Term	Meaning
Alert	Telling the opponents that partner’s bid has a conventional (not natural) meaning.
Balanced hand	A hand with no void, no singleton and at most one doubleton (4-3-3-3, 4-4-3-2, 5-3-3-2).
Board	The numbered holder that keeps the four hands of a deal so it can be replayed at other tables.
Bridgemate	The table-top device on which the result of each board is entered.
Butler scoring	A way of scoring a pairs event in IMPs against a datum score.
Carry-over	Points brought forward from an earlier stage (qualifying) into the final.
Contract	The final bid of the auction: the number of tricks promised and the trump suit (or no trumps).
Convention card	The form that describes a partnership’s bidding system and signals.
Cross-IMPs	IMP scoring where each result is compared with every other result on the board.
Declarer	The player who plays both their own hand and dummy after winning the auction.
Double	A call that increases the penalties (and bonuses) of the last bid; also used as a takeout request.
Doubleton	A holding of exactly two cards in a suit.
Dummy	Declarer’s partner, whose cards are placed face up on the table.
Entry	A card that lets you win a trick in a particular hand so as to play from it.
Finesse	Trying to win a trick with a card lower than one the opponents hold, by leading towards it.
Fit	Eight or more cards in one suit between the two partners’ hands.
Game	A contract whose trick score is 100 or more (3NT, 4♥, 4♠, 5♣, 5♦) — it earns the game bonus.
HCP	High-card points: A = 4, K = 3, Q = 2, J = 1.
IMP	International Match Point: the scale that turns a score difference into a small number for team scoring.
Knock-out	A teams format where the loser of each match is eliminated.
Lead	The first card of a trick. The opening lead is the first card of the play.
Major / minor	Spades and hearts are the majors (30 a trick); diamonds and clubs the minors (20 a trick).
Masterpoints	Points awarded by BFI for finishing positions; they decide a player’s category.
Matchpoints	Pairs scoring where each board is scored by how many other pairs you beat.
Overcall	A bid made after the opponents have opened the auction.
Part-score	A contract below game.
Pass	Declining to bid. Four passes in a row end the auction (the deal is passed out if nobody bids).
Ruff	To play a trump on a trick when you cannot follow suit.
Rubber bridge	The home version of the game, scored over rubbers; championships use duplicate instead.
Sacrifice	Deliberately bidding a contract you expect to go down because the penalty is less than the opponents’ game.
Singleton	A holding of exactly one card in a suit.
Slam	A contract of 12 tricks (small slam) or 13 tricks (grand slam).
Stopper	A holding that will win a trick in a suit the opponents attack (e.g. an ace, or K-x).
Swiss	A teams format where in each round you meet a team with a similar score.
Trick	Four cards, one from each player; won by the highest card of the suit led or the highest trump.
Vulnerable	A state (shown on the board) in which bonuses and penalties are larger.
VP	Victory points: the match result converted to a scale (usually out of 20) for team standings.
Void	Having no cards in a suit.

← Your first tournamentWatch the video lessons →