Why isn't the "nullo" denomination, in auction bridge era, carried into contract bridge?

[mikl_plkcc]

"nullo" was a denomination in auction bridge a century ago where the declarer needs to lose the specified number of tricks instead of winning them, which was placed between ♠ and NT and was scored as NT. For example, if 3Nullo was bid, the declarer needed to lose 9 tricks to make the contract, and that was a game contract like 3NT.

 

With nullos, player holding rubbish hands consisting of a lot of 2, 3, and 4s can compete effectively with the opponent trying to bid games and slams.

 

Why is this denomination not carried into the modern form of contract bridge?

[mycroft]

My guess: Beautiful auction to 6♠ off an Ace. 6Nullo. -2 for 500.

 

Same reasoning as the 1980s NV downtrick change - nerfing cheese.

 

Whether it is in fact cheese or an interesting strategy wrinkle that makes the game more interesting; I guess depends on what side of the cards you're on.

[Gilithin]

The original version of bridge, biritch, also did not include a misere denomination. Game was made by scoring 3NT, 4♥ or 5♦. Game could not be scored with a black suit as trumps without help from the opponents. Biritch turned into auction bridge after 20 years and contract bridge derived from Vanderbilt's changes to the scoring table 20 years after that. That was nearly 100 years ago - one might conclude that we are well past time for similar innovations to come along and re-invigorate the current game. I doubt very much that misere will be a part of any such improvement.

[pescetom]

I don't think any mainstream version of Bridge incorporated misere/nullo in its rules. As I understand, misere was already around in predecessors of whist like 'Boston' and entered some derivations of 'Vint' ('Swedish Whist') and was sometimes added to bridge as a regional variant. If you like, I have the laws of Auction Bridge somewhere and can check.

 

'Hearts' is a good misere game for beginners and is useful for spotting bridge potential. For many years it was also the only program that worked decently in MS Windows.

[smerriman]

I've always found playing 500 that misere ruins the game for everyone. I would expect to be even more true in bridge. It just doesn't balance well with the concept of trick taking.