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card game derived from whist, played with 52 cards by four players in two partnerships.

Basic Rules

The cards in contract bridge rank from ace down to two; in bidding, suits rank spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs. After all cards are dealt, so that each player holds 13 cards, the dealer begins the auction, which proceeds in rotation to the left. Each player must bid, pass, double (increase the value of the previously stated contract), or redouble (only after a double, further increasing the point value of the contract). A bid is an offer to win a stated number (over six) of tricks with a named suit as trump or with no trump. The lowest bid is one, the highest seven. Each bid, i.e., “one diamond,” “one no-trump,” “four hearts,” must be higher than the preceding bid, with no-trump ranking above spades. Artificial bids are those that convey certain information to a partner and are not meant to be taken literally. The highest bid of the auction becomes the contract after three consecutive passes end the bidding. The player who first named the suit (or no-trump) specified in the winning bid becomes the declarer. The player to the left of the declarer leads any card face up, and the next hand, that of the declarer's partner, is placed face up on the table, grouped in suits. This is known as the dummy, and the declarer selects the cards to be played from this hand. The object of the game for both partnerships is to win as many tricks as possible, a trick being the three cards played in rotation after the lead. Suits must be followed, but a player who has no cards in the suit led may play any card. Highest trump or, if no trump card is played, highest card of the suit led wins. Points are awarded for the number of tricks won. Numerous conventions—generally accepted forms of bidding—are used in bridge, but the four standard ones are Blackwood, Gerber, Stayman, and grand-slam force.

Competitive Bridge

Duplicate bridge, in which the same prearranged hands are played by individuals, pairs, or teams of four, is the main form of competitive bridge. The laws of contract bridge are promulgated in the Western Hemisphere by the American Contract Bridge League, which holds various bridge tournaments. In international contract bridge matches the Bermuda bowl, the trophy for victory, is the emblem of the world championship. In Olympic years an olympiad championship is held by the World Bridge Federation and replaces the team tournament for the Bermuda bowl.

History

Bridge probably originated in the Middle East in the 19th cent. Auction bridge, one form of the game, was developed by the British in India and later was popular in England and the United States. It is still played but has largely been supplanted by contract bridge, which achieved popularity after important innovations were made in 1925 by Harold S. Vanderbilt. Its phenomenal popularity owed much to the activities of Ely Culbertson. The craze subsided but was later revived; books, tournaments, and newspaper columns on bridge abound. Culbertson devised the honor count system to evaluate a hand for bidding. The point count (or standard American) system introduced by Charles H. Goren in the 1940s has generally replaced honor count.

Bibliography

See C. H. Goren, Bridge Complete (rev. ed. 1971); T. Reese and A. Dormer, The Complete Book of Bridge (1974).

Bridge may mean:

• Bridge (structure), a structure built so that a transportation route can cross above an obstacle
• The Bridge (documentary film), a film about suicides on the Golden Gate Bridge
• Bridge (dentistry), a fixed prosthesis used to replace missing teeth
• Bridge (exercise), most commonly the balancing of the body on the head and feet
• Bridge (graph theory), an edge whose removal disconnects a graph
• Bridge (grappling), a move intended to dislodge an opponent in top control
• Bridge (prosody), a point in a line of poetry where a break in a word-unit cannot occur
• Bridge (ship), the area from which a ship is commanded
• Contract bridge, the modern card game; see Bridge (card game disambiguation) for other card games that "Bridge" may refer to
• Bridge loan, a short-term loan to cover a gap in time until a new long-term financing is realised
• Adobe Bridge, a program included with the Adobe Creative Suite to link the other programs together
• Hashiwokakero, meaning "build bridges", a Japanese puzzle
• "bridge the gap": a phrase meaning to connect different things or ideas
• Bridge Records, Inc., a record label
• Bridge digital cameras digital cameras are high-end live-preview digital cameras that have many DSLR features

In chemistry:

• Bridge (chemical), an unbranched chain of atoms or an atom or a covalent bond connecting two bridgeheads in a polycyclic compound
• A Salt bridge, in chemistry, is a laboratory device used to connect the oxidation and reduction half-cells of a galvanic cell (electrochemical cell)
• Salt bridge (protein) (or salt bond), in protein chemistry, is the term used to denote chemical bonds between positively and negatively charged side-chains of proteins

In electronics:

• Bridge rectifier, an electronic circuit for converting alternating current to direct current
• Wheatstone bridge, an electronic circuit for comparing resistors, capacitors or inductors to high standards of accuracy

In music:

• Bridge (instrument), the device that anchors the strings to or holds the strings above the body of a string instrument, such as a violin or guitar
• Bridge (music), an interlude that connects two parts of song

In computers:

• Bridge pattern, a computer science design used to separate an abstraction and its actual implementation
• Network bridge, an electronic device used to connect two computer or telephone network segments

People

• Bridge Carson, a fictional character.

Places with the name Bridge

• Bridge, Kent, a place in Kent, England
• Scotland has many place names in the style of Bridge of Allan

See also

• Bridge the gap

nds-nl:Brogge

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