Rubber Bridge — a complete guide

• For Beginners If you have never played, begin with these two. 2 sections · Your First Deal · What You Are Looking At
• The Rules of Rubber Bridge The deal, the auction, the play, and how a rubber is won. 8 sections · What is Rubber Bridge? · The Cards, the Deal and the Seats · How a Hand Works …
• Scoring The pad, the line, the bonuses, and a rubber worked through. 8 sections · The Score Pad · Below the Line: Trick Scores · Above the Line: Bonuses and Penalties …
• Bidding Valuation, systems, openings, responses, and every convention switch. 9 sections · Valuing a Hand · The Two Systems · Opening the Bidding …
• Card Play Declaring, defending, and the language of spot cards. 5 sections · Declarer: Making a Plan · Technique: Trumps and Ruffing · Defence: The Opening Lead …
• Card Play Technique Plans, percentages and the plays that buy insurance. 9 sections · Playing a Suit for Tricks · Finesses: When, and When Not · Safety Plays: Buying Insurance …
• Rubber Bridge Tactics How the rubber scoring changes what the right bid is. 4 sections · What Changes from Duplicate · Playing the Part-score · Vulnerability, Saves and Penalties …
• Using This App Every screen, control and feature, one at a time. 12 sections · The Home Screen · Bidding at the Table · Playing the Cards …
• How the Robots Work What your three opponents are actually doing, and what they can see. 6 sections · Three Opponents, Two Engines · How the Robots Bid · How the Robots Play …
• Reference The vocabulary of rubber bridge — 115 terms, defined. 8 sections · A – B · C – D · E – H …

Common questions#

Short answers to the things people ask most often, each written to stand on its own.

• Rubber Bridge vs Duplicate Bridge Same cards, same auction, same thirteen tricks. A different game.
• Honours in Bridge The one bonus in bridge you get purely for being dealt it.
• Part-scores in Rubber Bridge Below the line, under 100, and still there next hand.
• Reverse Bids in Bridge The rebid that costs partner a level, and therefore has to be worth one.
• Playing a Hand from a Diagram Every good hand you have ever read about is a hand you could have played.

Conventions, one page each#

The full list comes first; after it, a page each on what the convention asks, what the answers mean, and when it is worth playing. The bidding chapter covers them in the context of a system; these stand alone.

• Bridge Conventions What each one means, which are worth playing, and which Rase deals you.
• The Stayman Convention Two clubs, asking one question: have you got a four-card major?
• Jacoby Transfers Bid the suit below the one you actually hold, and let the strong hand declare.
• Blackwood and Roman Key Card Blackwood Four no trumps asks a question. The hard part is knowing when not to ask it.
• Michaels Cue-Bids Bidding their suit cannot be natural, so it is put to better use.
• Negative Doubles A double that asks partner to bid, in the seat where penalties used to live.
• The Landy Convention A way in, after the opponents have described their hand almost exactly.
• Jacoby 2NT A raise that settles the game in one bid and leaves the three level free.
• The Gerber Convention Four clubs, because over a no-trump bid 4NT has a better job to do.
• Ogust Responses Two questions about a six-card suit, answered by a single step.
• Takeout Doubles The most useful competitive call in bridge, and the one most often passed.

Rubber bridge score calculator — keep the pad for a game played with real cards.