BASIC BRIDGE COURSE

BIDDING A GAME

If you and your partner discover that you have 25, or more, HCPs between you then you should normally “Bid a game”.

This is when you contract to make any of the following:

9 tricks in No Trumps

10 tricks with either Hearts or Spades as trumps

11 tricks with Diamonds or Clubs as trumps.

The reason that we should try to bid, and make, a game is that there are large rewards.

Let us imagine that your partner has opened 1NT.

You know that partner has between 12 and 14 HCPs and they have at least two Hearts. You hold:

♠72 ♥AK7643 ♦AK8 ♣32

You know that we have 26-28 HCPs and that we have at least eight Hearts.

How many tricks are we going to make?

We will make 10 tricks on all occasions except one (if partner has Q&J in all four suits for their 12 HCPs) this is highly unlikely.

If we contract to make 8 tricks with Hearts as trumps we would make:

nothing for the first six tricks. After that we would make £30 for each trick because Hearts are a “Major” suit. We would also make £50 for succeeding in our contract (this is known as a “Part Score”).

However if we contract to make 10 tricks with Hearts as trumps this is known as “Bidding a Game”. We still get our multiples of £30 for the seventh and any subsequent tricks but we would also get a £300 bonus if we are successful.

Should we fail we would lose £50 for each trick that we were short.

For contracting to make 8 tricks with Hearts as trumps, making 10 £170

For contracting to make 10 tricks with Hearts as trumps £420