Basic Bridge: Learn to Play the World's Greatest Card Game in 15 Easy Lessons

By Bruce Ciloski

The easiest way yet to learn to play Bridge. 15 easy lessons that anyone can understand. After you read Basic Bridge you'll be ready to sit down and play the greatest card game ever invented. You've always wanted to learn how to play and now you can with Basic Bridge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483529813

Book preview

invented.

Lesson 1: An Overview: An example of how the game is played

Bridge is played with a standard deck of 52 cards comprised of four suits with 13 cards in each suit. You can play with any standard deck of cards but if you have an opportunity to purchase bridge size rather than poker size cards you will find them easier to hold in your hand. Bridge size cards are slimmer than poker size cards.

Bridge is a card game played between four people The four players are divided into two teams of two players each with the two teams competing against one another. Each team is referred to as a partnership.

Unless the teams have been decided beforehand, partnerships are chosen by drawing cards. A deck of cards is spread face down on the table and each player draws one card. . In each suit the cards are ranked from high to low with the Ace being the highest and the two being the lowest. The two players drawing the high cards become partners.

The person drawing the highest card gets to select his or her seat and they will also become the first to deal the cards. The two players that selected the high cards sit facing each other. The two selecting the lowest cards also sit facing one another. If two cards of the same denomination are drawn, the higher is determined by the rank of the suits. The rank of the suits from lowest to the highest is Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts and Spades.

For ease of reference, when writing about and referring to the game the four player positions are shown and described by the four compass positions: West, North, East and South. North and South are partners and East and West are partners.

The objective of bridge is to score more points than your opponents. More specifically, the objective of contract bridge is to accrue more points than your opponents through the securing and fulfilling of contracts, preventing your opponents from securing and fulfilling their contracts, collecting bonus points, and preventing your opponents from collecting bonus points. The partnership that accrues the most points wins the match.

A bridge session typically consists of a three game competition. This three game competition is referred to as a rubber of bridge. The winning team is the partnership that accrues the most points during the three game match.

The Deal

To get started the player that had selected the highest card from the deck becomes the dealer. The dealer will shuffle the cards and then present them to the player to his right to cut the cards. Once the cards are cut the dealer will pick them up and then distributes all 52 cards face down, one at a time, starting with the player on his/her left and continuing clock-wise. Players should refrain from picking up their cards until all the cards have been dealt. If dealt correctly the last card will be dealt to the dealer.

The end result is that each player will now have a hand comprised of 13 cards. Players can now look at their cards and hold them so that no other player can see them, not even their partner.

Hand Organization/Evaluation

Your first step, on picking up your 13 cards (called your hand) is to sort them into suits. Most players also put the cards in order of rank, with the higher cards at the left. If you alternate black and red suits you stand a better chance of recognizing your cards without error. After you organize your hand you evaluate it for it’s trick taking potential.

The Auction

The bidding phase of the game starts with the dealer.

The dealer speaks first. He may pass or bid. Then the player at dealer’s left speaks. He may pass or bid. The turn goes in rotation to the left, just like the deal and the turn to play. Each player has the option to pass or bid.

A pass, referred to as a call means that that player chooses not to bid. Each player always has the option to pass if they so choose. A pass doesn’t mean you can’t bid later on in the auction, it just means that the player chooses not to submit a bid at this time.

If all four players pass, the hand is thrown in and the next player deals a new hand.

A bid consists of a number and a trump or No Trump. The number indicates the number of tricks to be won. The trump names the trump suit. The word notrump means that there will be no trump suit.

If any player makes a bid at his turn, an auction begins-to be won by the side that bids higher. A bid is higher if it promises either a larger number of tricks than the previsous bid or the same number of tricks in a higher ranking denomination.

Bidding continues around the table until there has been three consecutive calls of pass. Once that happens the last bid stated is the winning bid and becomes the contract.

Since one of the objects of the game is to secure and fulfill contracts, thus getting points, the auction portion of the game is the very competitive and very enjoyable.

If your side didn’t bid high enough to secure the contract, don’t worry. You can still score points by preventing the contracting side from fulfilling their contract.

Play of the hand

After the bidding has ended, the first thing to do is to identify the declarer. The declarer is the person who first bid the contracted suit or notrump. This is not necessarily the person who made the final winning bid, although it can be, it is the first person in the partnership that won the contract that bid the suit or notrump in the final contract.

Once the declarer is identified, the player to the left of declarer lays a card on the table to begin the first trick. This is known as the Opening Lead.

After the Opening Lead has been made, the player to the left of the opening lead lays their cards face up on the table. This player and their hand are known as The Dummy. The Dummy does not play this hand. This hand is played by the Declarer along with their own hand.

The Declarer will then choose a card from the dummy hand, or indicate to