Discussion:
A terminology question
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ais523
2020-05-12 21:44:39 UTC
Permalink
When playing bridge, four players sitting at a table pick up
their cards, go through an auction and thirteen tricks, and calculate
the score resulting from that.

This is one of the most fundamental concepts in bridge, but oddly, it
doesn't seem to have an unambiguous name. What is it called? Every name
I can think of seems ambiguous.

A "hand" of bridge is one of the names I most commonly see. But there
are four hands involved, one held by each of the players.

A "board" is common informal terminology when playing duplicate. But the
same board is played by other players later, and I want a term that
specifically refers to the bidding+play of one set of players on one
particular board.

A "deal" is ambiguous in the same way as a "board", and could also refer
to the act of dealing the cards out to form the board.

A "game" is tempting terminology, but in bridge more commonly refers to
scoring 100 points in trick points during (one of the things I'm trying
to unambiguously name).

A "round" refers to a number of the things I'm trying to name, played
simultaneously by different sets of players.

The USEBIO standard for communicating bridge results, which needs an
unambiguous way to describe this concept, uses "one traveller line", but
that seems specific to duplicate bridge, and seems to put emphasis on
entirely the wrong thing (the traveller is important when tracking the
results of a session, but is not the main focus of playing bridge).

Are there any names for this concept that I'm missing? Because it's the
basic unit of bridge play, and it's bizarre that it doesn't have a name.

For what it's worth, the Laws of Bridge use "deal", but have a notice in
their glossary specifically noting that it's ambiguous and has three
possible meanings.
--
ais523
Barry Margolin
2020-05-12 21:52:24 UTC
Permalink
Post by ais523
When playing bridge, four players sitting at a table pick up
their cards, go through an auction and thirteen tricks, and calculate
the score resulting from that.
This is one of the most fundamental concepts in bridge, but oddly, it
doesn't seem to have an unambiguous name. What is it called? Every name
I can think of seems ambiguous.
A "hand" of bridge is one of the names I most commonly see. But there
are four hands involved, one held by each of the players.
A "board" is common informal terminology when playing duplicate. But the
same board is played by other players later, and I want a term that
specifically refers to the bidding+play of one set of players on one
particular board.
A "deal" is ambiguous in the same way as a "board", and could also refer
to the act of dealing the cards out to form the board.
A "game" is tempting terminology, but in bridge more commonly refers to
scoring 100 points in trick points during (one of the things I'm trying
to unambiguously name).
A "round" refers to a number of the things I'm trying to name, played
simultaneously by different sets of players.
The USEBIO standard for communicating bridge results, which needs an
unambiguous way to describe this concept, uses "one traveller line", but
that seems specific to duplicate bridge, and seems to put emphasis on
entirely the wrong thing (the traveller is important when tracking the
results of a session, but is not the main focus of playing bridge).
Are there any names for this concept that I'm missing? Because it's the
basic unit of bridge play, and it's bizarre that it doesn't have a name.
For what it's worth, the Laws of Bridge use "deal", but have a notice in
their glossary specifically noting that it's ambiguous and has three
possible meanings.
That's the word I'd use. Yes, it's ambiguous, but context normally
solves the problem.

"hand" also works well in the same way. "Let's play the next hand is
clear."
--
Barry Margolin
Arlington, MA
judyorcarl@verizon.net
2020-05-14 17:02:55 UTC
Permalink
A bridge hand is 13 cards.

A hand of bridge is an action beginning with the deal and concluding with taking the last trick.
Post by ais523
When playing bridge, four players sitting at a table pick up
their cards, go through an auction and thirteen tricks, and calculate
the score resulting from that.
This is one of the most fundamental concepts in bridge, but oddly, it
doesn't seem to have an unambiguous name. What is it called? Every name
I can think of seems ambiguous.
A "hand" of bridge is one of the names I most commonly see. But there
are four hands involved, one held by each of the players.
A "board" is common informal terminology when playing duplicate. But the
same board is played by other players later, and I want a term that
specifically refers to the bidding+play of one set of players on one
particular board.
A "deal" is ambiguous in the same way as a "board", and could also refer
to the act of dealing the cards out to form the board.
A "game" is tempting terminology, but in bridge more commonly refers to
scoring 100 points in trick points during (one of the things I'm trying
to unambiguously name).
A "round" refers to a number of the things I'm trying to name, played
simultaneously by different sets of players.
The USEBIO standard for communicating bridge results, which needs an
unambiguous way to describe this concept, uses "one traveller line", but
that seems specific to duplicate bridge, and seems to put emphasis on
entirely the wrong thing (the traveller is important when tracking the
results of a session, but is not the main focus of playing bridge).
Are there any names for this concept that I'm missing? Because it's the
basic unit of bridge play, and it's bizarre that it doesn't have a name.
For what it's worth, the Laws of Bridge use "deal", but have a notice in
their glossary specifically noting that it's ambiguous and has three
possible meanings.
--
ais523
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