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From Alevelrevision
- See Contract bridge glossary for an explanation of unfamiliar words or phrases in this article.
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Two partnerships of two players each are needed to play bridge. The four players sit around a table with partners opposite one another. The compass directions are often used to refer to the four players, aligned with their seating pattern. Thus, South and North form one partnership and East and West form the other.
A session of bridge consists of several deals (also called hands or boards). A hand is dealt, the bidding (or auction) proceeds to a conclusion and then the hand is played. Finally the hand's result is scored.
The goal of a single deal is to achieve the highest score with given cards. The score is affected by two principal factors: the number of tricks bid in the auction, and the number of tricks taken during play. The concept of contract, which distinguishes contract bridge from its predecessors, refers to a statement by one partnership that they shall take at least a certain number of tricks, with given suit as trumps, or without trumps. It consists of two components: level and denomination (also called strain). Level represents the number of tricks to be taken above the first 6 (referred to as the book)—that ensures that at least a majority of the tricks must be taken by the partnership who wins the contract. Since there are 13 possible tricks, there are 7 levels, numbered 1-7, corresponding to 7-13 tricks to take. Five denominations are ranked, from lowest to highest, as clubs (Template:Cs), diamonds (Template:Ds), hearts (♥), spades (Template:Ss), and no trump (NT). For instance, the contract of "3 hearts" asserts that his partnership can take nine tricks (book plus three) with hearts as the trump suit. Thus, there are 7×5 = 35 possible basic contracts; 1Template:Cs being the lowest, followed by 1Template:Ds etc., up to 7NT.
