How to play Back Alley Bridge

The pack and the table

Four players, two sides of two, partners sitting across. The pack is 52 cards plus two jokers, called the big blooper and the little blooper. In the ordinary suits the ace is high, down to the two.

Trumps rank the big blooper, the little blooper, then the trump ace down to the two. Both bloopers belong to the trump suit.

The deal and the trump

The number of cards each player gets changes every deal. The short game runs 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7: 14 deals. The full game is pagat’s, 13 down to 1 and back up to 13: 26 deals. The host chooses in a room, and the computer table has a button for each.

The turn to deal moves clockwise after every deal, including one that was thrown in. In the first deal the seat left of the dealer bids first: that is you at the computer table, and the host in a room.

After the deal, the next card is turned face up and its suit is trumps. If that card is a blooper, there are no trumps this deal and both bloopers are out of the game. Anyone who was dealt the other blooper puts it aside face down and takes the next card from the pack instead, and only they see it.

The bid

Everyone bids once, starting left of the dealer, the dealer last. You can pass, which is zero, bid a whole number from one up to one less than the cards dealt, or bid board, which is every trick. In a one-card deal that leaves pass or board. A bid does not have to beat the last one.

Your side’s target is your bid plus your partner’s: bid one and three and you need four tricks. If your side’s two bids come to more than the cards dealt, or all four bids do, the table warns you, but lets you. If all four of you pass, the cards are thrown in, and the next dealer deals the same number again.

Board bids are numbered in the order they are made, across both sides: the first is a board, the second a double board, the third a triple, the fourth a quadruple. A side that bid board counts only its highest, and its partner’s number no longer counts toward the target.

Playing the tricks

The highest bidder leads the first trick. A board beats any number, the last board bidder leads if there are several, and equal numbers go to whoever bid first. After that, whoever won a trick leads the next one.

You follow suit if you can. If you cannot, you play any card, including a trump. The highest trump wins the trick; with no trump in it, the highest card of the suit led wins.

You cannot lead a trump or a blooper until a trump has been played to an earlier trick, unless you bid board. If your hand is nothing but trumps you may lead one anyway (a rule from another written version; pagat’s says nothing, and that hand would have no legal lead). Cards you cannot play are dimmed, and pressing one tells you why.

The bloopers

Lead the big blooper and everyone else must play their highest trump. Lead the little blooper and everyone else must play their lowest. Say hearts are trumps and the big blooper is led. Your hand is the five and king of hearts, the nine of spades and the two of clubs: you must play the king. Had the little blooper been led, you would have to play the five.

With no trump in your hand you play anything. The rule holds only when a blooper is the first card of a trick, so a blooper played second or later binds nobody. And the little blooper is not safe: if someone’s only trump is the big blooper, they must play it on the little one, and it wins.

The score

Your side’s target is its two bids added. Take at least that many tricks and you score five points per trick bid, plus one point for each extra. Take fewer and you lose five points for each trick bid. If you and your partner both pass, the target is zero and every trick you take is a point.

A board scores ten points for every card dealt, times its level: one for a plain board, two for a double, three for a triple, four for a quadruple. Win every trick and you score it, miss one and you lose it, so a plain board on five cards is 50 either way. Each side is scored on its own bid.

A worked deal, five cards, hearts trump. You bid two and your partner bids one, so the target is three. Four tricks scores 16, five tricks scores 17, two tricks costs you 15. Scores can go below zero. The table keeps the running score, so there is no score sheet to print.

How many to bid

People ask for the best bidding strategy in bridge. That is a contract bridge question, and the answer does not carry over: nobody names a suit here, you only say how many tricks you can take. We will not sell you a system. What we can tell you is how the computer counts. The big blooper is worth a trick and a half, the little blooper a bit over one, and the trump ace about one. The other high trumps are worth a little less, and even a low trump is worth almost half a trick. An ace in another suit is two thirds of a trick and a king two fifths.

Then it bids for its side, not just its hand. When its partner has already bid, it half believes that bid. With one card each it bids board only when its card should win the trick better than half the time.

What the table tells you

It says whose turn it is and which deal you are on, names the trump in words, and shows each side’s target and tricks so far, every bid, and the last trick with its winner. Looking for printable Back Alley Bridge rules or a rules PDF? We have no PDF, and this page is the rules.

How a match ends, and what this is not

After the last deal the higher total wins. A tie plays one more deal, seven cards in the short game or thirteen in the full, with no bidding: the seat left of the dealer leads, and the side with more tricks wins. Between deals, everyone presses ready for the next one.

It is not Oh Hell, where you must win exactly your bid. Here it is at least your bid, and extra tricks score. It is not contract bridge either: no dummy, no auction for a suit. We skip Boston, rainbow, blind bids and individual play.