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more difficult to play, plus the fact that we need to make more
tricks in trumps to make a game!
In hearts or spades (we call these the major suits) we need 10
tricks for game.
In clubs or diamonds (minor suits) we need 11 tricks for game.
The acronym for playing trump contracts is not C. A. M. P.
but C. A. L. M. ©Bridge Bug Ltd
The reason for the number of tricks in a game
You might think that this is odd but it is to do with scoring. Suffice it
to say that -
To make a game you have to score at least 100 points.
T Tricks in no trump are worth 40 for the first and 30 a trick
thereafter. So 9 tricks for game;
T Tricks in the majors (Ì & Í) are worth 30 points each. So, 10
tricks for game;
T Tricks in the minors (Ê & Ë) are worth 20 points each. A huge 11
tricks for game.
A small digression into history
The ancestor of Whist was a 16th-century card game called
“Triumphs”. In triomphe, the French variety known to English
contemporaries as French ruff, each player received five cards, a trump
was turned, and the aim was to win three or more tricks. From this
derived écarté and five-card loo. In the English game (referred to by
William Shakespeare in Anthony and Cleopatra), each player received 12
cards, 4 went face down as a widow, and the topmost of them was turned
over for trump. Whoever held the trump ace could take the widow in
exchange for any four discards, a process called ruffing. Later, bonuses
were added for holding any of the top four trumps. This variety was called
slamm or ruff and honours, which was subsequently transmogrified into
whisk and swabbers (a complicated play on words), whence derived whisk
and ultimately whist.
These days some people use the words “trump” and “ruff” at random.
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