Bridge For Beginners

By Anne Bigg

Contract Bridge is one of the most popular card games in the world. But getting started can be daunting for beginners. Bridge for Beginners is the perfect book to have beside you during the early days of your playing career. Get started on becoming a Master with Bridge for Beginners beside you on your Smart phone or Ebook reader.
Covers such subjects as Learning the Value of your Hand, Scoring, Opening Bids, Responding to Opening Bids, Overcalls, Strong 2C Openings, Blackwood and Gerber Conventions (Slam Bidding), Doubles, as well as lots of useful snippets of information designed to make you a good Bridge player as quickly as possible.
Bridge for Beginners is also ideal for Bridge teachers looking to move learners through the difficult early stages of the game. It is used extensively in Bridge schools as a primary learning tool.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anne Bigg
• Release date: May 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9780646903972

Book preview

Bridge for Beginners

By Anne Bigg

Published by Anne Bigg on Smashwords

Bridge for Beginners

Copyright © 2004 Anne Bigg

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

ISBN: 978-0-646-90397-2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction to Bridge

The Value of your Hand

Scoring at Bridge

Dummy’s Rights and Responsibilities

The Opening Bids

Responding to an Opening Bid

Openers Second Bid (openers’ re-bid)

1NT/2NT Openings and Responses

Bidding Balanced Hands in Notrumps

Opening leads against Notrumps and Suits

Five Card Majors – Better Minor

Responses to a Major Opening (of 1S or 1H)

Overcalls

Going Through The Barrier – Reversing

Pre-emptive Openings Weak Two, Three, Four Bids

Defence Against Weak Pre-emptive Openings

Strong 2C Openings

Blackwood and Gerber Conventions (Slam bidding)

Doubles

The Unusual 2NT Overcall. Michael’s Cue Bid

Opponents Interfere with your 1NT Opening

Important Snippets of Bridge Information

Behaviour at the Bridge Table

Glossary of Terms

INTRODUCTION TO CONTRACT BRIDGE

Bridge is a card game played with 52 cards. Four players sit at a table facing one another in pairs.

One player is designated North and the partner is South. The opponents are East and West.

The pack of cards consists of four suits.

In Bridge, the top ranking suit is SPADES, followed by HEARTS. These are called the Major Suits (or MAJORS).

The next ranked suit is DIAMONDS followed by CLUBS. These are called MINOR SUITS.

There are 13 cards in each suit.

The HONOUR CARDS in descending order are Ace, King, Queen, Jack and 10.

The MINOR CARDS are in descending order from 9 down to 2.

Ace beats all the other cards in the suit. King beats all lower cards; Queen beats all lower cards, etc. An Ace = 4 points, King = 3 points, Queen = 2 points and Jack = 1 point.

To give maximum value to the King, you need one card to guard the King against the Ace. The Queen needs two cards to guard it and the Jack needs three cards.

If an Honour card lacks one of these support cards, take off 1 point. For the 5th card in a suit, add 1 point.

The pack is shuffled and cards dealt face down, one at a time into four hands of 13