Mafiascum.net

The game is played in teams of two, north and south playing against east and west.

BIDDING STAGE

Bidding starts with the player after the dealer. Each player, in turn, bids on the number of tricks that person thinks he or she is able to make for the partnership. You must bid on your turn; passing is not allowed. Normally, acceptable bids are between 0 and 13 tricks, but be careful—if you bid 0 tricks, you must play not to win any yourself! (This is more commonly known as Nil.) Your partnership's total number of tricks cannot exceed 13. Unless one of you bid Nil, your bid tricks and your partner's bid tricks are combined to form the partnership's goal.

If you are losing by 100 or more points, I will ask your team if you wish to make a blind bid (a bid before I give you your cards)—it must either be nil or at least as high as six. Blind nil only counts for the player who agrees to make it, but blind six or higher counts as the partnership's goal and must be made exactly. After the bidding, a blind nil bidder is allowed to trade two cards with his or her partner, who bids normally during the bidding stage.

Once all four players have bid, the play of the cards starts.

PLAY OF THE CARDS

The player after the dealer leads to the first trick and may play any card other than a spade by bolding it. Each player in turn then follows suit if they are able to; otherwise, they may play any card (even a spade). The highest spade wins; if nobody has played spades, the highest card of the suit led wins.

The second through thirteenth tricks are led by the player who won the last trick. You cannot lead spades unless they've been played already or spades are all you have. If you are clearly going to win the rest of the tricks, you may post "The rest are mine", or "TRAM" for short, to speed up the game. If everyone's in agreement, I'll calculate scores then. Otherwise, play continues until all cards are put down.

No private communication between players is allowed once the game has started.

SCORING

If you succeed in making your partnership's bid, you win 10 points for every trick bid plus 1 point for every overtrick. (Be careful with your overtricks, because each time you accumulate ten of them, you lose 100 points.) If you miss, you lose 10 points for every trick bid.

A successful nil earns you 100 points; an unsuccessful nil costs you 100 points and scores one overtrick point for each trick you took. Tricks earned by a nil bidder's partner count normally.

All blind bids count double by themselves; however, overtricks from a failed blind bid don't count.

The first partnership to earn 500 points or more or drive the other partnership to -500 points or less wins. If both partnerships have 500 points or more (or -500 points or less), the higher score wins. Tiebreaker hands will be played as needed. The team that wins will remain in the game, while the losing team will be eliminated.

but why though

Played a round wow this game is different than bridge.

I still have no idea how to play bridge

As with spades, bridge is a team trick-taking game, and there is bidding on the number of tricks to be taken, but with a selected trump suit, rather than a fixed one. However, only the team that wins the bidding has to make the number of tricks they claimed + 6. The other team tries to stop them from doing so. The bidding is won by the team which makes the final (and therefore highest) bid, before there are three consecutive passes (excluding doubles and re-doubles, which do not change the bid strength, or the team that made the bid). Bid strength is based first on the number bid between 1 and 7, and then the trump suit selected, in the order of Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, Spades, and No Trumps. The player on the team who wins the bid who first bid the trump suit is the declarer, and their partner is the Dummy. Card play begins with the player to the left of the Declarer, and continues clockwise, with the Declarer controlling the Dummy's card plays. Players must play cards in the suit of the first card played for that trick, unless they lack such cards. In that event, they may play from any other suit. The strongest card (aces are high) in the suit played wins, unless a trump card has been played, in which case the strongest trump card wins. Whoever wins a trick goes first next. The teams score points based on the final bid, and the number of tricks they made.

There should be a couple of threads in the Sens-o-Tape archive, from when SC ran the game.

I know that part, but it is surprising how much the lack of a dummy and increasing bidding effects play.

It's not bridge without the dummy

What I've never understood about bridge is how players can more or less tell what cards are in other players' hands simply from what they've bid.

If someone bids it means they have higher than average points (ace is 4 king is 3 queen 2 jack 1) and at least 4 in the betting suit. There are a few things that can also add points such as a really small other suit or a really long trump suit. Every time you go up in points you are showing you have more points and a longer trump suit.

@racefan: But that's the point of bidding. To communicate to your partner what you have, so that the two of you can find the right final bid.

except in spades where lol just throw up a number based on your hand and hope.

Yeah, I meant in bridge.