Duplicate Bridge Etiquette & Rules

General Rules

• Turn off your mobile phone or switch to silent
• Bid and play at a reasonable speed so others are not kept waiting and the Movement is not disrupted.

• Call the Director immediately if an irregularity occurs during bidding or play.

At the beginning of each round

• Greet your opponents
• North: Check pair and board details are correct. (May delegate to South)
• If asked by your opponents, explain your system clearly and simply.
• Count your cards face down and sort them quickly. Count points and LTC (losers).

THE AUCTION

• Once bidding starts, keep conversation to a minimum.
• During the bidding, you can only ask an opponent for an explanation of a bid made by their side when it’s your turn to call. And you must ask the partner of the player who made the bid, not the player who made it.
• Don’t ask what a bid means unless you, yourself, intend to bid: leave any questions until the auction is over.
• Do not touch, or even hover your hand near, the bidding box until you have decided what to bid.
• Bid confidently at an even pace with no unnatural pauses or comments.
• Avoid hesitations and delays. These can suggest some strength which gives partner unsolicited information. (The director may be called and further bids not allowed.)
• Layer bidding cards on the table to show previous bids clearly. Leave in place until the opening lead is made.
• Before a jump bid, display the STOP card and pause a few seconds before placing the bid. (Without the stop card, others might assume that the raised bid was in error or the next bidder might lay a pre-planned bid that is too low. Either way, that disrupts the auction.)
• If your partner explains an alert wrongly, or answers a question incorrectly or makes an inappropriate or false announcement, DO NOT correct partner or in any other way indicate the error.  

Announcements (made by partner of bidder):

• 1NT and 2NT – state point count and any variation to an ACOL balanced hand.
• 2D, 2H, 2S opening: announce ‘weak’, ‘strong forcing’, or ‘strong non-forcing’.
• 2C in response to partner’s opening 1NT – announce ‘Staymen’, otherwise the 2C is assumed natural.
• If playing transfers, 2D over partner’s opening: announce ‘hearts’.
• If playing transfers, 2H over partner’s opening: announce ‘spades’.

Alerts (applies to bids only up to the level of 3NT)

• ALERT partner’s unnatural bids (not complying with Standard ACOL).
• A 3C response to partner’s 2NT must be alerted, even if Staymen.
• All Doubles of natural suit bids at the 1, 2 or 3 level are assumed for take-out and need not be alerted or announced. If they are for penalties they must be alerted.
• Doubles of NT bids are assumed for penalty unless alerted.

THE CLARIFICATION PERIOD

(after the bidding and before the lead is faced)

• Defender: places the lead card face down and checks if partner or declarer has any questions on the auction (also avoids the wrong person leading!).
• Declarer or dummy must correct any incorrect information provided by their partner during the auction. If the lead has already been started (placed face down) but not yet “faced”, the lead may be changed at the discretion of the Director.
• A defender must not correct misinformation provided by their partner during the auction until the end of play.
• Either defender may ask for a complete review of the bidding.

THE PLAY

• Dummy: lay down cards quickly with trump suit on your right.
• Dummy must never play a card until the declarer has called for it.
• If declarer discards, dummy should say “Having none?” (to prevent the establishment of a revoke). Defenders should do the same.   
• If you can clearly see that all the remaining tricks are yours, you may claim them rather than play on.
• If making a claim on any final un-played tricks, the declarer must explain their intended line of play including a statement about drawing any remaining trumps.. Opponents have the right to challenge this and call the director if there’s a possibility of fewer tricks being made.

Other Rules for Dummy

• Dummy must not participate in the play nor communicate anything about the play to the declarer. Dummy must not call attention to any irregularity unless another player has already done so.
• Dummy can stop declarer playing a card from the wrong hand but once a card has been selected and shown dummy must say
• Dummy should not call the Director unless another player calls attention to an irregularity.
• When the hand is concluded, dummy can call attention to an irregularity that has occurred.

On Completion of Play

• When the hand is completed and number of tricks agreed, North enters the score on the system (may delegate to South) and East checks that it is correct (may delegate to West).
• Do not hold post-mortems unless you are clearly ahead of other tables.
• Do not touch other players’ cards – ask them to show you.
• Thank your opponents at the end of the round.

March 2024