Talk:History of contract bridge

Some basic facts for discussion.

1) Bridge didn't develop from Whist. The Rules of Whist now are identical to Whist in the 18th Century. Over a couple of centuries games like Ombre and Quadrille came and went, while Whist remained the same. The increasingly complex rules which which cards to play when to communicate information to partner, so you might wring an extra point out of the hand, changed very slowly due to resistance, before being discarded.

2) Whist was the simplest form of Triomphe (deal all the cards and flip the last one to indicate trumps). It had established rules covering partnerships, seating, shuffling, dealing, misdeals, play, and penalties for leads out of turn and revokes. And for three handed Whist with a dummy. Now that the Enlightenment was in full swing, Whist served as a framework for replacement games like Boston (Quadrille), Preference/Preferens (Hombre) and Skat (3 handed Tarok). Variants did develop things like competitive bidding, suits with different points and hence ranks, misere and NT contracts.

3) Russian Whist started to absorb these ideas. Yerlash (Scramble 1866) has all of them.

4) Whist is a fairly staid game where most hands are fought over 1 or 2 odd tricks. It was recognised c.1850 in Germany that the 3 Handed Dummy Whist was a more exciting game as Declarer playing dummy can make more tricks, and the defence can see twice as many cards and try to stop them. This was named Sturmwhist. Many games like Hombre, Preference, Skat are all commonly played by 4 players with Dealer sitting out the play. This way there was no issue of them dealing the Aces to the themselves, and they supervised play, scoring and settlement of stakes objectively.

5) Dummy Yerlash dropping the misere and bidding by dealers opponents pretty much Biritch.

6) Biritch imported these ideas, via Paris into the London clubs as the new game of Bridge.

7) The OED notes Collison's 1886 "Biritch or Russian Whist" as the origin of the name Bridge (in effect assuming that is was an Anglicisation of spelling). Biritch is an archaic Russian term for Herald, and in the game represents the NT call, the highest and most risky.

8) Auction Bridge was first reported at Bath 1904. It was the first Bridge with competitive bidding but was a simple 4 deal game with a misere and crude bidding and a totally unbalanced scoring system.

9) 1908 The Portland Club, who issued the official rules for Bridge in 1995 eventually agree to a joint committe with Bath Club for the new game of Auction Bridge. Portland insisted that the game conform to the Bridge Laws and only a super set describing the minimum changes need was produced. Dealer was forced to bid but the penalty for 1S, even for 1Sx -7 was capped at 100. Opponents could no longer claim odd tricks. A -50 penalty per undertrick was played through out. As gambling was the major purpose of Bridge points where held to be important. So the bidding rank was based on trick point for the bid. So 1H 8 points outbid 3S 6 points, but not 4S 8 points because it was more tricks. This game was highly unbalanced. With 1NT 12, 1H 10 and 1S 2 bidding NT or Hs were the only real option. A common tactic was to trap pass with a strong hand and double the opponents if they bid. 3 off Doubled was worth -300. Making two games and getting the 250 point rubber bonus was worth only 310 and bidding was risky. There was a complex honour system from bridge, including Chicane, a compensation to a player void in trumps but these were random. Auction Bridge was popular with Gamblers in Clubs as it generate large wins and losses, and was compared to Poker in this respect. It struggled to gain popular support.

The Whist Club of New York issued competing rules ranking bids by level then suit as in modern bridge. The English reject this. The American used the worthless Spade bids artificially to show strong H and or NT hands at a low-level. The British denounced this. They continue to feud.

10) US players complained about the game but got nowhere, they started experimenting with new scoring systems. 1910 Royal Auction Bridge was created where Spades could bid defensively a 2 point or as Royals or Lilles (France) offensively at 11 points a trick. Eventual a new count of 1NT 10, 1S 9, 1H 8, 1D 7, 1C 6 which made 3NT, 4M and 5m game was pushed and The Whist Club of New York was pressured into accepting it.

11) After WWI and the Influenza Pandemic, in 1920 books on Royal Auction Bridge are published by Foster et al. and it is rapidly popular for gambling, competitive tournaments including Duplicates, and social play. It replaces Bridge, Whist and also 500 in much of the US, which died out in 1920.

12) Plafond which follows the principle of contract, that only bid and made tricks count for game and slam, over tricks are scored above the line like honours and penalties, is the most popular game in France

13) 1925 Vanderbilt creates a new scoring system with non-vulnerable and vulnerable scoring tables. He publishes a pamphlet on it i and it soon highly popular in Southhampton and Newport. In 1927 The Whist Club of New York accepts Vanderbilt's rules. By 1929 Contract Bridge is the game being played in London and NY Clubs.

14) Auction Bridge is eventually replaced by Contract Bridge but not immediately everywhere. It continues to be played as a social game in place Australia into the 1940s, especially by women's groups, as duplicate competition isn't organised until the 1950s.

15) In 1960s 4 deal Chicago replaces Rubber Bridge in clubs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PertinaxII (talk • contribs) 05:40, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Etymology
See also briscola, the Italian name for another pan-European trick-taking game. Zargulon (talk) 21:39, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Biritch
Is there now good evidence for the developmental and etymological role of biritch, or Russian whist? Perhaps twenty years ago I read that there is little or no evidence. The authors of OED are historians but the depth of their work must be sharply limited.

Apparently there is more evidence, in Thierry Depaulis and Jac Fuchs, "First Steps of Bridge in the West: Collinson's 'Biritch'", The Playing-Card, Vol. 32, no. 2, Sep.-Oct. 2003, pp. 67-76. John McLeod provides some useful detail from that article (McLeod's edition). --P64 (talk) 21:36, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Late 20th Century scoring change
It's probably worth adding a mention of the scoring changes introduced in the 1980s or 1990s - the penalties for (re)doubled undertricks were changed, with the effect of making certain sacrifices no longer viable.

So far as I know, that's the last substantive change to the game, so probably merits a mention when discussing the game's history. Rmsgrey (talk) 22:00, 7 January 2014 (UTC)


 * If/when someone acts on this, please attend to the bonus for making a redoubled contract (or perhaps doubled, vulnerable?). --P64 (talk) 00:46, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I believe this is addressed more appropriately at Bridge scoring. Newwhist (talk) 13:21, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

"Recent developments"
Basically, this paragraph is nonsense in what it says about the UK. The main form of bridge in the UK is duplicate bridge played in clubs, and I think the same is true of the rest of Europe. And probably wider than that. The EBU (English Bridge Union) no doubt has statistics on the growth in the number of clubs, but I know there are more clubs than there are small towns, perhaps several times as many. Oh, I should add that rubber bridge in clubs is effectively dead. I can think of a few places offhand, where once they were everywhere. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:21, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Agree. Furthermore, the two sections should be improved or deleted. Since nothing has happened in 9 years, I suggest deletion.  Newwhist (talk) 14:21, 28 July 2020 (UTC)