Auction bridge

Auction Bridge

Bidding box containing all possible calls a player can make in the auction
Origin	England
Type	Trick-taking
Players	3-4
Skills	Tactics and Strategy
Cards	52-card
Deck	Anglo-American
Rank (high→low)	A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Play	Clockwise
Playing time	25 min.
Chance	Low to Moderate
Related games
Whist, Contract Bridge

Auction bridge was the first form of bridge where players bid to declare a contract in their chosen trump suit or no trumps. It was first recorded as being played in Bath around 1904.^[1] The Bath Club and Portland Club met in 1908 and issued a super-set of rules for Bridge that covered the bidding and penalty for failing to make a contract in Auction Bridge.^[2] Early forms were rudimentary and unbalanced and the British and Americans could not agree over the bidding ranking and use of artificial bids, resulting in The Whist Club of New York and The Portland Club issuing competing sets of rules.

By the 1920s, "Royal Auction Bridge with the New Count", had fixed most of the problems. After books on the new game were published by leading Bridge authors it quickly became popular and replaced what remained of Whist and earlier forms of Bridge. It also replaced 500 in much of the US, after that game died out around 1920.^[3]

In 1925, onboard the SS Finland, Harold Vanderbilt play tested his version of Contract Bridge, which has the same rules of bidding and play as Auction Bridge, but completely new Non-Vulnerable and Vulnerable scoring tables designed specifically for contract.^[4] After quickly becoming popular in Southampton and Newport, Vanderbilt's Contract Bridge was adopted by the Whist Club Of New York in 1927, and The Portland Club in 1929, and, by the end of that year, was the only game being played in the clubs of NY and London.

Now known as just Auction Bridge, the game continued to played socially for many decades.^[5]