Glossary

Bridge, like any other activity, has its own jargon. Here is where we'll attempt to define the jargon that we use. If there is any term that you don't understand, please ask and we'll add it here.

Terms

• A - ace
• BBO - Bridge Base Online, a great place to play bridge online.
• BumblePuppy - a game of whist played carelessly or contrary to rules and conventions. (Dictionary.com)
• CHO - Center Hand Opponent (aka partner)
• honor - the ace, king, queen, jack, or ten
• J - jack
• K - king
• finesse - an attempt to win a trick with a card that is not a certain winner.  (e.g. leading up to the AQ with the plan of playing the queen unless LHO plays the king.)
• LHO - Left Hand Opponent, the player to your left
• loser - a trick that declarer will lose. Often in a trump contract, it is recommended that declarer should count losers before playing.
• Q - queen
• RHO - Right Hand Opponent, the player to your right
• revoke - to not follow suit when you could have. (i.e. an illegal play)
• ruff - to trump a trick
• ruff and sluff - When the defense leads a suit that both declarer and dummy are out of, while both dummy and declarer both have trump. It allows declarer to choose which hand to trump from and which card to throw away.
• sluff - to throw away a card when you can't follow suit
• T - ten
• winner - a trick that declarer will win. Often in a trump contract, it is recommended that declarer should count winners before playing.

Conventions

Bridge writing has certain conventions. One you may have noticed is that south is (almost?) always declarer. One that might seem awkward is how cards are spoken of. When speaking about a card, most people say they have the "four of hearts". In bridge writing, the suit is listed first, so a card is written "heart four"  or "♥4". This is done to differentiate from bidding which would be written "four hearts" or "4♥".