MINIBRIDGE

English Bridge Union

August 1997

MiniBridge was first introduced in Holland, where it was developed as an introduction to bridge for school children. It was quickly found to be very effective, not only for teaching youngsters, but for adults as well. And it turned out to be a very good game in its own right. Not suprisingly, therefore, it has spread like wildfire - into many parts of Europe and no doubt other parts of the world as well. In England, it has become the EBU-recommended route into bridge for all beginners.

This document aims to describe a definitive version of MiniBridge - the one which is used in competitions organised by the English Bridge Union - and gives advice on how it may be taught. Many readers will have come across different variations of the game, however (not least because different variants are played in different countries) and some of these are also described. Different adaptations are likely to be found useful in different teaching situations - notably for different age groups - and experimentation is to be encouraged. Grandparents teaching their grandchildren may want to take a particular approach, whilst grandchildren teaching their grandparents may take quite a different tack! The main thing is to try MiniBridge and to enjoy it.

This quick outline of the game is written on the assumption that you, the reader, are a bridge player who is familiar with bridge terminology and so on. It should give you a good idea of how it works before you get stuck into the intricacies of how to teach the game, or how to adapt it for your needs. MiniBridge is easy to understand - there is no auction, so the good news is that there are no complicated bidding conventions to learn, and when it comes to the play of the cards, everything is almost exactly as in bridge.

The cards are dealt in the usual way and each player counts their high card points (HCP) on the standard scale (4 for an ace, 3 for a king, etc). Dealer announces how many HCP they hold, followed in turn be each of the others. If the total is not 40, something has gone wrong already and a re-count is necessary! The partnership with the higher total wins the contract (re-deal is there are 20 HCP apiece) and the individual in the partnership with the higher total becomes declarer (or the first to speak if they have the same number each).

At this point dummy goes down and declarer can see the combined partnership assets. They use their skill and judgement to decide which suit will be trumps or whether to play in no-trumps - then announces their choice. They also state whether they wish to play for game or partscore. Scoring is as in bridge - tricks taken in ♣ or ♦ being worth 20 points, ♥ or ♠ 30 points, and the first NT trick being worth 40 points, subsequent ones 30. Game contracts are still 3NT, 4♥ or 4♠, 5♣ or 5♦, necessitating taking 9,10, or 11 tricks respectively. Points are earned for all tricks made in excess of 6 when in a partscore, but of course when going for game you need to make at least your contracted number of tricks. Successful partscore or game contracts earn bonuses of 50 or 300 points respectively and undertricks all score 50 points each.

After the level and denomination have been chosen, the opening lead is made and play proceeds as in bridge. Each deal is scored independently and the game as a whole can be agreed to last for a fixed number of deals or until a particular target score is reached.

Pretty straightforward, isn't it? If anything is not clear, though, turn to the back, where the Laws of MiniBridge are spelt out more formally.

Whilst it may take quite a while to master the finer points of play, anyone can learn the mechanics of how to play MiniBridge in a matter of moments. As a new player you can still be playing a real, competitive game right away. And be competing with 'real' bridge players on an equal footing very quickly (great for families!).

It's such an enjoyable and entertaining game, that you could easily overlook the skills and abilities that MiniBridge helps to develop. It necessitates concentration, decision making, partnership co-operation, and team-work. It requires skills in mental arithmetic, analytical thought and logical deduction and an understanding of probabilities. Imagination, judgement, and memory are all developed by playing bridge and MiniBridge. Quite a list, really!

The best thing about MiniBridge is that you can learn all about the play of the cards without having to worry at all about the bidding. Through practice and play, you will soon discover the value of long suits - how you can take tricks with very lowly cards when no-one has any left. You will also discover that shortages - singletons and voids - are valuable when playing in a trump contract.

As declarer you will readily see that your and dummy's combined long holding in one suit makes an excellent trump suit; you learn about how to establish a long suit through knocking out top cards; how to unblock suits and how to finesse; the importance of entries. As defender, you can learn about how to choose an opening lead; when to play a high card to a low card; simple attitude signals and so on. Most importantly, in whichever seat you are sitting, you can learn how to count points; you can start to note how many points each player shows up with as the play progresses, thus deducing the position of remaining high cards; and you can see how many tricks are taken, on average, with different combined point count holdings.

When you do decide to progress to bridge, the bidding will be much more meaningful. It will be much easier to understand which suits to bid, and how high to go according to your known combined HCP.

It is easier to adapt MiniBridge for play by three people that it is to do the same with bridge. Here are some possibilities - in each case the scoring is just as is in normal MiniBridge:

Dealer deals four hands including a dummy between the other two players. The three players then announce in turn their high card points. The player with the highest number of high card points becomes the declarer (if equal then it is the player who announced their points first). The declarer then faces the dummy opposite themselves, while the other two players become the defenders. If the total number of high card points between declarer and dummy is less than twenty-one, the hand is re-dealt. Otherwise, the hand continues as in the four-handed game.

Dealer deals four hands including a dummy between the other two players. The three players then announce in turn their high card points. Dummy's points are worked out (by subtraction from forty). Dealer and the dummy are one partnership and the other two players are the other partnership. The partnership with the greater total of high card points becomes the declaring side. If both sides have twenty points, the hand is re-dealt.

Then (a): If dealer and dummy are the declaring side then dealer becomes declarer. If they have fewer high card points then dummy then they exchange their hand with dummy before dummy is exposed. The hand continues as in the four-handed game.

Otherwise (b): If the other side (not dealer and dummy) is the declaring side, then the player with the highest number of high card points becomes the declarer; if equal, then it is the player who announced their points first. Their partner's hand is exposed as dummy and their partner takes over the former dummy and switches to become a defender. The hand continues as in the four-handed game.

You don't have to teach or to learn all about MiniBridge in one go. For example, you can play just with no-trumps at first, then introduce trumps later. You can ignore the partscore/game elements of scoring and just score according to the number of tricks won be each side. Alternatively, you can add features to make the game a little more challenging. One possibility is to introduce the concept of 'slam', for which the goal in either no trumps or any trump suit is 12 tricks and for which the bonus is 800 points.

Another option is to set declarer a target number of tricks which must be made according to the combined points held by the declaring partnership. A suitable set of targets would be as follows:

Using this method of play, it is recommended that each deal be scored simply as a win or a loss for each side, according to whether the declarer achieves the target or not. If an odd number of deals is played, one side or the other will always come out on top! Using this type of scoring with several pairs playing, it is also possible to set up a league table for established partnerships - something like the following:

Imagine four pairs at school, I to IV, who play in a mini-match against each of the others, say the best of three or five deals, during the course of a term. The result of each mini-match is entered in the table and, when all the encounters are over, the total column should reveal an overall winner.

When teaching the game to adults, you may choose to introduce features as you wish. A lot will depend on whether you are dealing with whist players or those familiar with other card games, how much time you have available, and how fast you want to go. But for teaching children, especially in the younger age range - and MiniBridge can be happily absorbed by 7 or 8 year-olds, or even younger - it is sensible to take a staged approach..

The Educational Trust for British Bridge, in it's Teacher's Resource Manual, has laid out a series of six Mini-Lessons which it suggests following for the introduction of MiniBridge to children. The specification of these lessons is reproduced below (with minor amendments to bring the scoring in line with current practice):

Whether you decide to follow this sequence or some other, there are one or two ideas which are worth bearing in mind in any event:

1. Always play out the hand duplicate-style. Your students won't have a problem with this if it is the method of play they meet right from the start, and it will help you greatly in seeing what has happened and in reconstructing hands for re-playing or for play at another table. It will be a big help if there is any dispute about the number of tricks won, as well.
2. Explain to your students about how the four players round a table are identified by the four points of a compass, North-South and East-West playing together in partnership. If you have several tables playing, make sure that you specify a direction for North and that everyone plays the same way - it will make it easier for you to keep tabs on what is happening when you are supervising during the play.
3. Beware of bridge terminology - it is very easy to use words without explaining them. Particular cases to watch for include:

• use of the term 'ruff' meaning 'to trump' without explanation;
• 'hand' is sometimes used to mean a whole deal, sometimes just on player's set of thirteen cards. Try to use the term 'deal' or perhaps 'board' when you mean a complete deal;
• 'Points' is a very confusing term - sometimes meaning high card points and sometimes the points you score - you just have to watch out for possible misunderstandings here.

1. Right from the start, get players to write down for each deal the number of points held by the declaring side and the number of tricks won. Over a period of time, a pattern will begin to emerge showing the expected number of tricks for a given combined point count - a very useful lesson to learn.
2. If you are teaching young children, you will discover that they don't like being dummy. Encourage the player who is dummy to come around the table and help declarer with the playing of the cards. (You may find that this works with adults as well!)
3. If you are teaching high-spirited children, they are bound to want to tell each other what suit they want led by means of stage whispers, beating their hearts, waving imaginary clubs, etc. This needs to be curbed with humour - it will also help to change partners often so that no secret signalling systems get developed. But above all, do have fun!

LESSON SEQUENCE FROM THE ETBB TEACHER'S RESOURCE MANUAL

MINIBRIDGE

The definitive rules of MiniBridge appear at the end of this document. The game is in fact much simpler than it might first appear, although even experienced bridge players find it diverting. But it's real charm, and relevance for us, is that it can be used as a vehicle for taking students with absolutely no experience of cards to the point where they can understand and appreciate many of the ideas behind Bridge.

On the assumption that you find that you have students with such a lack of experience of card playing, the remainder of this chapter is a series of short lessons which build up to MiniBridge itself.

Objectives: The student will be able to:

1. recognise the four suits;
2. recognise the relative rank of the cards;
3. understand what a trick is at no trumps;
4. understand that the winner of one trick leads to the next trick;
5. deal the cards and sort a hand.

Lay out a complete deck face up on the table. How many 'kinds' of cards do you see (i.e. the four suits) ? Select all the cards of one suit, arrange them in the correct order - ace on the left to deuce on the right. Get the students used to holding thirteen cards and extracting cards one at a time.

What is a trick? Give each of four students one random card from the same suit. Each of them lays down their card in turn, face up on the table in front of themselves, and the one with the highest card wins the TRICK.

Now give the students two random cards each, all eight from the same suit. Someone leads and now the students try to win the first trick. Here you can introduce choice into their play. The next important step is to have the winner of the first trick lead to the second trick.

Next, remove the deuce from a suit and give each of the four students the chance to deal three cards, one at a time, to each player. Have the player to the left of the Dealer lead to the first trick and the winner of each trick lead to the next.

The next exercise introduces a second suit into the play. Each player gets one cards, each of a different rank, but two cards are from one suit and two from another. Now, who wins the trick depends on which suit is led, not just on the relative ranks of the cards.

Give two cards to each player - one from spades, say, and one from clubs. Demonstrate the necessity of following suit. Finally just using two suits, increase the number of cards, one at a time, to six for each player. Again remove the two deuces first.

Note that for this lesson only, the students are playing as individuals, not as partners.

Objectives: Using the concepts from MiniLesson One, the student will:

1. co-operate with their partner in the play;
2. recognize that sometimes a 'small' card will win a trick;
3. play a series of tricks in 'duplicate' style.

For this lesson we complicate the issue by using three suits. Show that Partner winning the trick is just as good as the player themselves winning the trick. The concepts to concentrate here are when a high card should be played, when a small card, and how Partner's play to a particular trick affects the player's own action.

With three suits in play, the hands can be increased to nine cards each. Leave the deuces in so that there will be more variation in suit lengths.

From this point onwards, get the students to play out their hands in duplicate bridge style, showing their played cards in front of themselves and then turning them face down, vertically for the winning side, horizontally for the losers. Although this doesn't really matter until MiniLesson Four, its easier for the students if you 'start as you mean to go on'.

Without remarking on it, see if any of the students actually ever play 'second hand low' to leave the trick for Partner, or continue playing on the suit led by their Partner.

Objectives: The student will be able to:

1. play with a dummy;
2. count high-card points;
3. start to play MiniBridge, but only at no trumps and without the game bonus;
4. begin to appreciate the value of 'long' suits.

From this lesson onwards the students have complete hands of thirteen cards.

Describe the point count (ace = 4, king = 3, queen = 3, jack = 1). Have the students practice sorting their hands into suits of alternating colours and with the higher cards in each suit to the left. Then they announce their point count.

The next step is to identify the declaring side as the side with the majority of the points, and to identify the actual declarer. The re-deal rule when both sides have 20 points is introduced. If both of the players on the declaring side have the same point count, the players choose who is to be Declarer for the moment.

After declarer and dummy have been identified, show the class how to lay out dummy's hand on the table. Declarer's goal is always seven or more tricks for this lesson (and also MiniLesson Four). Point out that with the declaring side holding the majority of points, it is reasonable to insist that declarer should win more than half of the tricks. Thus the declaring side only scores points for tricks won over and above the first six. For the moment, the successful declarer scores a bonus of 50 points for making the majority of tricks, plus 40 points per trick won beyond the first six. If declarer fails to win seven tricks, then the defenders score 50 points per undertrick. The students should keep score for themselves.

The trick-taking power of a long suit should now start to become evident to the students. However, we feel that it is very important at this stage NOT to suggest any particular plays to the students, other than to encourage their natural inclination to win tricks, and a gentle suggestion that leading along suit early in the play is often a good idea.

Objectives: The student will be able to:

1. understand the concept of a trump suit;
2. choose the best trump suit.

Some students may find the concept of a trump suit quite difficult at first, so you may have to return briefly to 'hands' containing only one or two cards. The necessity of following suit must be emphasized here, as well as co-operating with Partner ("You trumped my ace, Partner!"), and remembering which suit has been led.

The salient points which need to be emphasized are:

1. You win the trick if you play the highest card on it of the suit led, unless someone else (legally) trumps it.
2. If the suit led is trumped twice or even three times, then the highest trump played wins the trick.
3. If you are able to follow suit, then you are not allowed to trump the trick.
4. If you are not able to follow suit, you are not obliged to trump the trick.

When all of the above has been absorbed, then its time for the students to start to choose trumps in MiniBridge. There are certain to be students who will prefer choosing a short, strong trump suit over a longer but weaker suit. Rather than telling them that only long suits should be trumps, get them to play the same hand twice, first with the short strong suit as trumps, then with the longer suit as trumps. This should be a real 'eye-opener' for these students, and is one of the reasons for introducing duplicate style play from the very beginning.

After this lesson has sunk in, the students will be ready to make sensible choices about trump suits. The tendency will be always to choose their longest combined suit as trumps, and to forget about no-trumps. The scoring changes introduced in the next lesson should correct this tendency.

Objectives: The student will be able to:

1. Choose between no trumps and a trump suit;
2. Decide whether to play from 'game' or not;
3. Use the complete MiniBridge scoring;
4. Follow th rules about clockwise announcement and about who is declarer when both players have the same point count.

Explain to the students that you are going to add a few more rules to MiniBridge in order to make the game more interesting and more like 'real' bridge.

The first is the idea of announcing game. By this time they will have noticed that if they have lots of trumps they can take more tricks as declarer with a trump suit than in no trumps. Thus it is reasonable that a game in no trumps should require fewer tricks than one with a trump suit.

The other idea is that if the declaring side has a lot more high card points than the defenders, then declarer should make a lot more tricks.

100 is a nice round number so let's set that as the goal. Then we need to alter the scoring slightly to equalise the difference between no-trump and trump games, so we score fewer points per trick for a trump contract than a no trump contract.

The next change is to distinguish the important suits, spades and hearts, from the lesser suits, diamonds and clubs. This is completely arbitrary - it just makes the game more interesting. Thus we score only 20 points per odd trick for bidding in a MINOR suit, but we score 30 points per odd trick when a MAJOR suit is chosen. Since this slightly over-emphasizes the difference between no trumps and the majors, we also adjust the value of second and subsequent odd tricks in no trumps to be worth 30 points each, though the first one stays at 40 points. (By ODD TRICKS, we mean the seventh and subsequent tricks won by declarer).

The effect of these changes is that (surprise, surprise) it takes nine tricks to make a no trump game , ten tricks for a major and eleven tricks for a minor game.

Encourage the students to try for a 'game' whenever they have 25 or more points. A lot of these games will fail, but the students should enjoy the challenge. And they will score a bonus of 300 points whenever they make their games instead of only 50 for a part-score contract.

When looking around for a trump suit, the magic number is EIGHT trumps between declarer's hand and dummy's. At this point it is sufficient for the students to know that eight trumps usually give declarer the chance to get rid of the defenders' trumps and still have some trumps left over to do something useful. That's enough for now. Let them discover by playing MiniBridge what some of these useful things are.

Recommend that they play their longest combined suit as trumps, assuming that they have an eight-card fit, whenever they are NOT announcing game, and that often it is better to try for a no trump game when they have a long minor suit.

Finally, with this lesson start to enforce the rules about clockwise announcement and who should be declarer when both players on the declaring side hold the same point count.

Objective: The student will:

1. Be able to play MiniBridge competently;
2. Understand that the defenders are allowed to send signals to one another via the cards they play.

This is an optional or, if you will, advanced MiniBridge lesson.

Now that the students are playing MiniBridge with some competence and, we hope, with a lot of enjoyment, you can quite easily organize a competition, either on a pairs or individual basis. If you have enough students for several tables in your class, then you could even run a duplicate-style competition with the North-South players competing against one another, likewise the East-Wests, with a number of duplicate boards circulating among the tables.

The new idea which we suggest might be introduced at this time is very simple defensive signalling.

The students should have noticed that most of the defenders' small cards do not take tricks. Thus it might be sensible for the defenders to use some of their small cards to send messages to one another. What's more, you can tell them, its perfectly legal to do so AS LONG AS declarer is in on the 'secret'.

We suggest that only two types of signals be introduced at this stage:

1. Playing a relatively HIGH small card says "I LIKE THIS SUIT. Please continue playing it when you can". On the other hand, playing your LOWEST card says either "I DON'T LIKE THIS SUIT" or "I LIKE SOME OTHER SUIT BETTER".
2. If a defender decides to lead from a sequence of cards in a suit, they should LEAD THE HIGHEST CARD OF THE SEQUENCE. Thus leading a queen denies holding the king; leading the eight denies the nine, etc.
3. However, when playing to a trick that SOMEONE ELSE has led, the defender should PLAY THE LOWER, OR LOWEST, OF EQUAL CARDS.

You can give several examples of both these type of signals and thus gently lead the class onto the exciting road of inference.

It's also worth mentioning to the students that when a player is declaring, they have no reason to follow the signalling rules, since they have no active partner during the play. In fact, it is quite in order for declarer to 'falsecard', that is to attempt to mislead the defenders.

THE LAWS OF MINIBRIDGE

MiniBridge is played by four players playing as two partnerships. Partners sit opposite each other.

The cards rank: Ace (high), king, queen, jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 (low). Two packs should be used (one will do).

The dealer on a hand is the next player clockwise from the last dealer. The dealer presents the shuffled pack to their right hand opponent to be cut, then deals the whole pack out, one card at a time clockwise around the table, starting with the player on their left. While the cards are being dealt, dealer's partner should be shuffling the other pack for the next hand. If there is only one pack then dealer themselves will shuffle it before the cut and deal.

Alternatively, the hands to be played may be pre-dealt and presented to the players in duplicate boards which indicate who is dealer. Players simply remove the hands from the boards and proceed as from the end of a manual deal.

Ace counts four points, king three, queen two and jack one. Players each pick up their hands and add up their points.

Starting with the dealer and going clockwise, each player in turn announces their total high card points. If the four numbers do not add up to forty, the players try again.

If the high card points of two partners add up to twenty (and so do the other side's), or if any player has not got exactly thirteen cards, then the same dealer shuffles the same pack and, after it has been cut, deals again.

The partnership with the greater total of high card points is the declaring side and their opponents are the defenders. The declarer is the member of the declaring side with more high card points; if they each have the same number, then declarer is the player that announced their points first.

After is had been decided who is declarer, their partner is called dummy. Dummy spreads their hand face up in front of them, sorted into suits in separate columns, the cards in order of rank within each suit. Declarer plays both their hand and that of dummy. Dummy may NOT participate in the play in any way, except to play cards as instructed by declarer.

After seeing the dummy, declarer announces the contract. They either announce "Game" or "Part-score" and they either announce a trump suit or "No-trumps". They should say, for example, "Game in clubs" or "Part-score in no-trumps" or similar. Dummy moves the column containing the selected trump suit (if there is one) to their right.

It does not matter if declarer exceeds their goal. The defenders' aim is to stop declarer reaching their goal.

The player leading to a trick may play any card. Each other player in turn clockwise plays a card; the four cards so played constitute a trick. In playing to a trick, each player must follow suit if possible. The trick is won by the highest trump is there is one; otherwise by the highest cards of the suit led. The player that wins the trick leads to the next one.

Each player except dummy plays a card by facing it on the table in front of them. Dummy's cards are played by declarer, who names the card to be played after which dummy moves it in front of themselves. When the trick has been completed, each player turns their card face down in front of themselves, pointing towards the player who won that trick. Quitted cards should be kept in an orderly row in the sequence played.

Until a player turns their card face down they may ask to see all the cards of that trick. Once they have turned their card face down, they may not ask to see the other cards but they may look at their own. Earlier tricks may not be looked at until the end of the hand.

A player may show their hand and explain which of the remaining tricks are theirs and how they expect to play them. If either member of the other partnership (not dummy) disagrees, they pick up their hand and complete the hand normally.

After all the cards have been played, the players agree how many tricks were won by each side on the direction of the cards in front of them, and calculate the score.

If declarer reaches or exceeds their goal then the declaring side scores points for each 'odd' trick, an odd trick being any trick in excess of six. They do no score for the first six tricks. The points scored vary according to the contract, as follows:

If declarer fails to reach their goal, the defenders score 50 points for each trick by which the declarer is short of their goal.

Each hand is scored independently. Players should decide how long a session of play will be. Normally they will agree to play either a certain number of deals or to a time limit.

If the wrong player leads to a trick, either opponent (but not dummy) may say they accept it, or the next opponent may play a card, which accepts it. Otherwise the card is returned to the player's hand and the correct player leads instead.

If a player fails to follow suit to a trick when they have a card of that suit, and they discover it before either they or their partner plays to the next trick, then they correct the play, taking the wrongly played card into their hand. Any cards played after the incorrect card may now be changed.

If a player fails to follow suit to a trick when they have a card of that suit, and it is not discovered until after they or their partner has played to the next trick, then the revoke has become established and the incorrect card remains as played. One trick is transferred to the opponents at the end of the hand.

If a player accidentally exposes a card that they do not mean to play at that time, it is picked up without penalty.

If a player plays a card out of rotation (that they intended to play) then it stands as played.

Whilst there are no penalties applied, the following should be avoided:

• Making comments, especially to partner
• Arranging quitted cards in a disorderly manner
• Indicating approval or disapproval of a play
• Mixing the cards at the end before the number of tricks is agreed
• Mixing the cards at the end before an alleged revoke is agreed
• Inspecting quitted cards except as allowed in Law 13
• Doing any of the irregularities in Laws 19 to 23 intentionally

Each player except dummy plays a card by facing it in the center of the table. Declarer plays dummy's cards similarly, or instructs dummy to play a card similarly. When the trick has been completed, a player from the side that won the trick collects the four cards and turns them face down together, arranged so that each trick won by their side is separate.

This changes Laws 13 and 15 slightly: the last trick may be inspected until play starts to the next trick; calculation of tricks at the end is based on the number of tricks collected by one player for each side.