Keep this safely in your folder so that you can refer back to it.

1. The level of contracts

One can bid contracts of 1 to 7, i.e. contracts where one must make between seven and thirteen tricks. The lowest contract is at the level of 1 and one must make seven tricks, i.e.:

Half the tricks ( = 6 ) + 1 bid

The pair who want to make the contract have more points than the other pair: it is therefore normal that they will take more tricks.

Example:

With 26 points in the two hands one must bid and make the contract of 3NT, i.e.nine tricks. Since one has two thirds of the points (26 out of 40) it is logical that one will take two thirds of the tricks and the opponents one third with the one third of the remaining points (14).

2. The scoring

If one bids and makes a contract of 1NT one scores 40 points; if one makes an extra trick or if one has bid a contract of 2NT, one gets 30 extra points, i.e. 70 points. To this one adds a bonus of 50.

But if one bids and makes 3NT one will score 100 points (40 + 30 + 30) plus a special bonus of 300 because this contract is a game contract: so you can see the interest in not failing to bid it and make it.

Let's summarise all that:

*Here there are special bonuses that we shall discuss soon.

Failure: Each trick short gives 50 points to the opponents.