Editing Auction bridge (section)

==History==
It is not certain to whom auction bridge should be credited. A letter in ''The Times'' (London), January 16, 1905, signed by Oswald Crawfurd, describes auction bridge as first played in 1904.

Bidding was not common in England, but had been used in Dummy Whist, Quadrille, Solo Whist, and Five Hundred. 

A book by "John Doe" (Francis Reginald Roe), published in [[Allahabad]], India, in 1899, puts forward auction bridge as an invention of three members of the Indian Civil Service stationed at an isolated community, designed as a three-handed form of bridge to compensate the lack of a fourth player. Their key contribution was the concept of competitive bidding for the declaration.<ref>Richard A. Epstein [https://archive.org/details/theoryofgambling0000epst <!-- quote=Their key contribution was Auction Bridge. --> ''The theory of gambling and statistical logic''] pg. 271 Academic Press, rev. ed. (1994) {{ISBN|0-12-240761-X}}</ref>

In the earlier superseded Auction Bridge rules, the dealer opens the bidding and must declare to win at least the odd trick in a trump suit or at No-trump. The penalty for a 1S opening was capped at -100, even if it went 7 off doubled; the bid was treated as forcing though.{{jargon inline|date=July 2024}}

In UK Auction Bridge, as it was a gambling game, bids were ranked by point value of the contract then level.<ref> Outlines of Auction Bridge by Charles Stuart Street, Library of Congress Catalogue Number: 0 029 604 586 A.</ref> So, 1{{heart}} (8 points) beats 3{{spades}} (6 points) but 4{{spades}} (8 points) beats 1{{heart}} (8 points) because it is a higher level. This meant an overbid could not reduce the value of the contract at stake. Conversely, Americans ranked bids by level then suit, as in modern Contract Bridge. 

During WWI, a variant called Plafond (ceiling) was created in France by adding the idea of "contract", where only tricks bid and made counted towards Game or Slam, over-tricks were bonuses scored above the line. Plafond was successful in France, and parts of Canada, among expert players, because accurate high-level bidding was required. It was played by Vanderbilt, but Plafond failed to gain acceptance in New York.