History of contract bridge

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The history of contract bridge, one of the world's most popular partnership card games, dated back to the invention of trick-taking games in the early 16th century, such as whist. Bridge itself forked off from whist with the creation of the game "Biritch" (or "Russian Whist") in the 1800s, and evolved through the late 19th and early 20th centuries to form the present game.

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According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word bridge is the English pronunciation of the game called "biritch". It followed on from whist, which initially was the dominant trick-playing game and enjoyed a loyal following for centuries. The oldest known rulebook of bridge dates from 1886 and calls it "Biritch, or Russian Whist". The game featured several significant developments from whist: dealer chose the trump suit, or nominated his partner to do so; there was a call of no trumps (biritch); and the dealer's partner's hand became dummy. There were other similarities to bridge: points were scored above and below the line; game was 3NT, 4H and 5D (although 8 club tricks and 15 spade tricks were needed!); the score could be doubled and redoubled; and there were slam bonuses. (For more on Biritch, see wikisource:Biritch, or Russian Whist)

Despite the popularity of whist ^[1], this game, and variants of it, bridge ^[2] and bridge-whist ^[3], became popular in the United States and the UK in the 1890s.

In 1904 auction bridge, known for a time as royal auction bridge ^[4], was developed where the players bid in a competitive auction to decide the contract and declarer. The object became to make at least as many tricks as were contracted for and penalties were introduced for failing to do so.

The modern game of contract bridge was the result of innovations to the scoring of auction bridge made by Harold Stirling Vanderbilt and others. The most significant change was that only the tricks contracted for were counted below the line towards game and slam, which resulted in bidding becoming much more challenging and interesting. Also new was the concept of vulnerability, making sacrificing to protect the lead in a rubber more expensive, and the various scores were adjusted to produce a more balanced game. Vanderbilt set out his rules in 1925, and within a few years contract bridge had so supplanted other forms of the game that "bridge" became synonymous with "contract bridge."

In the USA and Australia, most of the bridge played these days is duplicate bridge and is played at clubs, tournaments and online. In the UK, bridge is still widely played in private homes (rubber or chicago) as well as at clubs (duplicate and rubber) and tournaments (duplicate).