Bridge Variations
This page is part of the Invented Games section of pagat.com. It is a collection of variations of the traditional card game Bridge.
- Awol Bridge
- 10 Bridge
- Bridge with Deuces Wild
- Double Trouble
- Five Crowns Bridge
- Need a Fourth (archive copy)
- Solitaire Bridge
- Tiger Bridge
- Trib
Bridge with Deuces Wild
This game was invented by Jeff Rubens and published in the June 1975 issue of The Bridge World.
It is played exactly like Contract Bridge, except that in the play, any deuce (two) may be played to any trick.
So the rule is that if you can follow suit to the lead you must either do so or play a deuce. If you cannot follow suit you may play any card.
Deuces have no special power to win tricks - the normal rules apply in that respect. But of course, if you hold the 2 of trumps, you can ruff with it and win the trick (if no one else ruffs higher), even if you have cards in the suit led.
Leading a deuce has no special effect. Players who have the suit of the deuce must either follow suit or play another deuce, as usual.
Five Crowns Bridge
Developed and contributed by Stephen Rogers , who writes:
A few years back I acquired a Five Crowns set from a local game dealership. While I was mildly disappointed in the default game, I always felt as though there would be a great deal of potential for the adaptation of other games to utilize the Five Crowns deck (or at least half of a Five Crowns deck). I recently found my set again, and since I was already working up a set of rules for a Solitaire version of Bridge and still hadn't been able to find many game variants online that utilize a Five Crowns Deck, I decided to see if I could hammer out a version of Bridge. The following document is more of a set of guidelines than an actual set of rules, but it should make it possible to add some spice to the King of Card Games.
PLAYERS: Four, but in fact the rules below are adaptable to any form and any variant of standard Contract Bridge, including variants for other numbers of players.
EQUIPMENT: From a Five Crowns set, you will need one copy of each ranked and suited card and one Joker, forming a deck of 56 cards with five suits and eleven cards in each suit.
RANK AND VALUE OF THE CARDS: The cards are valued the same as they ordinarily are in Contract Bridge; cards in each suit (crowns, spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs) are ranked from high to low KQT9876543 (T=10). One suit during play is selected to be "trump", and cards of that suit rank higher than the other suits. The Joker is valued as the "two of trumps", the lowest card of the trump suit.
THE DEAL: Cards are dealt as in all standard variants of bridge, except that players receive 14 cards for their hands instead of 13.
THE BID: Bidding is as per normal rules, except that the Stars suit ranks above Spades and below No Trump during the bid. Book is seven tricks and the lowest bid permitted is Zero No Trump (a bid to take seven tricks without trump).
THE PLAY: Gameplay occurs normally; players must follow suit if able, if not, they may play any other card. The highest trump played wins the trick, or if no trump card was played, the highest card of the suit led wins. A full hand consists of fourteen tricks.
In a No Trump contract the joker can be played to any trick but cannot win the trick. If the joker is led, the second player can play any card and that card determines the suit of the trick. The winner of a trick to which the joker was played must (if possible) lead a different suit to the next trick.
SCORING: All scoring for the game is the same, except that a contract in the Stars suit is scored the same as a No Trump contract. Zero No Trump bid and made scores 10 points below the line with 30 above for each overtrick.
Variant: Players may agree to use the following rule on the play of the Joker in No Trumps. In No Trumps, the joker may be used as the two of any suit. The suit is nominated by the holder (or the declarer if the joker is in dummy) at the moment when the two is played. The nominated suit cannot be one in which the joker holder has previously shown void.