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Bridge contract is what the players fight for. Once everybody has 13 cards on their hand, the first battle is to win a contract. Just like the real world contract, to achieve the highest contract players need to do an auction. Make that bid and may the highest bidder win.

Contracts In Bridge

So, we know that there are 4 denomination corresponding to each suit. For a contract, Bridge has one additional denomination called “No Trump” or “NT” for short. Contract with suit denomination will use that suit as a trump card, while the contract with NT denomination will have no trump suit

How it works is quite simple. So, the partnership who gets the contract promises to win certain tricks with a suit as their trump card (or they can choose to not using a trump suit). One who first bid the denomination becomes a “Declarer” and the partner become “Dummy.” The dummy’s card will be laid on the table during play for everybody to see.

Then, the other partnership/the opponent becomes the “Defender“. They will try to defeat the contract by winning as much trick as they can so that the declarer fails to deliver their contract.

Five (5) contract denomination

The five denomination from the highest to the lowest are:

  1. NT – No Trump – “NT”
  2. – Spade – “S”
  3. – Heart – “H”
  4. – Diamond – “D”
  5. – Club – “C”

Seven (7) level of contract

The lowest contract is a level-1 contract which requires the contract holder to win 7-tricks. And the highest level of contract (level-7) requires all 13-tricks win to “make” the contract.

So, if you want a formula:

Number of tricks required to fulfilled a contract = level number + 6

The 35-Contracts

So as you guessed it, the combination of denomination and level made all the 35-contracts in Bridge.

Therefore, here is all the contract from the highest to the lowest:

  • Grand-Slam: 7NT –  7 –  7 –  7 –  7
  • Small-Slam: 6NT –  6 –  6 –  6 –  6
  • Game: 5NT –  5 –  5 –  5 –  5
  • Game/Part-Score: 4NT –  4 –  4 –  4 –  4
  • Game/Part-Score: 3NT –  3 –  3 –  3 –  3
  • Part-score: 2NT –  2 –  2 –  2 –  2
  • Part-score: 1NT –  1 –  1 –  1 –  1

For scoring purposes, there are 4 different categories: Grand Slam, Small Slam, Game and part-score.

All Level-7 contract is called a “Grand Slam” while all Level-6 contract dubbed as “Small-Slam” or just “Slam”

For No-Trump Contract: Level-1 and Level-2 are “part-scores”, Level-3 to Level-5 are “games”

And in Major Suits (Spade and Heart): Level-1, Level-2 and Level-3 are “part-scores” and “games” are for level-4 and level-5.

Lastly, in Minor Suits (Diamond and Club): Level-1, Level-2, Level-3 and Level-4 are “part-score” and game is only for Level-5.