Bidding
- Bidding rules vary significantly. Common rules are described below.
After the deal, players call in turn, electing either to bid or to pass. A bid indicates the combined number of tricks the bidder believes he and his partner will take and the suit that will be trumps for that hand, or that there will be no trump suit. For instance, a bid of "seven spades" indicates that the player intends to win seven or more tricks with spades being the trump suit, whereas a bid of "seven no-trumps" indicates that the player intends to win seven or more tricks with no trump suit (in which case the only trump card is the joker).
In American play, a bid of six is called an "inkle". A player who bids "inkle spades" is indicating to their partner that they have some spades but not enough to bid seven. Only the first two players may inkle.
A player may elect not to bid, or to "pass". Bidding proceeds clockwise around the table, with each player passing or making a higher-scoring bid. A player who passes cannot subsequently make a bid in that hand.
A player who has bid may only bid again in that hand if there has been an intervening bid by another player. However, in Newcastle (Australia) play, a player who has bid and not passed may always bid again in that hand.
The order of seniority of suits in bidding (highest to lowest, as reflected in the scores below) is hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades. Therefore, for example, a player who bids "seven clubs" may be outbid by a subsequent bidding player on seven diamonds or seven hearts, but not seven spades. A "no trumps" bid beats any suited bid of the same number. Inkles are typically also similarly ranked: If the first player bids "six hearts", the next player cannot inkle spades, clubs, or diamonds. Their only options are to inkle no trump, bid seven or more (of any suit, or no trump or Misère), or pass. Eventually, all but one player passes and the bid is decided.
In American play, there is only one round of bidding, with each player getting one chance, in turn, to either bid or pass. The player making the successful bid then collects the kitty. This player sorts through his hand and discards the least-useful three (or five in the case of a 45 card deck) cards (possibly including cards picked up from the kitty), and places them face down; the discarded cards playing no further part in the hand.
If nobody makes a bid, there are multiple variations. Most commonly, the hand is declared dead and a reshuffle and re-deal is made. This can be repeated only twice, after which the deal passes to the next player. Alternatively, the game is played where no bids mean the round is played as no trumps, and scoring is ten points per trick. Other variations include that the deal passes to the next player (no reshuffle); or that if no one else makes a bid, the dealer is required to make a bid.
Read more about this topic: 500 (card Game)
Famous quotes containing the word bidding:
“Go; and if that word have not quite killed thee,
Ease me with death by bidding me got too.
Oh, if it have, let my word work on me,
And a just office on a murderer do.
Except it be too late to kill me so,
Being double dead: going, and bidding go.”
—John Donne (1572–1631)
“A simple and independent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are not a hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred thousand merchants and farmers here, who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost what it may. I quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those who, near at home, coöperate with, and do the bidding of, those far away, and without whom the latter would be harmless.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)