These terms are used in contract bridge,Baron, 1993.Manley et al (2011). using duplicate or rubber scoring. Some of them are also used in whist, bid whist, the obsolete game auction bridge, and other trick-taking games. This glossary supplements the Glossary of card game terms. In the following entries, boldface links are external to the glossary and plain links reference other glossary entries.
0–9 3014 or 3014 RKCB A mnemonic for the original (Roman) response structure to the Roman Key Card Blackwood convention. It represents "3 or 0" and "1 or 4", meaning that the lowest step response (5) to the 4NT key card asking bid shows responder has three or zero keycards and the next step (5) shows one or four. 1430 or 1430 RKCB A mnemonic for a variant response structure to the Roman Key Card Blackwood convention. It represents "1 or 4" and "3 or 0", meaning that the lowest step response (5) to the 4NT key card asking bid shows responder has one or four keycards and the next step (5) shows three or zero. 1RF One round force. 2-under preempts A 2 or 3-level conventional opening bid made two steps below the opener's suit: for example, 2 to show a weak two bid in spades or 3 to show a three-level preempt in hearts. If 2 is a strong, artificial force, 2 is natural. 4SF Fourth suit forcing. 8421 Counting points by way of 8421 means counting an ace for 8 points, a king for 4, a queen for 2, and a jack for 1 point. For example, when a bid is interpreted as "5- 8421 HCP in S", this means the bidder is expected to have 5 or fewer points in spades, counting an ace as 8 points, etc.
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Above the line In rubber bridge, the location on the scorepad above the main horizontal line where extra points are entered; extra points are those awarded for holding honor cards in trumps, for bonuses for scoring game, small slam, grand slam or winning a rubber, for overtricks on the declaring side and for undertricks on the defending side and for fulfilling doubled or redoubled contracts. Points awarded for contract odd tricks bid and made are entered below the line. See Bridge scoring. ACBL American Contract Bridge League, the sport governing body for bridge in North America – defined as Bermuda, Canada, Mexico, and the United States – and the sponsoring organization of North American Bridge Championships (NABC). Its members are players, grouped in regional districts and local units for some purposes. Contrast USBF. Acol An approach–forcing, natural bidding system, based on a weak NT and 4-card majors, popular in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. Active An approach to defending a hand that emphasizes quickly setting up winners and taking tricks. Contrast Passive. An approach to competitive bidding that emphasizes frequent interference with opponents' bidding sequences. Adjusted score In duplicate bridge, a score awarded by the Director (when empowered by the Laws) in order to redress damage to a non-offending side and to take away any advantage gained by an offending side through an infraction. It may be "assigned" (weighted to reflect the probabilities of a number of potential results) or "artificial" (otherwise). The scores awarded to the two sides need not balance. Advance cue bid The cue bid of a first round control that occurs before a partnership has agreed on a strain. Advance sacrifice A sacrifice bid made before the opponents have had an opportunity to determine their optimum contract. For example: 1 – (1) – Dbl – (5). Advancer Overcaller's partner, especially one who bids following the overcall. Adverse vulnerability Vulnerable against non-vulnerable opponents. Also called "unfavorable vulnerability". Aggregate scoring Deciding the outcome of a contest by totaling the raw points gained or lost on each deal. Also called "total point scoring". Agree For a partnership to come to a decision, explicitly, conventionally or by implication, on the denomination in which to play a hand. Agreement An understanding between partners as to the meaning of a particular call or defensive play. There are two types of call agreements: (1) when the call is natural, the agreement is said to be a treatment, and (2) when the call is artificial, the agreement is said to be a convention. Air, as "on air"
(Slang) To win a trick with a high card while capturing only small cards, commonly said of a defensive play. In the example at right, when South leads the , West must take the on air, or risk making no heart tricks. Nevertheless, best defense on a given hand may call either for ducking the winner or for playing it on air. Alcatraz coup Declarer's intentional and unethical attempt to locate a finessable card by revoking. If the play is unintentional, it is nevertheless subject to score adjustment. Alert A method of informing the opponents that partner's call carries a meaning they might not expect. Sponsoring organizations set rules on which calls must be alerted and how; any method of alerting may be authorized, such as saying "Alert", displaying an Alert card from a bidding box, or knocking on the table. Regardless whether a call is alerted, either opponent may ask its meaning, either at his/her turn or after the end of the auction. The player who made the call may contribute to its explanation only after the auction and only if he/she is declarer or dummy. Slightly different rules apply when screens are in use. Announcement A method of promptly informing the opponents that partner's call has a particular meaning. The purposes of announcements and alerts are similar, but an announcement gives the meaning where an alert may prompt the opponents to ask the meaning. Sponsoring organizations set rules on which calls should be announced. The ACBL specifies announcements including "Transfer" for some transfer replies to notrump bids, the point range such as "15 to 17" for an opening bid of one notrump, and "Forcing" or "Semi-forcing" for a 1NT response to a major suit opening bid. Antipositional A call is antipositional if it tends to make the "wrong" partner the declarer. If West opens the bidding, it may be best for South to declare a North-South contract, so that West will have to play from his high cards on opening lead. This positioning may protect South's tenaces. In that case, a call that will make North declarer is antipositional. See wrongside. Appeal In tournaments, to appeal is to request that a committee review a ruling made by a director. Approach–forcing A principle, first used in the Culbertson system, that has survived in modern bidding. The original idea was to abandon the indiscriminate notrump bids that characterized auction bridge in favor of a slower exchange of information via suit bidding. Arrow A marker, usually a large card with an arrow on it, that shows which direction is treated as North at a table in a duplicate event. Arrow switch The action of changing the North direction during an event, typically for the last round of a Mitchell movement, so that the pairs who were North-South become East-West and vice versa. This allows a single winning pair to be determined. Artificial A call that is not natural which by agreement carries a coded meaning not necessarily related to the call's (or to the prior call's) denomination. A bidding system that contains many such calls. Asking bid A bid that, by prior agreement, requests information about a feature of partner's hand: for example, number of controls, suit length, or control of a particular suit. Attacking lead A lead that instigates an active defense; often, the lead of an honor from a sequence, or a forcing defense. Attitude A defender's desire, or lack thereof, for his side to continue playing a suit. By means of signals, defender encourages or discourages the continuation of the suit. Auction See bidding. Auction bridge, an earlier form of bridge, differing from today's contract bridge chiefly in the scoring. Most notably, overtricks counted the same as tricks bid and made, so they were scored below the line and any contract, no matter how low, could produce a game or slam bonus. Austrian System Another name for Vienna System.
Autobridge A variant of contract bridge for play by one person; alternatively, a means for one to learn or practice the game alone. Information for each deal is pre-printed on one sheet of paper in a special layout. Such a "deal" is loaded in a mechanical template (see image at right) which the operator-player manipulates selectively and sequentially to reveal some of the information. Paper deals are distributed in numbered sets of "Autobridge Refills". Automatic squeeze A squeeze position that succeeds against either opponent. Compare with Positional squeeze. Average In matchpoint scoring, one-half the matchpoints available on a given deal. An average score is sometimes awarded to one or both pairs when for some reason they cannot play the board. If neither pair is at fault or both pairs are at fault, the director may decide to award an average to each side. Law 12.C.2 of the Laws of Duplicate Contract Bridge states that if one pair is at fault, it receives an average-minus (at most, 40% of the available matchpoints on the board). A pair not at all at fault receives average-plus: 60% of the available matchpoints on the board, or, if greater, the average of the matchpoints the pair earned on other boards played during the session or of the matchpoints earned against their current opponents. The assigned scores need not sum to the total available matchpoints. In IMP (Butler) pairs, "average" refers to the "datum" used in scoring. Avoidance play A play designed to keep a particular defender off lead, often to prevent the lead of a suit through a tenace position in either declarer's hand or dummy.
B Back in To make a partnership's first bid, having previously passed. For example, in 1 – (P) – 1NT – (P); 2 – (Dbl), the doubler has backed into the bidding. Backward finesse A combination of two finesses in a suit such that the first finesse is "backward": that is, leading away from the hand containing the tenace. Balance To keep the bidding open when it is about to be passed out at a low level. For example, if the bidding goes 1 – (P) – P – (1NT), the 1NT bid is a balancing action. The balancing bid is often made with a hand of substandard strength in order to prevent the opponents from securing a low-level contract. Balanced distribution Narrowly, a balanced distribution of a hand is 4–3–3–3, 4–4–3–2 or 5–3–3–2. Equivalently, there are no voids, no singletons, and at most one doubleton. Balanced is sometimes used in a broad sense that includes semi-balanced. Broadly, balanced distribution permits no void, singleton, or 7-card suit. Balanced hand A hand with balanced distribution in the narrow or wide sense just above. On the first round of bidding, natural notrump bids generally denote balanced hands. BAM Board-a-match, one method of scoring a duplicate bridge session or tournament. Bar To prevent a player from making a bid, either by a penalty caused by an irregularity, or because partnership agreement requires a pass in a given situation. In either case, the player is said to be "barred." Bar bid A bid which by partnership agreement requires partner to pass at future turns to call in the current auction. Raises of partner's weak two opening bid are one common example. The raise might be extending the preempt, to make, or to push the opponents a level too high. If the opponents bid over a bar bid raise, the partner who made the bar bid may intend to pass, double for penalty, preempt, or raise again to push the opponents. Hence, the reason that partner is barred. The partner who made the bar bid may be ″operating.” None of the other three players can know the intent of the player who made the bar bid. Thus, the partner must pass, and the opponents must guess.