How to Draw Your Opponents’ Trumps in Bridge
To draw trumps from your opponents’ hands in a game of bridge, play your higher trumps early on in the hand. Drawing trumps allows you to take your winning tricks in peace, without fear of your opponents [more…]
How to Divide Trump Suits in Bridge
Depending on how the trump cards are divided in a hand of bridge, you approach the game in different ways. Keep in mind that if you have eight or more cards in a suit between your hand and the dummy, particularly [more…]
How to Recognize Bridge Losers
When you play a bridge hand at a trump contract, you count losers and extra winners. Losers are tricks you know you have to lose. For example, if neither you nor your partner hold the ace in a suit, you [more…]
How to Identify Extra Winners in Bridge
When you play a bridge hand at a trump contract, you count losers and extra winners. An extra winner is a winning trick in the dummy (North), upon which you can discard a loser from your own hand [more…]
How to Trump in the Short Hand in Bridge
When you trump your loser(s) in the dummy, you’re usually trumping in the hand that has fewer trumps. For that reason, the dummy is called the short hand [more…]
How to Draw Trumps before Taking Extra Winners in Bridge
If you have enough tricks to make your contract in a hand of bridge, draw trumps (force your opponents to play their trump cards) before taking extra winners. By drawing trumps, your opponents can’t swoop [more…]
Taking Extra Winners before Drawing Trumps in Bridge
When you have more immediate losers in your bridge hand than you can afford to make your contract, but you also have an extra winner, use that extra winner immediately before you give up the lead in the [more…]
How to Establish Extra Winners in the Dummy in Bridge
To establish extra winners in a hand of bridge, a suit must be unequally divided, with the greater length (more cards) in the dummy. If you can create extra winners in the dummy, you’re on your way to [more…]
How to Finesse for Extra Winners in Bridge
When playing at a trump contract in bridge, you can take a finesse to create extra winners. You need the following in your hand and the dummy to take a finesse and establish extra winners: [more…]
How to Make Your Bridge Contract with Extra Winners
In bridge, you need to look at a hand and determine whether you need to create any extra winners to make your contract. Count your losers (in your hand and the dummy’s), suit by suit, and determine whether [more…]
Turning Small Cards into Winning Tricks in Bridge
Whenever the dummy presents you with a five- or six-card side suit, you may have a chance to turn one or more of the small cards in that side suit into winning tricks. What you have to do is play the suit [more…]
Bridge: Setting Up a Long Suit with a Finesse
When you’re missing a critical high card in the dummy’s long suit in a hand of bridge, usually a king, you may have to rely on a finesse. A finesse involves leading from weakness to strength, trying to [more…]
How to Take Bridge Tricks in Long Suits
In bridge, trump cards can prove invaluable when you need to establish the dummy’s long side suit. Tiny trumps can fell your opponents’ aces, kings, and queens in the suit you’re establishing. You can [more…]
Bridge: Make a Grand Slam by Establishing a Long Suit
Establishing a suit in bridge may seem like a ton of work, but the rewards can be great. You may even accomplish a grand slam (taking all 13 tricks) by establishing a side suit. The risks when bidding [more…]
How to Play Bridge Online
You're never without a bridge partner if you play online. The Internet provides a vital forum for bridge players all over the world. Currently, you can find hundreds of bridge-related websites that offer [more…]
Bridge: Playing Third Hand against a Trump Contract
Regardless of your bridge partner's opening lead, you want to be prepared when it comes your turn to play third hand, which means that you're the third person to play to the trick. You need to know what [more…]
How to Make Your Contract in Bridge
Bridge scoring revolves around the final contract (as determined by the bidding) and the number of tricks actually taken by the side buying the contract. If your final contract is 3, your goal is to win [more…]
How to Chart Your Bridge Points
If you don’t want to keep your bridge points tallied in your head, you can use this chart instead. Just look up your bridge tally on this chart instead of fooling with a bunch of math every time you need [more…]
How to Score Doubled Contracts in Bridge
You can double a contract if your opponents arrive at a final contract that either you or your partner think is just too high. For example, if the opponents bid 7NT [more…]
How to Score Redoubled Contracts in Bridge
Some players treat a penalty double in a hand of bridge as a personal insult. Those players are prone to say, “Redouble” (“I double-dare you”), quadrupling the stakes! When a contract is redoubled and [more…]
How to Handle Penalties in Bridge
If you don’t make your contract in bridge, you’re penalized when it comes to reckoning time at the end of the hand. Penalties consist of points you give to the other team for not taking enough tricks in [more…]
How to Score Slams in Bridge
Slam contracts in bridge give you immediate bonuses. Bidding to the six level (a small slam) or bidding to the seven level (a grand slam) is exciting and also perilous. Bidding to the six level means that [more…]
How to Play Second Hand with the Dummy on Your Left in Bridge
When the dummy is on your left in a hand of bridge, you can see what’s in the hand that plays after you do. So, if you’re playing second hand (the second person to play) and the dummy is visible, you usually [more…]
Bridge: Playing Second Hand with the Dummy on Your Right
In bridge, when the dummy is on your right and leads a suit, you’re second to play, so you play second hand. You can use some clever strategies to play a smart second hand defense. Obviously, following [more…]
How to Score a Bridge Rubber
In bridge, to make game, you need to score 100 points. The first team to score game twice wins the rubber. Scoring in bridge is a cumulative process that takes in several factors when you play an actual [more…]
