Bridge Glossary

CAB

a British system built around an artificial two-club opening with ace-showing responses and Blackwood.

Caddy

a tournament director's assistant, typically responsible for distributing to and picking up from the tables in play.

Calcutta

a tournament in which a portion of bets on the outcome are used as prizes.

California Cue-Bid

a bid of the opponents' suit asking partner to bid notrump with a stopper there.

Call

a bid, pass, double or redouble.

Canape

bidding a shorter suit before a longer one.

Cappelletti

a defensive method against opposing one-notrump openings (double = penalty; two clubs = one-suiter with suit unspecified; two diamonds = majors; two of a major = that major and an unspecified minor); sometimes called Hamilton.

Captain

partner with the responsibility of making the final decision (in bidding) for his side.

Capture

(1) (verb) (of a trick) win;

(2) (verb) (of a card) prevent an opponent's card from taking a trick by winning the trick with a higher card of the same suit.

Card

(1) (noun) one of the fifty-two elements of a deck;

(2) (slang) (verb) overpower, especially at rubber bridge, by being dealt superior hands [Usage: "They carded us to death." (held much superior values)];

(3) (verb) employ defensive-carding agreements (see Carding).

Card combination

suit combination.

Card reading

analysis of the lie of the unseen cards from the bidding and play.

Carding

(1) the set of agreements between partners relating to the meanings of cards played on defense.

(2) the choice or order of cards to play as a defender; signaling.

Carryover

the score from early sessions that applies to an overall tournament score.

Cash

(slang) take a trick with (a winning card).

Cash out

(slang) cash all available immediate winners.

Casher

(slang) A card that will win a trick if led or led to. (Usually used in the sense that an opponent will not trump.)

Casino count

(also Cassino count): a hand-valuation quantity equal to a player's high-card points ("cards") plus his spade length ("spades"); typically used in connection with guidelines for when to open the bidding in fourth position.

Cat

(slang) dummy.

Cavendish variation

a later version of four-deal bridge, with dealer's side nonvulnerable on the second and third deals.

Chair

(slang) position; seat.

Change of suit

a bid of a previously unbid suit.

Charity game

a tournament whose net receipts are donated to charity.

Cheapest bid

the lowest legal bid. [Over one club, one diamond is the cheapest bid.].

Check

(slang) improper form of "pass."

(slang) (noun) stopper (mainly Antipodean usage)

Checkback Stayman

the Stayman convention applied after opener's rebid of one notrump (or, less commonly, two notrump).

Chicago

the original version of four-deal bridge, with dealer's side vulnerable on the second and third deals.

Chinese finesse

declarer's deceptive lead of a significant card not supported by touching cards, whether blunder or brilliancy. [Example: With ace-deuce in dummy and queen-three in declarer's hand, leading and passing the queen would be a Chinese finesse.]

CHO

acronym for Center Hand Opponent (usually, a denigrating reference to one's partner or to partners in general).

Choice-of-games cue-bid

a cue-bid asking partner to suggest a strain for game (as opposed to inviting slam).

Chuck

(slang) throw away (as a number of points or a contract) through error.

Chukker

a unit of four deals at four-deal bridge, roughly corresponding to a rubber at rubber bridge.

Chunky

(of a suit) containing sufficient honors and/or intermediate cards to provide playing strength without regard to position or help from partner. (Usually applied to suits of roughly four cards in length; e.g., QJ109 or QJ108 is a chunky suit while QJ75 is not.)

Claim

statement of intention to win or concede a certain number of tricks, suggesting that further play is unnecessary.

Clash squeeze

a squeeze in which at least one of the threats is a card that, if guarded, would fall under a winner in the opposite hand. [A typical "clash menace" is singleton queen opposite the ace with at least one low card. The queen can be cashed for a trick only if the king is discarded.]

Clear a suit

remove obstacles to a suit's being run.

Closed hand

declarer's hand.

Closed room

in tournament play, a room from which spectators are barred.

Club

a group of players who get together to play bridge, or the place where such a group meets.

Clubs

the lowest-ranking suit; symbol: .

Coffeehousing

(slang) making gratuitous statements, often (and highly improperly) with the intention of misleading or confusing the opponents.

Cold

(slang) easily makable; laydown.

Cole

an artificial two-club rebid by opener after a one-level suit response, used to show a variety of hand-types, including a minimum raise of responder's suit with only three-card support.

Color

(1) red or black; sometime method of referring to suits: spades and clubs are the black suits, hearts and diamonds are the red suits;

(2) (slang) any one of the four suits.

Colorful cue-bid

a direct cue-bid over a major-suit opening (e.g., one spade--two spades) to show a two-suiter in the other color (in the example, two spades to show the red suits).

Colors

vulnerability conditions.

Combination

suit holding.

Combination finesse

(1) a finesse against more than one card;

(2) a simple finesse preliminary to another finesse in the same suit.

Combination shot

(slang) a line of play or defense that offers more than one possible way to succeed.

Come-on (signal)

a defensive card-play signal encouraging partner to lead or continue leading a particular suit.

Come down to

keep as last remaining cards

Commit to

(1) drive or force to (a given bidding level);

(2) decide on (an overall course of action in the bidding).

Compass direction (or point)

direction (meaning 1).

Competitive auction

(1) an auction in which both sides are attempting to name the contract;

(2) bidding from the point of view of the opening side when the other side enters the auction.

Competitive bidding

See: Competitive auction.

Competitive double

a double showing general values rather than directly suggesting either takeout or penalty.

Compound squeeze

(1) any of certain squeeze forms in which one opponent is squeezed among three suits and the other between two;

(2) more loosely used, any squeeze position of the complexity of compound squeeze (meaning 1) or greater; a squeeze with a large number of points (meaning 3); hedgehog.

Concede

give some or all of the remaining tricks to the opponents without contest.

Condone

act after an irregularity without requiring any penalty, thus forfeiting the right to penalize.

Congratulatory jack

a defender's unnecessary play of a jack after a deal's outcome has been decided, to acknowledge partner's superior defense.

Constructive

(of a bid) indicating definite values.

Constructive raise

the single raise of a major-suit opening to show more than normal strength (or, sometimes, maximum values for a normal single raise).

Content

a highly improper form of "pass.".

Contested auction

competitive bidding (meaning 1).

Contract

(1) (noun) a bet that a certain number of tricks will be taken;

(2) (verb) to make such a bet.

Contract bridge

bridge in which only tricks bid for and made count towards game, as opposed to auction bridge (an earlier form), in which all tricks made, bid for or not, count towards game; bridge as usually played since the 1930's, when auction bridge began to die out (contract bridge was invented in 1925).

Control

(1) ability to prevent the opponents from winning immediate tricks in a side suit at a trump contract [first-round control = ace or void, second-round control = king or singleton, and so on];

(2) command of the play at a trump contract; in particular, being able to use trumps to prevent the opponents from cashing winners;

(3) a call that provides a mechanism for partner to show a specific type of unusual hand (as in "psychic control," a response that asks an opening psychist to make a certain type of rebid);

(4) [The Bridge World suggests avoiding this usage.] a unit of evaluation in which aces count two and kings count one;

(5) [The Bridge World suggests avoiding this usage.] stopper.

Control-bid

(1) (noun) a bid that indicates a control in a specific suit (usually as a slam-try);

(2) (verb) to make a bid satisfying (1).

Controlled psychic

a psychic (meaning 2) supported by an agreement about how it can be revealed later.

Convention

an understanding between partners that would not ordinarily be understood by the opponents in the absence of an explanation.

Convention card

a listing of a partnership's understandings, used in duplicate bridge.

Convert

(1) (verb) enable (a call) to function in a different capacity. [Example: To pass a double intended by partner as takeout is to convert it to penalty.]

(2) (verb) change the normal meaning or status of (a call or a bidding sequence) that has not yet occurred. [Example: To convert a force to a given level means that the partnership may not (systemically)defend an undoubled opposing bid no higher than that level. If an action "converts forces to two spades," the partnership may not let the opponents play undoubled at two spades or below; this is a weaker restriction than "forcing to two spades," which both converts forces to two spades and requires the partnerhsip itself to bid at least that high.]

Cooperative double

a double that asks partner to judge whether it is better to pass or bid.

Correct

adjust the contract to a different strain, having been offered a choice by partner. [Example: "Correcting" is often equivalent to "taking a preference" between two indicated suits, as in the partnership sequence one spade -- one notrump -- two diamonds. "Correct" is often used instead of "prefer" when the choice is offered implicitly rather than explicitly; for example, if opener bids two diamonds, showing a weak two-bid in either spade or hearts, a response of two hearts asks opener to pass with hearts or to correct to spades.]

Count

(1) (noun) the number of cards held in each suit by an opponent;

(2) (verb) to determine such numbers;

(3) (verb) to add the number of possible or probable tricks, of winners, or losers.

Count signal

(1) a defensive signal to show whether a defender holds an even or odd number of cards in a suit;

(2) a defensive signal to show exactly how many cards a defender holds in a suit.

Counter

reduce the opponents' entry-creating possibilities by playing low on a high card or high on a low card (e.g., If North, dummy, holds ace-jack, and South, declarer, holds queen-ten, West, with king-deuce, can counter South's plays by playing the king on the ten or the deuce on the queen, in each case denying a second entry to dummy in the suit).

Counterplay

see Counter.

Coup

(1) any master stroke;

(2) [sometimes Trump coup] the shortening of one's trumps to enable the eventual lead of a plain-suit card to substitute for the lead of a trump to take a finesse;

(3) more generally, any trump-shortening process aimed at creating a particular end-position.

(4) (verb) to capture without loss or to reduce the trick-taking power of an opponent's trump holding by any combination of trump reduction and/or arranging effectively to lead a plain-suit card through that opponent in an ending.

Couped

having suffered from the effects of a (trump) coup.

Coup-en-passant

a form of elopement; leading a plain-suit card in order to make a trick with a trump that is not the highest but is favorably situated behind a higher trump in an opponent's hand.

Coup without a name

Scissors coup.

Court cards

kings, queens, and jacks.

Courtesy bid

a bid made with a relatively weak holding to keep the auction open for partner.

Cover

to play a higher card than one previously played to the same trick (usually applied when a higher card is played directly over an opponent's play).

Cover an honor with an honor

a guideline of play stemming from whist (an earlier game similar to bridge) that is sometimes, but by no means always, sound, meaning that if possible one should play a higher honor than one played by right-hand opponent.

Cover cards

values (usually honors) that are likely or certain to correspond to losers partner has counted in the losing trick count.

Crack

(slang) double (for penalty).

Crash

(1) (slang) bump.

(2) (all upper case) acronym for Color, Rank And SHape, an artificial defense to show two-suited hands against big-club openings (double = black or red suits; one diamond = major or minor suits; one notrump = round or pointed suits).

Criss-Cross

(1) (in bidding) an interchange of meanings between bids in two suits;

(2) (in bidding) bidding the weaker of the two suits under consideration;

(3) (in bidding) using bids in more than one suit artificially;

(4) (in play) a form of squeeze in which the entry to each hand is unaccompanied by low cards.

Crocodile coup

the play of an apparently unnecessary high card (such as ace from ace-queen) to avoid partner's being forced on lead (with, in the example, his singleton king).

Cross

enter the opposite hand (more commonly applied to the declarer than the defenders).

Crossruff

a line of play through which ruffing tricks are made in both partner's hands.

Crowhurst

a two-club bid following partner's wide-range one-notrump bid asking for clarification of both range and distribution.

Cue

cue-bid.

Cue-bid

(1) (noun) a bid in a strain that an opponent has bid; [Example: a two-spade overcall of a one-spade opening bid.]

(2) (noun) a bid in a suit that an opponent has suggested artificially (a "virtual cue-bid"); [Example: a three-spade overcall of a three-heart opening that indicates spades.]

(3) (verb) to make a bid satisfying (1) or (2).

Cue-bid double

a double that sends the same message a cue-bid would have sent had the intervening opponent not bid. [Example: (one club) -- one spade -- (two clubs) -- double used with the same fundamental meaning as (one club) -- one spade -- (pass) -- two clubs.]

Culbertson Four-Five Notrump

a slam convention in which four notrump shows certain values and asks partner about others; a cooperative method compared to Blackwood, a captain-private four-notrump slam method.

Culbertson system

one of the early contract bridge bidding systems, the basis of standard bidding in America (and elsewhere).

Curse of Scotland

the nine of diamonds.

Curtain card

written record of a deal or a player's hand, used to avoid errors in duplicate bridge (e.g., allowing each player to check that he is holding the correct hand).

Cut

(1) place a packet of cards from the bottom ot the deck on top;

(2) choose partners (by picking, often called cutting, cards fom a deck);

(3) (slang) ruff;

(4) in tournament bridge, the score required to qualify for the next round.

Cut in

(slang) enter a game already in progress at the end of a rubber or chukker.

Cutthroat bridge

a three-handed form of bridge.