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Maccabiah Games - Games held in Israel to demonstrate athletic excellence, including Bridge.
 

MacGuffin - A card which, whether played or held, provides dangerous information to opponents.
 

Main Suit - The cards with most length held by the bidder, usually planned to become the trump suit.
 

Laws

Major Penalty Card - To prematurely or deliberately face or otherwise expose an honor card to opponents (except by Declarer).  If more than one card is exposed, each exposed honor becomes a major penalty card according to the Laws.  See Details
 

Major Suit - Referring to either the Spade or Heart suit.  See Example
 

Major Tenace - Referring to the Ace-Queenm in a suit, missing the King.

General

Duplicate

Make -

General

Duplicate

Make Up -
 

1.	To shuffle the cards
2.	To join players at a table to complete the foursome
3.	To recreate a hand per a hand record, typically associated with preparing boards for a duplicate tournament

Mama Papa - Partners who play Bridge with elementary systems and few conventions.  Also see KISS
 

Man with the Axe - The colloquial term referring to K (King of Diamonds).  See Card Names
 

Laws

Mannerism -

Accidentally received information - See Law 16
Action by partner - See Law 16
Exposed card - See Law 50
Remark by partner - See Law 16

Marionette - A transfer, or puppet, which instructs ones partner to make an artificial bid at the cheapest level, allowing the other partner to then clarify their holdings through the subsequent bid.
 

General

Marked Card -

Marked Finesse - To finesse a specific opponent for a marked card, based on bidding, leads, line of play, or inferences such as a hesitation, gesture, or the like.
 

Marx 2 Clubs - See Conventions

General

Master -

Jargon

Master Hand - The controlling hand, usually based on significant trump holdings.
 

Duplicate

Masterpoint - An American Contract Bridge League rating of merit based on Duplicate tournament play, created in 1936 by William McKenny and Ray Eisenlord.  See  Tech File - Masterpoint Requirement for Ranks and Masterpoint Ranking Table
 

Masterpoint Award Rules & Regulation - Detailed formulas for Bridge Directors to understand calculations.  See Tech File - Masterpoint Award Rules & Regs
 

Bidding

Master Solvers' Club - A monthly and yearly bidding contest. On eight problems each month, notable bridge players are shown a hand with a partial auction and are challenged to decide their action. Solvers have been facing this challenge every month since October, 1929. High scorers for the month and year are listed; the top two high scorers for the year win the right to participate in a Bridge World department. Anyone who names the eight highest-scoring actions in a month is invited to the expert panel. The emphasis is on discussion. The expert panelists explain their reasoning.
 

Match - A series of hands played against competitive teams.
 

Matchpoints - In Duplicate Bridge, scoring based on points awarded against competitive teams.  One point is awarded for every pair who has a lower score on a given hand, and one-half point for each pair with an identical score.  See Law 78

Also see Matchpoint books
 

Mathe - See Conventions

Mathe Asking Bid -  See Conventions

Maximal (Overcall) Double - When both sides have a suit agreement (Opponents Bid And Raise - OBAR in lower suit), a double invites game, while a suit bid is merely competitive.  See Details

Also see Books on Doubles
 

General

Maximum -

McKenney Signal - An English term indicating a suit preference signal. See Lavinthal
 

McKenney Trophy - The award presented by the ACBL to the member accumulating the most masterpoints in a given year.
 

Jargon

Medium Cards - Intermediate body cards that are likely to support partner's holdings, as any combination of 10, 9, and 8 in partner's bid suit.
 

General

Member -

Play

Menace - A card which opponents must guard against by keeping holding in that suit, otherwise the card will win a trick.  See Examples and Squeeze
 

Men's Pairs - An all-male duplicate competitive event.

Play

Merrimac Coup - A play which purposely sacrifices a high card to knock out an entry in opponent's hand (often the dummy).  The strategy is named after the American ship Merrimac while fighting the Spanish fleet in Santiago.  Example
 

Mexican 2 Diamonds - See Conventions

ME - Abbreviation for MisExplanation

MI - Abbreviation for MisInformation

Michaels Cuebid - See Conventions

Mid Chart Conventions - See ACBL Mid Chart

Middle Card - The intermediate card of a 3-card holding, given consideration to show the opening leader's count in the given suit.
 

Middle Game - After the opening lead, the defensive and offensive tactics used to maximize the pair's assets before the end game.
 

Middle Honors - Referring to Kings, Queens and Jacks (also known as Face Cards, Court Cards, etc) See Example

Play

Middle Suit - The suit guarded by opponents, where declarer executes a Double Squeeze with a threat card in that suit.
 

Midnight Game - After completion of day and evening games, a 3 hour tournament that begins at 12AM. 
 

Midnight Swiss - A popular late night game at NABC Tournaments, with 5 matches of 5 deals, with 5 minutes per hand.
 

Miles Responses to 2 Notrump Openings - See Conventions

Mingled Movement - An individual movement where groups of players are
are intermixed as partners and opponents.
 

Mini Max Gerber - See Conventions

Duplicate

Mini McKenny - The McKenny award is presented to the ACBL player winning the most masterpoints during a calendar year. Players beneath the ranking of Life Master compete for the Mini McKenny awards, including: Rookie, Junior Master, Club Master (Master), Sectional Master (National Master), Regional Master (Senior Master), and NABC Master (Advanced Senior Master).
 

Play

Minimum - The least adequate holding to make a call based on one's strength and distributional values.
 

Mini Notrump - See Conventions

Mini Roman - See Conventions

Describing a hand with a 4-4-4-1 or 5-4-4-0 shape.  See Shape
 

Mini Splinter - See Conventions

Minnie - A hand with minimal values

Minor Penalty Card - To prematurely or deliberately face or otherwise expose an non-honor card (smaller than 10) to opponents, except by declarer.  If more than one card is exposed, each exposed non-honor becomes a major penalty card according to the Laws.  See Details
 

Minor Suit - One of the two lower ranking suits, including Diamonds or Clubs.  See Example
 

Minor Suit Smolen - See Conventions

Minor Suit Stayman - See Conventions

Minor Tenace - Initially, a suit containing a King and Jack, missing the Ace and Queen are the minor tenaces; after top honor/s have been played, the second and fourth highest remaining cards of the suit become the minor tenace.  See Finesse
 

Mirror - Two hands of identical suit distribution, often leading to duplication of values.  See Duplication of Distribution
 

Misboard - The act of misplacing cards in the wrong slots of a board in duplicate play, resulting in a fouled board unless rectified before play begins at the next table. See Laws
 

General

Card Distribution (remaining two hands)
Hand Distribution (suits within a hand)
High Card Point Count (HCPs in one hand)
Miscellaneous Probabilities (assorted interesting odds)
Number of Cards (card quantity in a suit)
Posteriori Probability (example when additional information is known)
Suit Combinations (best lead and plays)
Expected Controls (based on HCP)
 

Miscut - An illegal cut of less than 4 cards.  See Contract Laws
 

Misdeal - An improper deal, where an incorrect number of cards are dealt to players or a dealt card becomes exposed. See Law 13
 

Misery - A line of play destined to result in failure, originating from the game "Solo", where it is desirable to lose tricks.
 

Misfit - A situation where partnership hands  do not compliment one another. See Laws
 

Mishearing - The circumstances where a player mistakenly hears a call or a card called from the dummy.  A player may always ask for bidding review at their next turn.
 

Misinformation -

Call based on - See Law 21
Lead based on - See Law 41  47
Play based on - See Law 47

Misleading Call Or Play, Intentionally - See Law 40
 

Laws

Misnomer - An mistaken call or play.  The player may, without pause for thought, correct the intended call or play.  Otherwise, as long as the action was legal, the call or play is in force.  If the mistaken call or play occurred after a pause and unauthorized information may have been given to another player, equity shall be restored.  See Law 25
 

Misplacement Of Cards In Board - See Law 90

Missing Card - An card absent from the hands of one or more players.
All players should count their cards before looking at their hand and immediately correct the deficiency.  If the missing card is discovered after bidding or play begins, it is returned to the correct hand. See Law 14
 

Mississippi Heart Hand - A rigged deal purportedly used by Whist cardsharps on the Mississippi River steamboats during the late 1800's.  The unknowing South is allowed to bid a large sum of money on the hand, which is doomed to lose.  See Example
 

Laws

Mistaken Bid - See Law 75

Concealment prohibited - 40 - 75
Mistaken bid - 75
Psychic - 40
Violation of - 75

See Director Tech File
 

Mistaken Explanation Of Partnership Understanding - See Law 40  75

See Director Tech File
 

Mister and Mrs. - A special bridge tournament often played around Valentine Day, limited to a married couple partnership (called Flitch in England).
 

Misunderstanding Not Based On Misinformation - See Law 21

Duplicate

Mitchell Movement -  A duplicate Bridge player movement where all tournament pairs and boards move in a uniform manner.  Each pair is assigned a North/South or East/West direction, the boards played are assigned an incremental number, and the tables are also assigned an incremental number.  After each round, the Director typically instructs the East/West pairs to move up to the next higher numbered table (the pair at the highest table move to table 1) while the boards at each table are moved down one table.  The Director ensures East/West players do not play boards twice using a Relay or Skip Mitchell when the session has an even number of tables.  See Details
 

Mixed Call - See Conventions (Mixed Raise)

Mixed Raise - See Conventions
 

Mixed Pairs - A male-female pair tournament event.

Mixed Teams - A 4-6 member team comprised of two male-female pairs.

Laws

Mixed Cards After Play - A player must not interchange their cards when another player requires inspection of one's cards.  Mixing cards is in violation of Law 66  when an opponent's inspection request is associated with a revoke, the number of tricks won or lost, or to validate honors (in Rubber Bridge).
 

Play

Mole Squeeze - A squeeze on one opponent, then conceding the lead to  create an endplay on the other opponent. See Example
 

Molly Hogan - The colloquial term referring to the SQ (Queen of Spades).  See Card Names
 

Monster - A hand with outstanding strength or suit distributional values.

Play

Monty Hall Trap - The fallacious assumption that information provided by a player always provides proportionate statistical data.  In Monty Hall's game show, a player could randomly choose a prize behind one of three door, providing a one in three chance.  Next, Monty opens one of the three doors which does not reveal the prize, leaving two remaining doors.  Do we assume that since only two doors remain the percentage is now one in two (50%), or were we specifically given a losing door and the odds have not appreciably changed?  The answer lies in part whether or not the information was random or misleading data by an opponent.  An example of the Monte Hall Trap is the mistaken belief the probability of card randomness changes from hand to hand - failure to make a game bid three hands in a row does not change the statistical probabilities of making a subsequent game.  However, posteriori odds such as suit and HCP probabilities may indeed change the probabilities based on bidding and play.   Also see Rule of Restricted Choice.

Card Distribution (remaining two hands)
Hand Distribution (suits within a hand)
High Card Point Count (HCPs in one hand)
Miscellaneous Probabilities (assorted interesting odds)
Number of Cards (card quantity in a suit)
Posteriori Probability (example when additional information is known)
Suit Combinations (best lead and plays)
Expected Controls (based on HCP)
 

Mop Squeezer - The tongue-in-cheek colloquial term referring to the Q (Queen).  See Card Names
 

Morehead Trophy - Awarded to the winners of the Knockout team at the ACBL Grand National Team.
 

Morning Game - A morning side-game tournament offered at Regional and North American ACBL tournaments.  Morning Knockout events run four days, awarding gold points for overall games won and red points for matches won.
 

Play

Mortons Fork Coup - A choice offered by the declarer for the defender to possibly win a trick with a low card, allowing declarer to subsequently promote the suit.  Should the defender refuse to take the trick, the declarer discards the losing honor on a winner in a side suit. See Example
Also see Coup, Crocodile Coup, Vienna Coup and books on Coups, Squeezes
 

Bidding

Moscito - As the acronym for its name suggests, the system is based on a Major Oriented Strong Club (MOSCito) methods created by Paul Marston and Stephen Burgess.  See Convention
 

Moscow Escape - Especially when playing Weak Notrump openers, a conventional countermeasure when opponent Doubles for penalty.  See Details, Pre-Escape, Exodus
 

Moth Eaten - A derogatory colloquial term referring to poor tenace holdings, as: K J 9 7 or worse.  See Card Names
 

Move - In Duplicate Bridge, the Director calls for a move between rounds instructing players to shift appropriate boards and tables. See Law 8 and Example.
 

Movement Of Boards, Players - See Law 8 and Example

Jargon

Moysian Fit - Referring to declarer's 4-3 trump split named after Alphonse Moyse Jr., who (in certain situations) strongly advocated opening 4 card majors and raises with 3 card support.  See Details
 

MSC - Abbreviation for Master Solvers' Club [The Bridge World]

MPC - Abbreviation for Major Penalty Card

mPC - Abbreviation for minor Penalty Card

Play

MUD - See Conventions

Multi 2 Diamonds - See Conventions

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