contract bridge
Enable an AI agent to recognise contract bridge, assess a deal's auction, play and scoring state, and determine permitted actions under the applicable rules and information constraints.
Research draft, second pass
A second pass drafted this model: the structure a model of this thing needs, and what is known about it in the world. The line under this one says how the second half was obtained - researched against sources, or recalled without web access, in which case nothing here was read anywhere and every claim is a lead to verify. Unreviewed either way.
recalled by Codex without web access - no source was read
Researched by: Codex
Purpose and description
Enable an AI agent to recognise contract bridge, assess a deal's auction, play and scoring state, and determine permitted actions under the applicable rules and information constraints.
Contract bridge is a trick-taking card game for four players in two fixed partnerships, using a standard 52-card deck, in which an auction determines a contract specifying a trump suit or no trumps and the number of tricks one partnership undertakes to win.
It can be Identify the next player to act and enumerate legal calls or card plays from the applicable state.; Derive the contract, declarer, dummy and opening leader from a completed valid auction.; Evaluate possible actions using the acting player's permitted information and disclosed partnership methods.; Track trick winners and assess progress towards making or defeating the contract.; Calculate a deal score and its format-specific contribution to the wider result.; Detect potential irregularities, preserve the relevant evidence and refer decisions requiring adjudication..
Distinguishing features
An ordinary deal distributes a standard 52-card deck into four thirteen-card hands, with opposite seats forming fixed partnerships for that deal.
The auction uses bids specifying a level from one to seven and a denomination, together with passes, doubles and redoubles; an established contract commits the declaring side to six plus the bid level in tricks.
For a played contract, one member of the declaring partnership becomes declarer and the other becomes dummy, whose exposed hand is normally directed by declarer.
Players must follow the led suit when able; a contract may name a trump suit or no trump.
The result depends on the contracted commitment and its fulfilment, with vulnerability and doubling affecting scoring; scoring rules distinguish contract bridge from auction bridge.
Scope
+ Four seats, two opposing partnerships, dealer and deal identity
+ Auction calls, partnership agreements and determination of the final contract
+ Declarer, dummy, defenders and the progression of thirteen tricks
+ Vulnerability, contract outcome and format-dependent scoring
+ Information entitlement, communication restrictions and irregularity resolution
- The general theory and classification of card games
- Manufacture, ownership and condition of physical cards and bridge equipment
- Organisational governance and tournament administration beyond rules affecting the current deal
- General probability theory, game theory and machine-learning methods
- Other bridge-family games, including auction bridge
- Player biographies, rankings and professional careers
Characteristics
- Scoring format
- Rubber; duplicate; other explicitly identified contract-bridge format Determines how a deal contributes to games, rubbers, comparisons or a larger contest.
- Governing rules
- Applicable laws edition, regulating authority and supplementary conditions Permitted procedures, disclosure duties and remedies require an identified authority.
- Deal phase
- Preparation; auction; opening lead; play; claim or concession pending; scoring; completed; ruling pending Determines whose action is due and which actions can be taken.
- Seat and partnership assignment
- North-South and East-West, mapped to players, with dealer identified Establishes turn order, opposing sides and the attribution of calls and plays.
- Vulnerability
- Neither side; North-South only; East-West only; both sides Changes relevant bonuses and undertrick penalties.
- Auction history
- Ordered calls with caller, bid level and denomination where applicable, and any disputed or corrected calls Supports contract determination, declarer identification and legality checks.
- Final contract
- Unsettled; passed out; or level 1-7, clubs/diamonds/hearts/spades/no trump, undoubled/doubled/redoubled, declaring side and declarer Defines the trick target, trump status and scoring obligation.
- Observer knowledge
- Observer-specific known cards, public actions, disclosed agreements, inferences and restricted information Prevents an agent from treating hidden or unauthorised information as usable player knowledge.
- Tricks credited to declaring side
- 0-13 tricks, with played, agreed or adjudicated basis identified Determines whether the contract succeeds and the number of overtricks or undertricks.
- Deal result
- Provisional or final score, scoring perspective, and played or adjusted status Separates the observed outcome from an official result that may reflect a ruling.
Also called
Where this came from
wikidata · CC0 1.0
Drafted structure
Bundle to layer to finding to question, as the second pass will find it: 6 bundles · 11 layers · 18 findings · 34 questions.
Deal and format Establishes which contract-bridge activity is being played and the initial conditions of its deal.
The same auction and trick outcome can have different consequences under different scoring formats and vulnerability states.
Format and authority
Identifies the scoring format and the rules that govern this instance.
Applicable bridge rules
Record the format, laws edition and local conditions before judging procedure or assigning a result.
- Is this rubber bridge, duplicate bridge or another specified contract-bridge format? definition
- Which laws edition and supplementary conditions govern this deal? provenance
Deal initialisation
Captures seats, partnerships, dealer, vulnerability and the validity of the initial distribution.
Initial deal conditions
Distinguish the complete deal record from the subset any player is entitled to inspect.
- Who occupies each seat, which seat deals and which partnerships are vulnerable? definition
- Does the deal contain each of the 52 distinct cards once, with thirteen cards assigned to each seat? measurement
- Is vulnerability supplied by the duplicate board or determined by the applicable format's preceding results? provenance
Auction and contract Models how calls establish the declaring side's commitment and the roles used during play.
A contract cannot be interpreted correctly without call order, denomination, doubling status and the history that identifies declarer.
Call sequence
Tracks auction progression and the procedural status of each call.
Auction legality and closure
Assess bids, passes, doubles and redoubles against the preceding auction, keeping disputed calls distinct from accepted corrections.
- Whose turn is it, and which bids, passes, doubles or redoubles are legal after the recorded calls? action
- Has the auction ended with a contract, ended as passed out, or been interrupted by an irregularity? boundary
Contract resolution
Derives the final commitment and player roles from the completed auction.
Contract and declarer
Record the final bid and doubling status; identify declarer through the declaring partnership's first bid in the final denomination.
- What are the final level, denomination and doubling status, and how many tricks must the declaring side take? measurement
- Which player on the declaring side first bid the final denomination, and therefore who are declarer, dummy and opening leader? definition
Information and agreements Separates actual holdings, player knowledge, partnership meanings and permission to use information.
Bridge decisions depend on incomplete information and regulated partnership communication; access to a full deal must not imply permission to use it.
Partnership methods
Records agreed meanings of calls, leads and signals and their disclosure status.
Agreement and disclosure
Keep a partnership's agreement separate from a particular player's holding, intention or departure from that agreement.
- What agreed meaning applies to this bid, opening lead or defensive signal? definition
- What convention card, explanation or other evidence establishes that agreement? provenance
- What alert, announcement or explanation is required at this point under the applicable conditions? action
Knowledge boundaries
Maintains a separate information perspective for each player and any reviewing agent.
Permitted decision evidence
Distinguish visible cards and lawful inferences from concealed holdings, later revelations and information subject to restrictions.
- Which cards, calls, explanations and played cards are available to the acting player at this moment? boundary
- Has a hesitation, unintended remark, exposed card or external message created information whose use requires restriction or a ruling? boundary
- Can the proposed action be assessed from the player's permitted information without using the complete deal? action
Trick play and control Tracks legal card play, control of dummy and the accumulation or agreed allocation of tricks.
Bridge has distinct rules for following suit, winning tricks and directing dummy, while claims can resolve unplayed cards.
Card play
Records opening lead, dummy exposure, turn order and completed tricks.
Legal play and trick winner
Determine available cards by the hand to play and the obligation to follow suit, then resolve the winner using the led suit and any trump cards.
- Which hand must play next, what suit was led and which cards can that hand legally play? action
- Which card wins the completed trick, and which hand therefore leads next? measurement
- Is the card being selected from declarer's own hand, dummy under declarer's direction or a defender's hand? boundary
Claims and completion
Distinguishes tricks played out from tricks assigned following a claim, concession or ruling.
Remaining trick resolution
Preserve the position, stated line of play and responses when the remaining tricks are claimed or conceded.
- How many tricks have been completed, and what remaining tricks and line of play does the claim or concession specify? measurement
- Is the claim or concession accepted, contested or subject to further procedure under the governing rules? action
Scoring and adjudication Converts the resolved deal into a score and records any authorised departure from the played result.
Contract fulfilment, vulnerability, format and rulings jointly determine the result an agent may report as official.
Score calculation
Separates the deal's bridge score from its contribution to rubber or duplicate results.
Contract outcome and score
Calculate success, overtricks or undertricks and apply the scoring rules for the identified format.
- How many tricks did the declaring side receive relative to its target, and what score follows from the contract, doubling and vulnerability? measurement
- Does this score update a rubber account or feed a duplicate comparison such as matchpoints or IMPs? boundary
- Which partnership's perspective and which scoring unit does the reported number use? definition
Irregularities and rulings
Records procedural faults, decision authority and the status of remedies or adjusted scores.
Irregularity resolution
Preserve the timing and evidence of events such as a revoke, call out of turn, insufficient bid or misinformation before applying an authorised remedy.
- What irregularity is alleged, when was it discovered and what actions had already followed it? provenance
- Who is authorised to resolve it, and what should players do while a ruling is pending? action
- Is the recorded result the played score, a provisional result or an official adjusted score? boundary
Evidence and external alignment What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.
A model that cannot be lined up against existing standards, identifiers and practice cannot be adopted by anyone who already uses them.
Reported evidence
Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.
Check these first
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- The sense described is the partnership card game, inferred from the registered name.
- Governing documents are named from recall; their current editions and event-specific applicability require verification.
- Scoring depends on format: rubber totals, matchpoints and international match points are not interchangeable measures.
- Which of these check these first hold for the sense of contract bridge this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Kinds and varieties
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Rubber bridge
- Duplicate bridge
- Chicago bridge (four-deal bridge)
- Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of contract bridge this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Standards and regulation
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Laws of Duplicate Bridge, issued by the World Bridge Federation.
- World Bridge Federation regulations governing bidding systems, conventions and disclosure in its competitions.
- American Contract Bridge League regulations governing sanctioned play within its jurisdiction.
- European Bridge League regulations and conditions of contest for its competitions.
- Which of these standards and regulation hold for the sense of contract bridge this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Real-world use
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Recreational partnership card play.
- Club and tournament competition in pairs and teams.
- International championships.
- Teaching probabilistic reasoning, inference and partnership coordination.
- Research on artificial intelligence and decision-making with incomplete information.
- Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of contract bridge this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Typical measurements
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Cards in each player's initial hand - 13 - cards
- Tricks available in one deal - 13 - tricks
- Contract level - 1-7, requiring 7-13 tricks respectively - tricks above six
- Hand strength under the conventional ace-king-queen-jack point count - 0-37 possible in one hand; 10 is the mean for a randomly dealt hand - high-card points
- Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of contract bridge this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Failure modes and hazards
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Partnership misunderstandings about bidding conventions, leads or defensive signals.
- Failure to disclose partnership agreements as required by the applicable competition rules.
- Use of unauthorized information, including information conveyed through a partner's hesitation or mannerisms.
- Procedural irregularities such as revokes, calls out of turn and leads out of turn.
- Collusion, illicit communication or access to concealed hands compromising competitive integrity.
- Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of contract bridge this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Regional variation
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Preferred bidding systems vary among countries and playing communities, including Standard American, Acol and strong-club systems.
- Permitted conventions and alerting procedures vary among governing organizations and competition levels.
- Terminology, teaching practices and club formats vary locally, while international duplicate play uses a shared laws framework.
- Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of contract bridge this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Auction bridge - In contract bridge, only tricks bid and made count toward game; auction bridge can credit unbid overtricks toward game.
- Whist - Traditional whist lacks contract bridge's competitive auction and exposed dummy hand.
- Duplicate bridge - A form of contract bridge in which results are compared across play of the same deals; it is a narrower format, not a separate underlying game.
- Contract - A bridge contract is the undertaking established by the auction; it is a component of the game rather than a legal agreement.
- Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of contract bridge this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
What the second pass must settle
- Which laws editions and supplementary regulations should the first implementation support for rubber, duplicate and online play?
- How much detail about bidding systems, conventions and defensive carding belongs here versus in linked models of partnership methods?
- Which additional contract-bridge formats require explicit state beyond the rubber and duplicate distinctions represented here?
- How should contested claims, unauthorised-information cases and adjusted scores represent uncertainty while preserving the adjudicator's authority?
- Does the existing catalogue already contain a world model covering contract bridge that this registry entry should reference instead of receiving a separate publication?