While I am manifestly unqualified to do this sort of thing, examining the history of how Whist gave rise to Bridge, and then Auction Bridge, and now Contract Bridge had caused me to speculate whether or not there was something still missing.
The great ferment that followed the invention of Bridge, giving rise to Auction Bridge, Vint, Plafond, and Contract Bridge in quick succession among others, seems to have ended, and Contract Bridge may now remain the game of its type of choice for centuries to come.
But here is the outline of a game of that type that combines elements of Vint and Contract Bridge, and others.
Players cut for the first deal, which subsequently rotates clockwise, in the same way as the deal and the bidding and the play. Cards could be cut to resolve other disputes, but it is expected that things like the seating would be settled by agreement. And it is presumed that normally two pre-existing teams of two will play as partners.
Thirteen cards are dealt to each player. Bids are made of the same form as in Auction Bridge or Contract Bridge. Suits rank as in the original game of Straight Bridge, however; Spades low, then Clubs, Diamonds, and Hearts high, with No Trump higher. The eldest hand, the player to the dealer's left, bids first. Following any bid, a player of the opposing partnership may double, and then one of the bidding partnership may redouble. A subsequent overcall cancels any preceding doubles or redoubles.
The player to the right of the first player in a partnership to make any bid, regardless of suit, leads to the first trick.
The game may be played with all four players playing their own hands, for Siberian Semi-Contract Whist, or with a Dummy, for Siberian Semi-Contract Bridge.
Game is 5, 25, or 300 points, as explained below, for the short game, or 10, 50, or 600 points for the long game.
The scoring for tricks when the contract is fulfilled is shown in the table below:
Bid: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
No Trumps 22 32 42 52 62 72 82
22 64 126 208 310 432 574
Courts 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
20 60 120 200 300 420 560
Hearts 18 28 38 48 58 68 78
18 56 114 192 290 408 546
Diamonds 16 26 36 46 56 66 76
16 52 288 184 280 396 532
Clubs 14 24 34 44 54 64 74
14 48 102 176 270 384 518
Spades 12 22 32 42 52 62 72
12 44 96 168 260 372 504
Alternate scores:
Game points 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
Bonus points 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
if vulnerable 45 60 75 90 105 120 135
Since fulfilling the contract involves a fixed number of tricks, the value of the contract is shown below the number of game points per trick.
As in Vint, the size of the bid determines the value of each trick, but unlike Vint, and like Whist and Bridge, Auction Bridge, and Contract Bridge, only odd tricks (tricks after the sixth trick) count. (This is sufficiently steep that there is no difference between Majority Calling and the alternative, but it is Majority Calling that is intended to be the rule should extensions provide a distinction.) The value of a trick is the basic point value of the suit in regular Bridge plus ten times the bid. (Combining an increase with the size of the bid with a difference in the value of suits was found in the earliest form of Vint, known as Siberian Vint.)
When the contract is fulfilled, overtricks do not count for game at the same rate, unlike the case in Auction Bridge, but they do count for game at a diminished rate, unlike the case in Contract Bridge. They count 5 points towards game. In addition, they score bonus points, at the rate of 20 points plus 10 points times the bid.
These alternate scores also apply to two other cases in whole or in part.
If the defending partnership, instead of the declaring partnership, takes more than 6 tricks, it receives 5 points towards game for each trick it takes, and bonus points at 20 points plus 10 points times the bid for each trick.
If the declaring partnership fails to fulfill its contract, but does take more than 6 tricks, it still receives 1 point towards game for each trick it takes.
In both of these cases, the defending partnership will receive bonus points at 20 points plus 10 points times the bid for each trick by which the declaring partnership failed to meet the contract, each undertrick.
These various types of bonus points increase to 30 points plus the bid times 15 points if declarer is vulnerable.
In addition, a Little Slam earns 400 bonus points, 1000 if declared; a Grand Slam earns 800 bonus points, 2000 if declared.
So that game will be won in a reasonable number of hands in most cases:
After one player wins game twice, the rubber is won by the partnership with the most points both above and below the line. Note that in the case where the declarer receives 1 point towards game, defender receives more in bonus points, so it is not impossible that one partnership can win game twice in a row without the other partnership winning game, and yet the other partnership can have won the rubber, at least if the hands are a series of one unfulfilled contract after another.
If one partnership fulfills its contract, but does not make enough points for game, things could still continue for a very long time. Thus, points scored below the line are also to be tallied in three columns. The first column, column A, will contain points earned at 1 point per trick in the case of a failed contract. The second column, column B, will contain points earned at 5 points per trick in the case of a hand being won by the defending partnership. The third column, column C, will contain both points earned at 5 points per trick for overtricks and the value of all fulfilled contracts.
If at any time either player has more than 5 (or 10) points in column A, or either player has more than 25 (or 50) points in columns A and B together, game is won by the player with the most points below the line in all three columns.
The side that wins a rubber obtains 5000 bonus points, 7500 bonus points if it does so by winning game twice without the opponents winning game. However, to be eligible for these bonuses, a partnership must have fulfilled its contract at least once during the rubber. Thus, in a case where one partnership won game twice but never fulfilled its contract, so that the other partnership, having more in bonus points, won the rubber, neither side obtains the 7500 bonus points for a rubber won in two games.
To make the part of the scoring schedule explained so far easier to understand, let us suppose that 3 No Trump was bid. Then, the scoring for each possible number of tricks that could be won can be illustrated below:
Declarer Defender Declarer's score Defender's score
Towards game Bonus points Towards game Bonus points
(below the line) (above the line) (below the line) (above the line)
slam trk undt
0 13 0 0 35 B 1300 (800+350+150)
1 12 0 0 30 B 850 (400+300+150)
2 11 0 0 25 B 400 (250+150)
3 10 0 0 20 B 350 (200+150)
4 9 0 0 15 B 300 (150+150)
5 8 0 0 10 B 250 (100+150)
6 7 0 0 5 B 200 (50+150)
7 6 1 A 0 0 100 (100)
8 5 2 A 0 0 50 (50)
9 4 120 C 0 slam ovt 0 0
10 3 125 C 50 (50) 0 0
11 2 130 C 100 (100) 0 0
12 1 135 C 550 (400+150) 0 0
13 0 140 C 1000 (800+200) 0 0
The scores below the line are suffixed by the columns in which they are to be placed in their entirety.
Also, if the declaring partnership fulfills its contract, each trick it wins, including overtricks, earns an additional 10 bonus points when made by Declarer (or from Declarer's hand) rather than by Declarer's partner or from the Dummy hand. (Thus, the third round of "bidding" in which Declarer and Declarer's partner decide which one will be the first player of the hand, following the first normal round of bidding, and the second round for doubles and redoubles.)
There are no points for Honours or Chicane.
Awarding some points towards game to the defender when it is the defender that scores odd tricks ensures that if one's opponents were to adopt the strategy of making outrageously high bids, one could still make slow progress towards winning the rubber even with no chance to become declarer with a correct bid.
But a bid that is as high as possible is still strongly encouraged by the scoring schedule.
The second row from the top, for the suit of Courts, refers to an optional feature of the game.
Optionally, a family of Courts bids is available. When a Courts bid is successful, the ranking of the cards is changed from the normal:
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 J Q K A
to
A 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
in each of the four regular suits, and, in the fifth suit of Courts, the ranking of the cards is:
JS JC JD JH QS QC QD QH KS KC KD KH
For a bid of Courts, the Courts suit is trump, and 10 times the number of odd tricks bid is added to a basic suit value of 10 points. One can also bid any of the other suit possibilities in combination with this alternate organization of the deck, for the bids of Courts-No Trumps, Courts-Spades, Courts-Clubs, Courts-Diamonds, and Courts-Hearts.
A conventional No Trump bid overcalls a Courts No-Trump bid for the same number of tricks, and Hearts overcalls Courts-Hearts and so on.
The way trumps and following suit work do mean that there is no real need for the suits to be identical in length, or composed of cards with related values. The Courts bids allow the conventional deck to take on a structure like that of the Tarot deck. In addition, they permit the same kind of variety that a Misère bid does, but not to the same extent, since high cards remain high.
The table of scores above can be enlarged to show what scores apply when Misère bids are allowed in addition to Court bids:
Bid: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
No Trumps 22 32 42 52 62 72 82
22 64 126 208 310 432 574
Courts 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
20 60 120 200 300 420 560
Hearts 18 28 38 48 58 68 78
18 56 114 192 290 408 546
Diamonds 16 26 36 46 56 66 76
16 52 288 184 280 396 532
Clubs 14 24 34 44 54 64 74
14 48 102 176 270 384 518
Spades 12 22 32 42 52 62 72
12 44 96 168 260 372 504
Misère
No Trumps 20 28 36 44 52 60 68
20 56 108 176 260 360 476
Hearts 16 24 32 40 48 56 64
16 48 96 160 240 336 448
Diamonds 14 22 30 38 46 54 62
14 44 90 152 230 324 434
Clubs 12 20 28 36 44 52 60
12 40 84 144 220 312 420
Spades 10 18 26 34 42 50 58
10 36 52 136 210 300 406
Courts-No 18 24 30 36 42 48 54
Trumps 18 48 90 144 210 288 378
Courts 16 22 28 34 40 46 52
16 44 84 136 200 276 364
Courts-Hearts 14 20 26 32 38 44 50
14 40 78 128 190 264 350
Courts- 12 18 24 30 36 42 48
Diamonds 12 36 72 120 180 252 336
Courts-Clubs 10 16 22 28 34 40 46
10 32 66 112 170 240 322
Courts-Spades 8 14 20 26 32 38 44
8 28 60 104 160 228 308
A Misère bid receives 8, rather than 10, points times the number of tricks bid plus the suit value, and a Misère Courts bid receives 6, rather than 10, points times the number of tricks bid plus the suit value for each trick in the contract. Majority calling still applies; the number of tricks decides overcalls, with points being only a tiebreaker.
In a Misère Courts bid, the ranking of suits is not reversed, although that of cards within a suit is, so the ranking of cards in the suit of Courts becomes:
KS KC KD KH QS QC QD QH JS JC JD JH
instead of being reversed completely.
The additional 10 bonus points for each trick won by Declarer from Declarer's own hand still applies.
To more closely approach the play of Contract Bridge and Auction Bridge before it, the scoring schedule can be adjusted as follows:
Game is 5 points in column A, 25 points in columns A and B, or 180 points in columns A, B, and C.
The value of each trick in No Trumps is increased by 20 points, leading to the value of the tricks and the contracts being as shown below:
Bid: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
No Trumps 42 52 62 72 82 92 102
42 104 186 288 410 552 714
In this way, 5 tricks in Spades or Clubs, 4 tricks in Diamonds or Hearts, and 3 tricks at No Trump, bid and made, will make game, following the pattern in Auction Bridge and Contract Bridge, except with the lowest suit being Spades.
Copyright (c) 2008 John J. G. Savard