card, a trump included. Nothing forces you to trump.
3. The highest trump wins the trick. With no trump in it, the highest card of the suit led wins.

Play passes to the left, a trick is four cards, and the winner of a trick leads any card to the next. Thirteen tricks are played. The declarer needs six plus the number bid: nine tricks for a contract at the three level, 12 for a contract at the six level. Make the contract and the declaring side writes the trick score below the line, with any overtricks above it. Fall short and the defenders write a penalty above the line for every undertrick.

Between hands: shuffling 52 cards

Card sizes and finishes are covered in what cards work with a card shuffler.

How to use Lotus for Bridge

A bridge table already runs two packs, one in play and one being shuffled. A Lotus card shuffler takes over the second job: the idle pack goes in during the deal and is shuffled and waiting before the hand ends.

At the table	With Lotus
The pack	Two 52-card packs with different backs, taking turns.
Loads	One pack at a time, so the two packs stay separate.
The cards	Bridge-size cards usually work. Bicycle-brand bridge cards feed well. Very smooth or glossy finishes can slip, so the texture of the deck decides.
Who shuffles	The dealer's partner, the player who would shuffle the second pack by hand. One touch on the sensor on top starts each pass. No buttons, nothing to grip.
When	While the dealer deals. The shuffled pack then waits on the table for the next deal.
Passes	Drop the idle pack into the center tray and touch the sensor. Lotus deals the cards into two piles. Stack one pile on the other, and that is one pass. A pass takes about five seconds. About three passes suit a home game. About seven bring a 52-card deck to near-random, the figure from Bayer and Diaconis (1992).
The discard pile	Bridge has none. When the hand is scored, gather all thirteen tricks, face down, into one pack. That pack is the idle one for the next deal.
The deal moves	To the left after each hand. Lotus runs on a 9V battery with no cord, so it moves around the table with the idle pack.

More trick-taking games: Spades, Pinochle and Euchre. Also in the family: Whist and Bid Whist. Every game is in the game table.

Scoring

Bridge is scored on a pad with two columns, We and They, and a line across the middle. Only the trick score for a contract bid and made goes below the line, and only points below the line count toward a game. Everything else goes above the line: overtricks, penalties, slams, honors and the rubber itself. At the end of the rubber, each side adds both halves of its column, and the difference between the two totals is the margin.

Trick score, below the line

Contract	Each trick bid and made
Clubs or diamonds	20
Hearts or spades	30
Notrump	40 for the first trick, 30 for each after
Doubled	Twice the trick score
Redoubled	Four times the trick score

Only the tricks you bid count below the line. Four hearts made with an overtrick is 120 below and 30 above, not 150 below.

Game and part scores. A side with 100 or more below the line has won a game. One hand can do it: three notrump is 100, four hearts or four spades is 120, five clubs or five diamonds is 100. Smaller contracts are part scores, and part scores add up across hands until a side reaches 100. Two spades made in one hand is 60, two hearts made in the next is 60 more, and 120 below the line is a game over two hands. When a game is made, draw a line under both columns. Whatever the other side had below the line toward that game stops counting, and both sides start the next game from zero. The points stay in the total. They only stop counting toward a game.

Vulnerable. A side that has won a game in the current rubber is vulnerable. A vulnerable side pays more for going down and earns more for a slam, and every table below has a column for each.

Overtricks, above the line, per trick

Overtricks	Not vulnerable	Vulnerable
Undoubled, clubs or diamonds	20	20
Undoubled, hearts, spades or notrump	30	30
Doubled	100	200
Redoubled	200	400

A side that makes a doubled contract also scores 50 above the line, known at every table as the insult. For a redoubled contract the insult is 100.

Undertricks, to the defenders above the line

Undertricks	Not vulnerable	Vulnerable
Undoubled, each	50	100
Doubled, the first	100	200
Doubled, the second and third	200 each	300 each
Doubled, the fourth and after	300 each	300 each
Redoubled	Twice the doubled penalty	Twice the doubled penalty

Down three doubled costs 500 not vulnerable, 100 for the first undertrick and 200 for each of the next two. Vulnerable it costs 800: 200, then 300 and 300.

Slam bonuses, above the line

Slam	Not vulnerable	Vulnerable
Small slam: a contract at the six level, 12 tricks bid and made	500	750
Grand slam: a contract at the seven level, all 13 tricks bid and made	1,000	1,500

A slam is bid, not stumbled into. Twelve tricks in a four spade contract are two overtricks and nothing more.

Honors, above the line

Held in one hand	Points
Four of the five trump honors: ace, king, queen, jack, ten	100
All five trump honors	150
Four aces, in a notrump contract	150

Honors are scored by whichever side holds them, the declarer's or the defenders'. They are luck, not play, and many tables leave them out.

The rubber, above the line

Outcome	Points
Winning the rubber two games to none	700
Winning the rubber two games to one	500
Rubber left unfinished, a side with a game	300
Rubber left unfinished, a side with a part score in the open game	100

The rubber bonus goes to the first side to win two games, and that ends the rubber. Then add each column, above and below the line together, and compare.

A worked rubber. Hand one, nobody vulnerable. We bid three spades and take ten tricks: 90 below the line, and 30 above for the overtrick. Hand two. They bid four hearts, we double, and they take eight tricks, two short. The first undertrick is 100 and the second is 200, so we write 300 above the line. Hand three. We bid two clubs and take eight tricks: 40 below. With the 90 from hand one that is 130, a game. Draw a line under both columns. We are vulnerable now.

Hand four. They bid three notrump and take nine: 100 below the line in one hand, a game for them. One of them held all four aces, so they write 150 above for honors. Draw another line. One game each, both sides vulnerable. Hand five. We bid four spades, they double, and we take nine tricks, one short. One doubled undertrick, vulnerable: 200 above the line for them. Hand six. They bid two hearts and take eight: 60 below the line, a part score toward the third game.

Hand seven. We bid six diamonds and take twelve: 120 below the line, which is the third game and the rubber, two games to one. We add 500 for the rubber and 750 for a vulnerable small slam above the line.

Our column: 90, 40 and 120 below, or 250, and 30, 300, 750 and 500 above, or 1,580. Total 1,830. Their column: 100 and 60 below, or 160, and 150 and 200 above, or 350. Total 510. We win the rubber by 1,320. Their 60 from hand six never became a game, but it still counts in their total.

How other tables play

Rubber bridge scoring is settled, and most of what varies is procedure. Agree these before the first deal.

Rule	This page	Other tables play
Honors	100 for four trump honors, 150 for five or for four aces at notrump	No honors at all
Packs	Two, one shuffled while the other is dealt	One pack
Saying pass	Pass	No bid, the British habit
Playing the dummy	The declarer names the card	The declarer picks it up from the dummy's hand
Chicago, deals two and three	The dealer's opponents are vulnerable	The dealer's side is vulnerable, as in the original game
Chicago part scores	Carried forward until a side makes game	50 at once and nothing carried, as in duplicate

Chicago, duplicate, and honors off

Game	Pack and deal	What changes
Chicago	52 cards, four deals, the deal moving to the left	No rubber. Vulnerability is set by the deal: nobody on the first, the dealer's opponents on the second and third, both sides on the fourth. A game earns its bonus at once, 300 not vulnerable or 500 vulnerable. Part scores carry forward until a side makes game, and a part score still open after the fourth deal earns 100. A passed-out deal is shuffled and dealt again by the same dealer
Duplicate	The same deals, kept in boards and played again at other tables	Each board starts both sides at zero and marks who is vulnerable. Game is still 100 in trick score, worth 300 not vulnerable or 500 vulnerable, and a part score earns 50 at once. No rubber bonus and no honors. Your result is compared with the other pairs who held the same cards
Honors off	The rubber game, unchanged	No 100 or 150 for honors. Everything else scores as written above

Rules as recorded by pagat.com, Bridge, with its sections on rubber bridge scoring, Chicago and duplicate bridge.

Common questions

How many points do you need for game in bridge?

100 below the line, in one hand or over several. Three notrump, four hearts, four spades, five clubs and five diamonds each make game in a single hand. Two spades doubled and made is 120, so that makes game too.

What does vulnerable mean in bridge?

Your side has won a game in the current rubber. Going down costs more, 100 an undertrick instead of 50 when undoubled, and a slam pays more, 750 and 1,500 instead of 500 and 1,000. In Chicago, vulnerability is set by the deal instead.

What does double mean in bridge?

A call made after an opponent's bid. If they make the contract, their trick score doubles and they take 50 for the insult. If they go down, the penalty rises: 100 for the first undertrick, 200 for each of the next two and 300 after that, not vulnerable; 200 for the first and 300 for each after that, vulnerable. Their side can redouble, which doubles the doubled amounts, and any new bid cancels both.

How is a rubber scored?

The first side to win two games wins the rubber: 700 if the other side won no game, 500 if they won one. Then each side adds everything in its column, above and below the line, and the difference is the margin. A rubber nobody finishes pays 300 to a side with a game and 100 to a side with a part score.

What is a grand slam in bridge?

A contract at the seven level, bid and made: all 13 tricks. It scores 1,000 above the line not vulnerable and 1,500 vulnerable, on top of the trick score. A small slam is a contract at the six level, 12 tricks, for 500 or 750.

Score keeper

Enter each hand for the side it belongs to: the trick score below the line, bonuses above it, and undertricks as a penalty against the side that went down. It counts the games, says who is vulnerable, and calls the rubber. Add the next hand with the plus button. It keeps the rubber on this device.