[1] At the beginning of the rubber, cards are drawn to determine partnerships and the dealer of the first hand.
The dealer selects a pack of cards and passes it to the player on their left to be shuffled.
Dealer, who may give the cards a quick shuffle at this point, then passes it to be cut by the player on their right.
Declarer’s partner then lays down their hand face up on the table as dummy, with the trump suit on their right.
[1] The main article includes a detailed description of rubber bridge scoring with examples.
Whoever has the highest point total after this bonus is assigned wins the match overall.
At rubber every hand is affected by the context of the score and there are many different factors to consider and weigh.
One needs to be constantly aware of not just the vulnerability but what legs (part-games) both sides have as affects the meanings of bids.
Part-scores like 40 and 60 are highly worthwhile as one can make game with two of major or 1NT respectively on a later hand.
This is very different from duplicate bridge where each part-score and game are worth fixed amounts and each hand is an individual battle over points.
There are no universally accepted rules for rubber bridge, but some zonal organisations have published their own.
Rubber bridge is the traditional form of contract bridge and remains the most common variant for club- or home-based social games, usually played with a fixed number of hands.
It gained a lot of publicity after a celebrated match, referred to as the "Bridge Battle of the Century", was held December 1931 to January 1932 between teams led by Ely Culbertson and Sidney Lenz.
A total of 150 rubbers were played, and was ultimately won by the Culbertson team by a margin of 8,980 points.