You have been warned. This article is not for the sqeamish!
Bridge developed quickly. First came Bridge, then Auction Bridge, then Contract Bridge. For the past 70 years, however, it has been virtually unaltered. Now the new millennium is here, I believe it is time for a reappraisal. I summarise my proposals below. Detailed arguments follow.
Suggestion 1 Undoubled overtricks should score half their standard trick value.
Suggestion 2 Declarer should be the person who won the auction, not necessarily the person who first called the winning denomination.
Suggestion 3 The minor and major suit trick scores should be interchanged: 30 for minors, 20 for majors. The 40 point trick in NTs should be at the 3 level.
Suggestion 4 One should be able to double one's own partner's contract.
Suggestion 5 All doubles & redoubles should be "for penalties". A new bid "Takeout" should be introduced.
DISCUSSION
The game of Bridge was introduced to the western world in the late 19th century. I have not been able to discover its origin. Some have suggested it took its name from a bridge in Turkey over which people used to travel to play. The earliest book I have traced on the subject is "BRIDGE AND HOW TO PLAY IT" by Archibald Dunn, the 15th edition of which was published by Routledge in 1909. He had played a similar game in Smyrna, 30 years previously.
Bridge was very different from its modern descendant. For example, dealer was always declarer. There was no auction, nor contract. Dealer could name trumps before the opening lead or could cede the right to dummy. All the opposition could do before the opening lead was double. The dealer or dummy could then redouble. The opposition could then re-redouble, and so on until the value of a one-level score was equal to or greater than 100 points. Game was 30 points with the trick scores going to which ever side won more than six tricks. The scale was 12, 8, 6, 4, 2 for No Trumps, Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, and Spades, respectively for each trick won over six. There were extra points for slams and honours but these were "above the line". About the only similarity to the modern game was that Rubber went to the pair that won two out of three games.
It was impossible to score game, from a love score, in Spades or Clubs, even if a pair made a Grand Slam! Thus a typical love-all tactic, if neither dealer nor dummy held a good hand, would be to call Spades, to minimise the opposition's potential score. You can also imagine why the "Strong No Trump" developed. It is interesting that even then some experts used the "gambling No Trump", with a long solid suit, hoping to run 9 tricks for game ([9 - 6] x 12 = 36) before the defenders found their own best line.
According to Mr Dunn, Bridge developed independently of Whist. It is clearly of the same general family, in that one could argue that the principle behind the trick-taking nature of such card games is the simplest, yet most far reaching of any: the highest card wins; the rule of life? Humanity, being what it is, however, is always seeking new challenges. Bridge soon gave way to "Auction Bridge".
Its two main innovations were:
a. The pairs compete to be declarer by holding an auction. Beginning with the dealer, players bid a number of tricks (above six) with a particular suit as trumps (or No Trumps). The highest bidder wins the auction. A tie in the number of tricks bid is resolved by the new hierarchy of suits: No Trumps, Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, and Clubs.
b. Declarer, who is the member of the pair winning the auction to have named first the winning suit (or No Trumps), must then strive to make at least the number of tricks bid in the auction. If declarer fails, the opponents score points "above the line". If overtricks are made, however, they are scored by declarer's side "below the line" in full. So, if declarer won the auction at "2 Spades" (i.e. 8 tricks with Spades as trumps), but made 12 tricks, a Small Slam and game would be scored.
The scoring system was adjusted too. No Trumps, Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, & Clubs scored 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 points respectively for each trick more than six made by declarer. With 30 points still being "game", one sees where 3NT, 4 of a "major", and 5 of a "minor", originated.
In Auction Bridge declarer does not have to decide the "real contract" until dummy is displayed. To expand on the example given above: declarer, having won the auction at 2 Spades, may realise that the combined hands are so strong that 12 tricks are a possibility, and may play accordingly. The defenders have no idea what declarer has decided. Eventually if only eleven tricks are made, by brilliant defence, or careless play, declarer will not be deemed to have "gone one down", but will score 5 Spades. He or she suffers no penalty for not making the slam, and still scores game!
This situation created problems for the defenders. They never knew what was declarer's real goal, only the minimum. The penalties for declarer "going down" in the auction-winning contract, however, were relatively severe. Bidding was generally conservative. A deal being Passed by all players was commonplace. This may have been one reason why "Goulash" was used in parlour bridge to liven the bidding. To produce a Goulash deal, the Passed hands remain sorted into suits. The pack is reconstituted by placing the hands one on top of another face-down. The pack is then cut, not shuffled, then dealt in packets of 3, 4, or 5 (according to local habit) to give each player 13 cards with a distinctly non-random distribution.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s Auction Bridge in turn gave way to Contract Bridge. Its invention circa 1925 is attributed to Harold Vanderbilt. The change may have seemed minor, but it became increasingly significant. By means of the simple change that declarer scored below the line only what had been bid, Contract Bridge revolutionised the concept of bidding in at least three ways:
a. Declarer has an announced goal;
b. Defenders, knowing what that is, have a goal too;
c. Conservatism is no longer profitable.
The bonuses for games and slams are so great, and the penalties for small defeats are so relatively small, that aggressive bidding is more rewarding in the long run. Some strong players consider that if they fail in about half of their game contracts, then they are bidding well!
Contract Bridge continues to be increasingly popular. This is largely because of the national ranking schemes introduced for the Club-level game and higher, for Duplicate Bridge. In Duplicate Bridge, players meet all or most of the hands (or boards) dealt. This eliminates much of the luck of the deal of Rubber Bridge. The ranking points earned over the years at competitions, local or national, give a reasonable approximation to relative skills.
For such schemes to be generally effective they require organising and administering. Hence Duplicate Bridge has local, national, and international governing bodies that legislate for the game as a whole. Although largely beneficial, having such a rigid structure has prevented any further significant evolution of the game, as a game, for 70 years. Now that Bridge has been with us for a century, and new millennium is upon us, I believe it is time to reappraise the laws of Contract Bridge. There have been gradual changes in procedures for play, such as making the opening lead face down, and some recent tinkering with doubled penalties to inhibit extreme sacrifice bidding. There has been nothing, however, to restore to Duplicate Bridge the precision which good Rubber Bridge requires.
In one important way Duplicate Bridge has regressed to Auction Bridge. For example, if one wins the contract at Two Diamonds, but makes Three, the duplicate score is 110: 40 for the contract, 20 for the overtrick, and 50 for the part score. If the contract were Three Diamonds, just made, the score would be exactly the same. The defenders, as in Auction Bridge, do not have as precise a contract to try to defeat, as they would have at Rubber Bridge.
Another characteristic of Duplicate Bridge bidding is the tendency to play in No trumps, when a suit would provide a safer contract. This is because a contract such as one-No-Trump-plus-one scores 120, but three of a minor suit only 110. At the game level too, three No Trumps plus one will score 10 points more than four of a major suit just made. These scores, to my mind, reintroduce an increased element of risk taking, and luck, into Duplicate Bridge, to its detriment for ordinary players.
A suggestion, that has not so far found favour with the Bridge ruling bodies, is to introduce into Duplicate Bridge something akin to "above the line" as in Rubber Bridge. The idea is simple: undoubled overtricks would score half trick-value. Thus, three Diamonds made, would still score 110, but two Diamonds plus one would score only 100. Similarly four of a major would score 620 (vulnerable), but three No Trumps plus one only 615. Such a scheme would also restore meaning to the final digit of Contract Bridge scores. At present, they all end in zero.
While I am being radical, I have another suggestion. Let declarer be the person who has won the auction. He, or she, bid it. Let he, or she, make it! This would cut out many unpalatable recriminations in the post mortem.
I have always been irked by the fact that not only do major suits outbid minor suits at he same level, but they also score more when successful, yet lose no more when they fail. I suggest this unbalanced situation can be remedied by a minor major, (or should I say major minor?) change in the scoring. Simply award 20 points for major-suit tricks but 30 points for minor-suit tricks. If you want the pleasure of playing the contract you should have to accept a lower score. That seems fair to me. Game in the minors would be now at the four level, but in the majors at the five level.
I suggest further that the 40 point score for NTs be transferred from the one level to the three level. 3NT would still score game, but 1NT only 30 points, 2NT 60 points. This would level the playing field all round.
Double, Double, Toil and Trouble
I wonder if it has struck you how the call "Double" affects even the simplest of auctions. Its basic natural meaning has been subverted, to make it mean almost anything you think it might be useful to mean. There are informatory doubles, negative doubles, Sputnik doubles, co-operative doubles, support doubles, even DOPE doubles, to mention only some.
These doubles are a far cry from the original Bridge concept when there was no bidding as we know it, but each time you doubled, or redoubled, or re-redoubled, or re-re-redoubled, the stakes went up inexorably. Even in Contract Bridge it used to be that a double was considered to be for penalties unless it was specifically announced otherwise. Such has been the development of Competitive Doubles that, in Duplicate Bridge, the pendulum has swung the other way. A low-level double is usually assumed to be not for penalties unless specifically announced, or is "obvious".
The original idea of doubling was more akin to the use of the double in Backgammon. There, if you feel you are doing well enough, you can say "double", and turn over the "doubling cube" to show that the stakes are doubled. If the other player accepts the double, then play continues. Later you may double again; or the opponent may, if your fortunes have changed for the worse. Then again the cube is turned, to the next higher number. The object is to pressurise opponents so that rather than playing on, and risking double, quadruple, or whatever stakes, they resign, to use a term borrowed from chess, cutting their potential losses.
Contract Bridge has become so popular, and hence so disciplined and well organised, that although systems and other forms of ethical conventional communications have evolved, the game itself has ceased to evolve significantly. I therefore have made some evolutionary suggestions above. Here are two others, quite as far reaching, the first borrowed from that Backgammon concept.
I suggest that you be able to double your own partner's contract! You would perforce only be able to make a self-double of your partner's bid if your right hand opponent (RHO) Passes. The double would bar your partner bidding for one round.
At present you may only double an opponent's previous bid if either your LHO has bid, and there have been two Passes, or directly over your RHO's bid. If the double is Passed out, nothing different happens in the play. The same person leads, the same person is declarer, as if you had Passed. It is only when the score is entered that the double takes effect.
If your self-double were Passed out, you would become the opening leader, your RHO would become declarer, your LHO would become dummy, but your contract would remain the same. Let us suppose such a contract were 2 Spades from partner, doubled by you.
Essentially you have challenged the new declarer, RHO, to defeat you by making at least 6 tricks with Spades as trumps, with the advantage of seeing partner's hand as dummy. The advantage to you would be the opening lead; the disadvantage would be that you could not see partner's hand.
I am confident that such a scheme would eventually improve normal undoubled defensive play significantly. The occasional new "defensive declarers" would learn, by experience, what situations can produce the odd extra trick from limited resources. The new "contract defenders" would have to maintain their concentration on partnership communication in more detail and for longer. They would be trying to make more tricks than "defenders" usually expect to need.
The idea should also improve competitive bidding. There is a school of thought that believes to achieve what is known as the par result on most hands, one side or the other should be playing in a contract of 2 Spades or higher. If players are allowed to double their own partner's contract, then the opponents now have to consider whether to stand the double. They may well decide to bid on, either as a sacrifice, or to push the opponents into a riskier, higher contract that will not be self doubled. Bidding could become much more exciting, and yet more precise. I leave to your imagination what rules might be developed for the corresponding "redouble", if any!
Finally, I suggest that we resolve conclusively which doubles are for penalty and which for takeout. Amongst ordinary players this ambiguity causes more heartaches and misunderstandings than almost any other bidding situation, not to mention the proliferation of "alerts". Let us make all doubles and redoubles mean what they say, and only what they say: a doubling, or similar, of scores and penalties.
The development of bidding over the past 70 years has shown a real need for takeout bids, for which purpose double has been subverted. Let us be honest. Let us create a new bid called "Takeout". It would have the same position in the hierarchy as a Pass, but it would require partners to bid, unless their RHOs bid. Partners would be allowed to convert the takeout to penalty by bidding "double". There would have to be some ruling should partners actually refuse, or forget, to bid. Say, declarer could have the option of playing in the contract doubled or undoubled.
There, I suspect that is more than enough for the time being. Perhaps you think Contract Bridge is perfect and needs no alteration. On the other hand, perhaps you are conscious of other anomalies in the fundamentals of the game and you have other, or further, suggestions. If so, now is the time. Surprising as it may seem there will not be another millennium for another 1000 years!