Contract Bridge on PlayingCards.io

Contract Bridge is a multi-round game for 4 players in 2 teams. A team predicts and then tries to win a number of tricks. Each round one player sits out as the dummy hand.

Contract Bridge Rules

4 players

Standard 52-card deck

Cards: Ace is the highest, 2 is the lowest

Suits: No Trump is the highest, Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs is lowest

Suit of Trumps is determined by the winning bid

Each round has 3 phases: Bid, Play Tricks, and Score

Set Up

Chose a dealer, mark the dealer's seat with the yellow pin.

Players sit at a player seat.

Players form two teams: North & South versus East & West.

Use the Deal button to give 13 cards to each player. Your cards will appear in your private hand which is the rectangle at the bottom of your screen. The player left of the dealer starts the bidding.

Objective

Your goal is to score points for your team. You gain points by successfully achieving your bid or by preventing your opponent from achieving their bid. There are bonus points which do not contribute to the end game conditions.

First team to score 100 points wins.

Phase 1: Bid

The player left of the dealer bids first. Each player may bid or pass verbally (please bring your own audio chat). Bidding continues clockwise.

A bid must be higher than the previous bid.

Example of higher bid: you may bid the same number of tricks with a higher suit (with no trump being the highest) or increase the number of tricks and use any suit.

bids HAve two parts:

• A number (how many tricks over 6 your team will win)

• A suit (The suit you propose to be trumps; or no trump)

Example Bidding Phase: 1 Heart (meaning we will win 1 + 6 = 7 tricks, with Hearts trump), 1 Spade, pass, 4 Clubs, pass, pass, pass.

When 3 players pass in a row, the contract is won by the most recent bid. The player with the last bid is called the Declarer. Enter the most recent bid in the Contract portion of the screen.

Example Strategy: The suit you name communicates to your teammate which suit is your strongest. If your teammate names a different suit, they are telling you they have useful cards in that suit.

Doubling and Redoubling

When you feel the other team has bid more than they can win, you may use your bid turn to state "Double." This indicates you think their bid will not succeed. If you are correct, your team will receive bonus points. If you are incorrect, the Declarer's team will receive bonus points. In response to a "Double," the Declarer's team may state "Redouble," creating a 4x points multiplier.

Phase 2: Play Tricks

How A Trick Works

A trick consists of 4 cards, 1 from each player

The first card sets the suit

Other players following in clockwise order

Each must follow the first card's suit, if it is in their hand. Otherwise, they may play a trump card or another suit

The highest ranking card wins the trick. Use a team's Win Trick button to move the 4 played cards to the discard pile of the team which took the trick and increase their trick counter.

The player of the winning card leads the next trick

Ranking: Trump suit is highest, lead suit is next, other suits have no value. Aces are high

for the First Trick

The player left of the Declarer goes first

Next, the Declarer's partner lays all their cards face up in the Dummy Hand area, visible to everyone

The Declarer plays a card from the Dummy Hand

The third player goes

The Declarer goes last

End of the phase

Once all cards have been played, proceed to Scoring.

Phase 3: Score

Below are the basics for scoring. You may wish to score using audio chat, pen, and paper. For convenience, there is a "Below the Line" counter on the right of the screen for players to quickly see scores as they race to 100 points. Please note: there is no "Above the Line" section on the screen.

Did the Declarer's team win the number of tricks in their contract? If so, score the number of tricks they originally bid in the contract (we'll cover additional tricks in the bonus section).

Points are scored into one of two areas:

Contract	Below the line	Counts towards winning the game
Bonus & Penalty	Above the line	Does not count towards winning

Vulnerable & Not Vulnerable

A team which has won 1 round is labeled "Vulnerable" and special scoring rules apply to them.

Contract (below the line)

Score the successful contract (the number of tricks over 6) below the line.

20 per trick	Round where clubs or diamonds are trump
30 per trick	Round where hearts or spades are trump
40 for 1st trick, 30 for other tricks	Round of no trump

If the contract was doubled, the scores will be doubled. If the contract was doubled and redoubled, score 4x. Also, the Declarer's side scores 50 points (above the line) if they successfully win a doubled contract or 100 (above the line) if they win a redoubled contract.

Bonus & PenaltY (above the line)

A Slam

A successful bid to make 12 tricks is called a small slam. A bid to make 13 tricks is a grand slam. These points are a bonus above the line.

Declarer's Team	Small Slam	Grand Slam
Not vulnerable	500	1000
Vulnerable	750	1500

Overtricks

If the Declarer's side won more tricks than they bid (and the contract was not doubled), they get an additional score (above the line) for Overtricks. Just as for the contract, score: 20 per trick for clubs and diamonds. 30 per trick for hearts, spades or no trump.

Undertricks

If the Declarer's team did NOT win, neither side scores any points below the line. The Declarer's opponents will score above the line. The number of undertricks is how many tricks the Declarer's team fell short of their contract. (If this round was redoubled, please score 2x the doubled amount shown below.)

Penalty****	Not vulnerable	Vulnerable
Each undertrick	50	100
If Doubled: 1st undertrick	100	200
2nd and 3rd undertricks (each)	200	300
Each additional undertrick	300	300

Start a New Round

Click the "Recall & Shuffle" button. (Click this button twice to "Recall All" cards from player hands.)

Reset the Bid and Tricks counters.

Move the yellow dealer pin clockwise to mark a new dealer.

Click the Deal button and repeat the 3 phases: Bid, Play Tricks and Score.

Game End

The game ends immediately when one team scores 100 points or more below the line.

For Duplicate Bridge: choose Edit Table (toolbox icon) > Room Options > Copy Room > Copy your 6-character room code. Enter the code on the PlayingCards.io homepage. Now the Deal button will deal identical hands to players seated at North, etc.