The Players
A game of bridge is played by four players sitting at a square table. By convention, the players' positions are identified by the four cardinal points of the compass: North, East, South and West. The players who are sitting across from each other (i.e. North-South and East-West) form a partnership.
About the Cards
Bridge is played with a deck of 52 cards (take out the jokers). There are four suits in the deck: clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades. Each suit has 13 cards. In bridge, the highest card in each suit is the ace, followed by the king, the queen and so on, all the way down to the deuce, which is the lowest card in the suit.
Dealing the Cards
Select a dealer. This person distributes the cards face down, in clockwise rotation one at a time, until each player at the table has a hand consisting of 13 cards. After the play of each deal is completed, the opportunity to deal moves around the table clockwise so that each player has a turn to deal out the cards.
The Play
The play of a deal takes place in two phases. The first phase is the auction, or bidding, in which each player in turn has the opportunity to make a bid on behalf of his/her partnership. As explained below, a bid specifies the minimum number of tricks that the partnerships commits to winning in the second phase, plus the suit (if any) that will serve as the trump suit. After the auction is over, the second phase begins, which consists of the actual play of the cards. During each round of play, called a trick, one card is played from each player's hand. Thus a trick contains four cards, one contributed by each player. The player who wins the trick plays the first card of the next trick. The play ends after all 13 tricks have been played.
The Auction
During the auction each player, starting from the dealer and following a clockwise order, is given in turn the opportunity to make a bid. At his/her turn, a player can pass or make an actual bid. As mentioned above, a bid specifies the minimum number of tricks that the player and his/her partner commit to winning when the cards are played. By convention, six tricks (the so-called declarer's book) are implicitly added to the number of tricks that is actually bid. Thus the number of tricks that can be legally bid ranges from one (which is a commitment to taking at least seven tricks) to seven (which is a commitment to taking all thirteen tricks). Additionally, each bid must specify which suit will have the role of trump suit during the play, or if the deal will be played with no trump suit. Thus a “1 Heart” bid is a commitment by the partnership to winning at least seven tricks with hearts being the trump suit, and a “3 No Trump (NT)” bid is a commitment to winning at least nine tricks without a trump suit. Bidding takes place in an auction format, which means that each bid (other than “Pass”) must be higher than the last one. In this context, higher means: (a) a larger number of tricks, or (b) the same number of tricks, but in a higher-ranking denomination. For bidding purposes, denominations are ranked in the following ascending order:
- Clubs (lowest)
- Diamonds
- Hearts
- Spades
- No trump (highest)
For example, the minimum allowable bid after “1 Heart” is “1 Spade”; however, a player may elect to make any bid that is higher than the allowable minimum. Two other bids are possible: “Double” and “Re-double”. These bids affect only how the deal is scored after the play is over. While learning the basics of bridge, these bids can be ignored and their explanation can be deferred to a later time. The auction ends when three consecutive players pass (except on the first round of bidding, when every player must get a chance to bid). At the end of the auction the last actual bid becomes the contract, as the partnership that made it (the declaring side) is now committed to fulfilling it in the play of the cards. The player on the declaring side who first made a bid in the denomination of the final contract becomes declarer (this means that declarer is not necessarily the player who made the winning bid). The other partnership (the defending side) will try to set the contract by holding the declaring side to fewer tricks than they contracted for.
The Play of the Cards
The play of the cards is started by the defending side. The player at the left of declarer makes the opening lead by placing one of his cards face up on the table. After the opening lead has been made, declarer's partner becomes dummy. Dummy uncovers his hand by laying his cards face up on the table so that the other players can see them. From this point on, the play of dummy's cards is directed by declarer, who calls out which of dummy's cards should be played at dummy's turn. Dummy plays no further active role in the play of the deal, and his actions are restricted to physically handling his cards as they are called out by declarer. After the first card has been led, the other players in turn play one of their cards in clockwise order, until a total of four cards have been played, one contributed by each player. It is a basic rule in the play of the cards that every player who can must follow suit, that is, he must play a card of the same suit as the one that was played first, if this is possible. Only if a player is void (i.e. has no cards) in that suit, can he play a card in another suit: in that case, he has complete discretion about what card to play. The four cards that have been played make up a trick, which is won by the player who played the highest card in the suit that was led, unless one or more trump cards have been played, in which case the trick is won by the player who played the highest trump card (obviously this cannot happen in a notrump contract). The player who wins the trick plays the first card of the next trick, and he is free to lead another suit if he so desires (i.e. there is no obligation to keep playing the same suit that was led in the trick just completed). The play ends after all 13 tricks have been played.
Scoring
After the play of a deal is over, each pair is awarded a score that depends in part on the type of bridge game being played. In all cases, the major factor that affects the score is whether the contract was made or set, that is, whether or not the declaring side won at least the number of tricks stated in the contract. Scoring of the most common types of bridge games is outlined in the next chapter.