About Bridge

The bidding is done silently through writing on a bidding pad or using bidding cards.

Each bid must state a number from one to seven, which is the number of tricks in addition to six that the bidder agrees to try and win. Each bid must specify the suit (spades, hearts, diamonds or clubs) that will be trumps (or notrump if the bidder wishes to play without a trump suit).

If a player does not wish to bid they may Pass.

Bid Examples

A bid of 1♣ is a statement to win seven tricks (six plus one) with clubs as trumps.
A bid of 4♠ is a statement to win 10 tricks (six plus four) with spades as trumps suit.
A bid of 3NT is a statement to win nine tricks (six plus three) without a trump suit.
Each successive bid around the table must name a higher number than the preceding bid, or name an equal number in a higher-ranking suit (or notrump).

For bidding purposes, no trumps is the highest suit followed by the four suits in the deck: spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs in that order.

The object of bidding is to find the correct level of tricks you want to win – and bonus points are achieved for bidding game (3NT, 4♠, 4♥, 5♦ and 5♣) or slam (any bid at the 6 level/12 tricks) or the best thing ever; bidding and making a grand slam (where you must win all 13 tricks) – grand slams aren’t very common but immensely satisfying! There are 35 possible bids, from 1♣ (lowest) through 7NT (highest).

Just as the suits are ranked, the cards within a suit are also ranked. The card with the highest rank is the Ace, followed by the King, Queen, Jack. These four cards together are called the “honour” cards and are followed in rank by the number cards in descending order:

(highest) A K Q J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 (lowest)

The auction ends with three consecutive passes.

At this point you move on to the second phase of the game, the play.

When the auction ends, each player takes on a specific role. The pair trying to make the contract are the declaring side, the pair trying to “set” the contract are the defenders.

On the declaring side are the declarer and the dummy. The declarer is the player who first bid the denomination of the final bid. The declarer decides what card is played from their hand and the dummy hand (partner’s hand).

The first card played to each trick is called the lead. The defender to the left of the declarer must make the first lead on each deal. This is called the opening lead.

Immediately following the opening lead, the dummy will put all their cards on the table face up and sorted by suit (when playing in a trump contract, the trump suit is placed on dummy’s right). The declarer will “call” the card that dummy will play each time it is dummy’s turn in the rotation. The dummy is silent and may only play the card called.

Once all four cards have been played to the first trick, the winner of the trick gets to make the lead to the next trick. This will be the case for each trick in the deal. You win the trick, you lead to the next trick.

After all 13 tricks have been played, the only thing left to do is record the score.

When discussing Bridge scores, they are generally referred to in terms of plus and minus. Bridge scoring can be a lot to take in at first and is not something to spend much time on at the beginning of the learning process – luckily most Bridge clubs use electronic scoring to tabulate the score at each table which leaves the new player to concentrate on playing and bidding.

There are two main categories of Bridge scoring: duplicate and rubber scoring. While based upon the same basic elements of scoring, they differ in how the elements are applied to individual deals and in how these are then totalled. Rubber Bridge is heavily dependent on plus scores. In the world of duplicate, -50 could be the winning ticket as your score is compared to all the other pairs who are playing that same board during the session.

There are two levels of scoring, part scores and bonus levels which include games and slams. If you manage to defeat the contract as a defending side – you earn points for each “under trick”.