Glossary of contract bridge terms
These terms are used in contract bridge, 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.
0–9
;3014 or 3014 RKCB: A mnemonic for the original response structure to the Roman Key Card Blackwood [|convention]. It represents "3 or 0" and "1 or 4", meaning that the lowest step response to the 4NT key card asking bid shows responder has three or zero [|keycards] and the next step 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 to the 4NT key card asking bid shows responder has one or four keycards and the next step 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.
A
;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. 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.
;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 – – Dbl –.
;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: when the call is natural, the [|agreement] is said to be a [|treatment], and when the call is artificial, the agreement is said to be a convention.
;Air, as "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 denomination.
- A bidding system that contains many such calls.
;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.
Image:Autobridge.jpg|thumb|Autobridge, a device for learning bridge
;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 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. 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 pairs, "average" refers to the "datum" used in scoring.