Bidding guide

In 56 the bidding does two jobs at once. It sets the contract — the number of points the bidding team must capture and the trump suit — and it is the only way partners can tell each other what they hold. Every bid is heard by both teams. Two styles are played, and the same bid can mean different things in each: this guide covers the International style, the one most tables play, and then Kerala bidding. Every format it mentions is listed on the rules page.

A bid is a description

Think of each bid as a sentence about your hand. The order of the symbols matters:

• 28♥ — "I hold the heart Jack and at least three more hearts."
• ♥28 — "Four or more hearts, but not the Jack."
• +♥ — "Two or three hearts, including a Jack" (the other Jack, when one has been bid already; the next best heart when both Jacks are spoken for).
• +1♥ — "Exactly one heart, and it is the best one not yet claimed."
• 32NT — "Three or more Jacks, but no single long suit."
• 33NS (Noes) — "I have no cards of the suit just bid."
• 28-Pass — the forced opening: the first player must say something, and this says nothing about the hand.

Players on the old site kept to these meanings closely. A bid like 28♥ held the named Jack 94 times in 100, and a Noes call really meant no cards of that suit 94 times in 100.

A worked auction

Six players, North-1, East-1, North-2, East-2, North-3 and East-3, sit in that order, the two teams alternating. North-1 sits to the dealer's right and must open.

By the end everyone knows that North holds both heart Jacks and at least six hearts between North-2 and North-3, and that East-2 is long in spades without the Jack. East will try to win spade tricks before North can cut them with hearts; North will want to draw out East's trumps early. The bidding has already shaped the play.

Supporting your partner

When a partner names a suit and you hold its other Jack, saying so is the most useful bid you can make: two Jacks of trump in one team is the backbone of a contract. With the Nine and a few cards of the suit, support is worth giving too. On the old site, players who held the partner's other Jack backed the suit in 15,408 of 24,471 such turns. They supported less as the bidding climbed — about two times in three while the bid stood at 28 to 31, and fewer than one in five once it reached 40 — because every bid raises the team's target.

The reverse also carries a message. When your partner has named a suit and you pass where you could have supported it, your partners will read that you do not hold the Jack or the Nine with length. On the old site that reading was right 39,098 times out of 44,894.

Listening to the forced opening

A 28-Pass opening says nothing, so the first real information usually comes from the opener's own partner: in 20,000 games on the old site, the first bid over a 28-Pass came from one of the opener's partners 19,309 times, and the 28-Pass itself ended as the contract only 27 times. The opponents mostly let it stand and listen.

Noes: telling where you can cut

A Noes call says you have no cards in a suit. That matters for the play: once that suit is led you are free to cut it with a trump. Use it when the information helps your partners plan, for example when the other team's long suit is one you can trump. If a Noes call stands as the final bid, the game is played with no trump suit at all.

Double and Redouble

A Double says "you will not make that". It does not raise the number, but it doubles the match points the game is worth, so it pays when your team holds the trump strength the bidders are missing. The bidding team can answer with a Redouble, which triples them and ends the bidding. After a Double the other players may still bid higher, which clears it.

When to go higher

A contract that fails costs more than a made one earns: at 28 to 39 a win is worth 1 match point and a loss gives the other team 2, so a contract has to be made about two times in three just to break even. Bigger contracts pay more — 2 points at 40 to 47, 3 at 48 to 55, 4 at 56 — but they fail more often. When the bidding has closed, the highest bidder gets one more turn and may raise their own bid to 40, 48 or 56 in the same suit; do it when the bidding has shown that your partners hold the cards you are missing, not on hope.

Who leads first

The first card of the play is always led by the player to the dealer's right, whoever won the bid. The team that leads first can start drawing trumps or cashing its strong suit before the other side gets going, so a contract is easier for the team with the first lead and harder against it. Keep it in mind before raising.

Kerala bidding

A table can be opened with Kerala rules instead. The cards and the card play are the same, but the bidding has its own law and its own language. There are only two kinds of bid — a number with a suit (28♥) or a number with NS (30NS) — so the message is carried by the number, the round and what came before, not by the order of the symbols. The meanings below follow Jose Tharayil's book Fifty Six, the game's only book, and they are the meanings the BOTs use at Kerala tables.

Opening

Nobody is forced to open, and in Kerala a Pass at the start is normal: it says "no four-card suit with its Jack, and fewer than three Jacks". For the first two players of the team that leads:

• 28♥ — four or more hearts with a heart Jack (sometimes a good five-card suit without the Jack; the player then says so with an NS in the next round).
• 29♥ — four or more hearts with both heart Jacks. 30♥ adds a Nine, 31♥ both Nines.
• 28NS — three Jacks; 29NS — all four. An opening NS also says there is no strong four-card suit with its Jack.

The compulsory seat

If everyone before them passes, the last player of the leading team in the first round (the 3rd player of 4, the 5th of 6, the 7th of 8) must bid. There the bids mean a little less:

• 28♥ — three or more hearts with a Jack, or four or more without one. Partners should not count on the Jack: holding the Jack and Nine, raise by one only.
• 29♥ — three or more hearts with both Jacks.
• 29NS — three Jacks; 30NS — four.
• Pass — counts as 28NS: "nothing to bid". A player whose 28♥ had no Jack says so with an NS in the next round.

Supporting your partner

Direct support is a raise by the number of top cards you hold in your partner's suit: one above for the next-best card (usually the other Jack), two above for two of them, such as the Jack and a Nine.

NS: a message the next round explains

An NS bid one above your partner's suit has two possible meanings, and your next bid tells the table which one you meant:

• NS, then your own suit next round — "I have no cards of your suit" (and this suit is mine).
• NS, then your partner's suit next round — "three or four of your suit, but not the next-best card".
• Direct support first, then NS next round — "the card I supported with was a single card".

If an opponent names another suit in between, the same message costs one more (two above the partner's suit), and two more with two suits in between. Other NS bids carry their own messages:

• A jump in NS after a partner's suit — the number of Jacks you hold outside it, with no real support for the suit.
• After a partner's opening 28NS or 29NS, an NS raised by one, two or more — that many Jacks of your own.
• An "asking" NS once the trump suit is settled — "show me something you have not shown yet", such as an extra Jack or an extra trump.
• An NS that fits none of these — a proposal to play with no trump.

The other team

The team that does not lead bids nothing until the leading team's opening lands. A Double of the compulsory 28NS says "three or more Jacks — this hand is ours", and is not taken out. The book also gives three "arrest" bids: 40♥ — five or more good hearts, both heart Jacks and a void; 39♥ — one heart Jack, and partners must support; 38♥ — no heart Jack, and partners must show their Jacks.

A Kerala auction

Had North-3 bid 31♥ instead, the same 29NS would have meant three or four hearts without the next-best one. In Kerala bidding, a bid often makes full sense only when the same player bids again — and if nobody had bid over the 29NS, it would have stood as a no-trump contract, so the message is a risk as well as a description.

The rest of the Kerala law

The highest bidder may raise their own bid to 40, 48 or 56 once, and after that nobody can bid higher; a Redouble does not end the bidding. The full list is on the rules page.

At a table on this site, tap the 💡 beside any bid and the BOT explains what it means, in the style the table plays. For the card play, see the play tips.