Philosophy of playing

INTRODUCTION

For many players, their first experience of playing bridge for money will take place on Bridge4Money.com. It is worth being reminded that although there is much controversy surrounding the historical origins of the game, bridge was certainly derived from the ‘Whist’ family.

Like most card games, whist and bridge have always been played for money. Many of the greatest tournament players were and still are outstanding money players. As a young man, Zia Mahmood made his name in London Clubs as a much feared money player. Your bridge manager, David Gold first made his name as a money player. Playing bridge for money is the best way to toughen up your game. It is also fast-paced and good fun.

Playing bridge for money either in a club or on Bridge4Money.com requires some changes in your mental approach to the game. It is important to get used to the fact that you are not sat opposite your favourite partner. Sometimes you will be partnered by a relatively weak player. Sometimes, you will be partnered by an international.

You won’t have the dubious pleasure of shouting at your partner or sending him/her rude messages. Equally well, you will be saved the public embarrassment caused on those rare occasions when you make an imperfect bid or play! It is important to bear in mind that every time somebody makes a mistake when playing with you, they will make one twice as often against you.

At Bridge4Money.com, we hope to bring the pleasure of playing bridge for money to all players in the world. We promote high standards of bidding and play, good ethics and positive attitudes.

The following points will help you make the most of the service we provide:

1). Bidding and Defensive Carding

At Bridge4Money.com we provide a standard bidding and carding system (see system and convention card). Most of the elements in the system will be broadly familiar to you. The system (our version of ‘Standard American’) is based upon a 15-17 No Trump opening with Stayman and transfer responses, 5 card majors, a strong 2 opening, weak 2 level opening bids in , and as well as negative doubles. The system is mostly natural with normal limit raises and forcing changes of suit etc.

Carding is ‘standard’ based upon 4th best leads from an honour, 2nd best leads from poor suits, and A for attitude , K for count. Signalling is based upon Hi-Lo to show an even number or to encourage. During the hand most carding is assumed to be attitude except when count is essential. Standard suit preference signals can be used in a logical manner. Players are strongly advised to gradually familiarise themselves with the system as it will improve your results and your and everyone’s enjoyment of the game.

The site provides a tutorial in addition to the system notes and convention card.(pending)

2). Bridge disasters

Sometimes, you will be dealt hands which should earn you a good win but your partner will let you down and convert that win into a loss. Please remember that on average, that partner will play against you twice for every time you partner them. Bridge is a game of ‘thrills and spills’.

For example, suppose that you catch the opponents for a massive penalty by dint of their poor bidding and your devastating defence; you feel elated. On the next hand you bid a vulnerable small slam but your partner misplays it and fails to cash the twelve top tricks available; your opponents now feel elated. Incidentally, plenty of this happens in tournaments with one’s chosen partner but human nature is such that we feel more angry when a complete stranger does it! We cannot take any responsibility for your partner’s ‘unforgivable’ errors nor will you be ‘punished’ for yours. It can only improve your enjoyment of the game to accept the occasional negative vagaries of fate which are in store.

3). Rating system

Bridge4Money.com provides a rolling rating system. This is designed to give you some indication of the relative strength of their partner and opponents. The system cannot be too detailed as this would create security problems. You are advised to handle lower rated partners with more care than high rated ones and to be more careful against high rated opponents than low rated ones. For example, it might be reasonable to make an imaginative bid with a 3 star player which would be ill-advised with a one star player.

Similarly it might be better to ensure that an undoubled contract is defeated by one trick than take a risk for the sake of a second undertrick if you think your partner may be a weak player. This sort of judgement is a legitimate part of the game. It should be remembered that a high proportion of 1 star players will be quite reasonable especially in higher stake rooms.

Our advice is to never assume your partner is an idiot. Experience suggests that respect for one’s partner is a winning philosophy and also serves the interests of the better enjoyment of the game for all.

4). Positive ethics

We wish to promote positive ethics just as we would expect to do in any other bridge game or tournament. Most of the opportunities for unethical actions whether intended or inadvertent are fortunately unavailable on this site. However we urge all players not to be tempted to try to find a way of passing unauthorised information. It is unlikely to succeed except on a very rare occasion and would simply undermine the sense of fairness which the vast majority of players would want maintained.

The other issue is ‘crashing’- When partnering a below average player against two above average players, it may be tempting to calculate that one’s best result is likely to be obtained by simply abandoning the hand to adjudication. Although we have sanctions in place to strongly discourage this, we would urge all players to bid and play out all hands on the simple ancient principle of ‘do unto others as you would want them to do to you…’

5). Responsible expenditure

The availability of a fun room and low stake rooms is designed so that all can enjoy the pleasure of playing for money without necessarily committing themselves to any or very much expenditure. Bridge is an addictive game. Playing for money is not quite as addictive especially if one happens to lose a lot of it but we would urge all players to play well within their means.

Bridge is primarily an intellectually taxing hobby. It is not a casino game thus we urge caution as we do not want any of our players to get out of their depth. In particular, while we as a company take all reasonable steps to exclude players under the age of 18, we would ask all of you not to permit the stake rooms to be used by those classified as minors under your local laws.