Bridge Articles

Article / Updated 10-27-2023

In bridge, bidding is an exchange of information. During bidding, you're trying to telegraph details about your cards to your partner. Your first impulse may be to develop some special bidding conventions that only you and your partner know. According to the rules of the game, however, you can't have any bidding secrets with your partner; the same goes for your opponents. So even though the opponents may be bidding their heads off, you at least will know what their bids mean. Here are some tips to help you keep your bidding on the straight and narrow: Do try to use the minimum number of words possible when you bid. If you want to pass, say just one word: "Pass." If you want to bid 3♣, say "Three clubs." No more, no less. Do be careful about how you use your voice. You may be tempted to bid softly if you have a weak hand or loudly if you have a strong one. Remember to keep all your bids at the same decibel level. Don't use body language. If your partner makes a bid you don't like, don't throw any looks across the table and don't use any negative body language. If your partner makes a bid that you do like, you also must refrain from any telltale signs of glee. Don't give in to emotional reactions or breakdowns, no matter what happens during the bidding. Bridge is too great a game to mess it up with illegal signals, so keep an even keel.

Article / Updated 10-27-2023

This handy table for bridge players shows how many points you score if you make your contract. Your bridge score depends upon which suit you end up in (including notrump) and how many tricks you take. For example, if spades are trumps and you bid for eight tricks and you take exactly eight tricks, read across the spade line to see that you scored 60 points. If you don't make your contract, you don't have to worry about this table because you don't score any points, the opponents do! Note: Game = 100 points. There are bonuses for bidding and for making 100 points or more on one hand. Tricks Taken 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Notrump 40 70 100 130 160 190 220 Spades 30 60 90 120 150 180 210 Hearts 30 60 90 120 150 180 210 Diamonds 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 Clubs 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

Article / Updated 10-27-2023

In bridge, bidding is considered the most important aspect of the game. It's a given that a good bidder equals a winning bridge player. Here are a few bidding tips to start you off: Before opening, add your high card points (HCP): Ace = 4, King = 3, Queen = 2, Jack = 1. With 12 or more HCP, open the bidding. To open 1♥ or 1♠, you need at least five cards in the suit. With two five-card suits, open in the higher-ranking suit first. The rank of the suits, from highest to lowest, is spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs. With two four-card suits, one a major (hearts or spades), one a minor (diamonds or clubs), open in the minor. With two four-card minors, open 1♦. Open 1NT with 15 to 17 HCP plus a balanced hand (no voids, singletons, or two doubletons). If your partner opens, pass with fewer than 6 HCP. With 6 or more HCP, bid your longest suit at the one level, if possible. Responding at the two level in a new suit requires 11 or more HCP. A response of 1NT shows 6 to 10 HCP and denies a four-card major if your partner opens 1♣ or 1♦. Supporting your partner's first bid major suit requires three or more cards in the suit; supporting any second bid suit requires four or more cards in the suit. A primary objective in bidding is to locate an eight-card or longer major suit fit between your hand and your partner's.

Article / Updated 10-27-2023

Each hand of bridge is divided into four phases, which always occur in the same order: dealing, bidding for tricks, playing the hand, and scoring. Dealing Someone (anyone) shuffles the deck, and then each player takes one card and places it face-up on the table. The player with the highest card is the dealer. He shuffles the cards and hands them to the player to his right, who cuts them and returns them to the dealer. The cards are dealt one at a time, starting with the player to the dealer's left and moving in a clockwise rotation until each player has 13 cards. Bidding for tricks In this phase, players bid for the number of tricks they think they can take. (It's like being at an auction.) Because each player has 13 cards, 13 tricks must be fought over and won in each hand. The bidding starts with the dealer and moves to his left in a clockwise rotation. Each player gets a chance to bid, and a player can either bid or pass when it's his turn. The least you can bid is for seven tricks, and the maximum you can bid is for all 13. The bidding goes around and around the table, with each player either bidding or passing until three players in a row say "Pass" after some bid has been made. Playing the hand The player who buys the contract, determined by the bidding, is called the declarer. The declarer is the one who will play the hand. The player seated to the left of the declarer puts down the first card face up in the middle of the table; this is the opening lead. The play moves clockwise. The next player, the dummy, places her cards face-up on the table in four vertical rows, one row for each suit, and completely bows out of the action. In other words, only three people are playing. Once the lead is on the table, the declarer plays any card from dummy in the suit that was led; third hand does the same, and fourth hand, the declarer, also does the same. Whoever has played the highest card in the suit wins the trick and leads any card in any suit desired to the next trick. The same process goes on for all 13 tricks. The rule is you have to follow suit if you have a card in the suit that has been led. If you don't have a card in that suit, you can throw away (discard) any card you wish from another suit, usually some worthless card. After 13 tricks have been played, each team counts up the number of tricks it has won. Scoring After the smoke clears and the tricks are counted, you know soon enough whether the declarer's team made its contract by taking at least the number of tricks they bid. You then register the score. The deal moves in a clockwise manner; the player to the left of the person who has dealt the previous hand deals the next one.

Article / Updated 10-27-2023

In the following example, you can see the bids each bridge player makes during a sample bidding sequence. You don’t see the cards on which each player bases his or her bid — they aren’t important for now. Just follow the bidding around the table, noting how each bid is higher than the one before it. Assume that you’re in the South position. South (You) West North (Your Partner) East 1♥ Pass 2♣ 2♦ 3♣ 3♦ 4♥ Pass Pass Pass After your opening 1♥ bid, West passes and your partner (North) bids 2♣. East joins in with a bid of 2♦, a bid that is higher than 2♣. When it’s your turn to bid again, you show support for your partner’s clubs by bidding 3♣. Then West comes to life and supports East’s diamonds by bidding 3♦. Your partner (don’t forget your partner) chimes in with 4♥, a bid that silences everybody. Both East and West decide to pass, just as they would at an auction when the bidding gets too rich for their blood. It has been a somewhat lively auction, and your side has bought the contract with your partner’s 4♥ bid, which means you need to take ten tricks to make your contract. (Remember, a book — six tricks — is automatically added to the bid.) If you don’t make your contract, the opponents score penalty points and you get zilch. The final contract of 4♥ also designates hearts as the trump suit. Keep in mind the following points about the bidding sequence: Each bid made is higher ranking than the previous bid. A player can pass on the first round and bid later (as West did), or a player can bid on the first round and pass later (as East did). After a bid has been made and three players in a row pass, the bidding is over.

Article / Updated 10-20-2023

Sorry to break the news to you, but as yet no one has come up with software that can play bridge at an expert level. However, the quality of the software continues to improve. The beginner bridge programs give you a chance to practice your bidding, card play, and defense without risking the embarrassment of an angry partner. A computer program allows an additional benefit: You can always have the last word by simply quitting the program! Computer bridge programs, like everything else to do with computers, change fast enough to make your head spin. You can find many new bridge programs wherever you buy software online. Learn to Play Bridge with Audrey Grant Learn to Play Bridge with Audrey Grant is for the absolute beginner. Grant, a top international instructor, reads the lessons while you focus on the hands and the colorful graphics. The software includes 29 interactive quizzes and a progress screen to track your results. Introduction to Bridge: Play & Learn with Pat Harrington Pat Harrington offers two programs in easy-to-use interactive lessons, starting with the absolute basics in lessons 1 to 6 and progressing to topics such as rebids, takeout doubles, preempts, and more in lessons 7 to 13. Learn Bridge CD Learn Bridge uses video, sound, and animation to present 40 interactive lessons on basics, bidding, and defense. It comes with an unlimited number of practice quizzes for players at the beginner or intermediate level. Learn to Play Bridge I & II The Learn to Play Bridge series includes two programs, and both are available as free downloads through the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL). The first program is a comprehensive course in bridge, designed for people who have never played but want to learn the game. The second program takes the beginner to the intermediate level. Both of the Learn to Play Bridge programs contain excellent graphics and hundreds of quizzes and other interactive exercises. These programs are a fun and effective way to study the game. They were written by Fred Gittelman, a world-class player and a world-class programmer. Note: The programs are available for Windows only.

Article / Updated 06-08-2023

If you can generate extra tricks in bridge by trumping your losers in the dummy, you may think that you can generate extra tricks by trumping the dummy’s losers in your hand. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. For a moment, turn things around and think about trumping a loser in your hand — the long hand. Let’s put this theory into practice. Assume that hearts is your trump suit. You want to draw trump, so you play ♥AKQ, removing all your opponents’ trump cards. You remain with ♥J2, both of which are winners. You score five heart tricks. Agreed? Now see what happens if your opponents lead a suit that you don’t have and you trump the lead with your ♥2. You remain with the ♥AKQJ, four tricks, plus the deuce you have already used. Same five trump tricks. Trumping with the ♥2 in the long hand doesn’t give you an extra trick. But if you can manage to trump a loser in the dummy, the short hand, you still have five winning heart tricks in your hand plus the ruff (trump) in the dummy. Six trump tricks!

Article / Updated 08-03-2022

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 at least nine tricks and clubs are trump, the “wild” suit. If you take exactly nine tricks, you make your contract. If you take ten tricks, you have made your contract plus an extra trick, called an overtrick. In bridge, as the side buying the contract, you score points only if you make your contract or if you make your contract with overtrick(s). Overtricks score points for your side but don’t contribute toward completing a game contract of 100 or more points. To calculate the number of tricks you need to take to fulfill your final contract, add six to the number, or level, of the bid. For example, if your final contract is 5♠, you need to take 11 tricks to make your contract (5 + 6 = 11). If you don’t make your contract, the bad guys (the opponents) rack up penalty points and your side gets nada for your efforts. For example, if you take eight tricks in your contract of 3, you would be one trick short of making your contract (and concede one undertrick); your opponents would get to add points to their score. Your goal on every hand is to make your contract; overtricks are icing on the cake, and undertricks, though inevitable, are something you try to avoid. Understanding the importance of bidding in bridge In bridge, the pressure is on the partnership that gets (or buys) the final contract — that side has to win the number of tricks it contracts for. If the partnership fails to win that number of tricks, penalty points are scored by the opponents. If the partnership takes at least the number of tricks it has contracted for, it then scores points. In addition to determining how many tricks a partnership needs to fulfill the contract, the bidding also determines the following: The declarer and the dummy for the hand: For the partnership that buys the final contract, the bidding determines who plays the hand for the partnership (the declarer) and who gets to watch (the dummy). The number of tricks the partnership needs to make the final contract: Each bid is like a stepping stone to the number of tricks that a partnership thinks it can take. The goal of the partnership that buys the final contract is to take at least the number of tricks contracted for. The trump suit (if the hand has one): Depending on the cards held by the partnership that winds up playing the hand, there may be a trump suit (or the bidding may end in a notrump contract). Proper bidding also allows the partners to exchange information about the strength (the number of high-card points) and distribution of their cards. Through bidding, you and your partner can tell each other which long suits you have and perhaps in which suits you have honor cards (aces, kings, queens, jacks, and 10s). Based on the information exchanged during the bidding, the partnership has to decide how many tricks it thinks it can take. The partnership with the greater combined high-card strength usually winds up playing the hand. The declarer (the one who plays the hand) tries to take the number of tricks (or more) that his side has contracted for. The opponents, on the other hand, do their darndest to prevent the declarer from winning those tricks. Partnerships exchange vital information about the makeup of their hands through a bidding system. Because you can’t tell your partner what you have in plain English, you have to use a legal bridge bidding system. Think of it as a foreign language in which every bid you make carries some message. Although you can’t say to your partner, “Hey, partner, I have seven strong hearts but only one ace and one king,” an accurate bidding system can come close to describing such a hand. The bidding (or auction) consists of only the permitted bids; you don’t get to describe your hand by using facial expressions, kicking your partner under the table, or punching him in the nose. Your partner must also understand the conventional significance of your bids to make sense of what you’re trying to communicate about your hand and to know how to respond properly. If not, it’s the Tower of Babel all over again! Of course, everyone at the table hears your bid and everyone else’s bid at the table. No secrets are allowed. Your opponents are privy to the same information your bid tells your partner. Similarly, by listening to your opponents’ bidding, you get a feel for the cards that your opponents have (their strength and distribution). You can then use this information to your advantage when the play of the hand begins. Bridge authorities agree that bidding is the most important aspect of the game. Using a simple system and making clear bids is the key to getting to the proper contract and racking up the points. Bidding incorrectly (giving your partner a bum steer) leads to lousy contracts, which, in turn, lets your opponents rack up the points when you fail to make your contract. Of course, you have to know how to take the tricks you contracted for, or else even the most beautiful contracts in the world lead nowhere. Not to worry; the play-of-the-hand techniques can help pull you through.

Article / Updated 05-23-2022

When you get hooked on the game, you may want to reach out for bridge information. Here’s some help! Keep reading for ten great references and resources that you may find handy. The American Contract Bridge League Joining the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) is a must-do. The ACBL is an excellent source of information about current events in the bridge community. The league can help you find bridge clubs throughout the country as well as locate local and national tournaments all over America. At times it even offers sanctioned bridge cruises at sea. The ACBL also maintains a fabulous website with a wealth of information for new players. Bridge Bulletin is the official publication of the ACBL and is worth many times more than the yearly dues. The magazine includes a special “New Players Section” as well as sections for intermediate and advanced players with monthly articles by various bridge writers, including yours truly. Membership is $29 for the first year. After that, membership runs $39 per year or $111 for three years. If you are 26 years old or younger, membership costs only $15 per year. (The ACBL encourages younger players as much as it can.) You can contact the ACBL by phone at 662-253-3100. Your local bridge club The local bridge club is a great place to go when you’re starting out with bridge. Clubs offer all kinds of enticements, including beginning and intermediate lessons, but best of all you can get together and play with people who are at approximately your skill level. Nothing can supplant actual play for gaining experience. Suddenly the books you read make more sense because you actually experience what you read about. Visit the ACBL website for more information about how to contact bridge clubs in your area. Adult education classes Some adult schools offer bridge classes at modest prices and give you an opportunity to meet newer bridge players like yourself. Check your local high school or parks and recreation department for adult education classes in your area. You may get lucky. Your local library and bookstore Most libraries have a reasonable selection of bridge books, and borrowing a book is cheaper than buying one, especially if you’re just starting out with the game. Of course, your local bookstore also may have the latest bridge books if you want one of your own. The Daily bridge column in your newspaper Some people who don’t even play bridge read the bridge columns because they’re amusing. A good column is informative, instructive, and entertaining. The major bridge columnists usually come through on all three counts. Here are four good bets, in no particular order (they’re all winners): “Bridge” by Frank Stewart “Goren on Bridge” by Tannah Hirsch “The Aces on Bridge” by Bobby Wolff “Bridge” by Steve Becker Shop around in other major newspapers if you can’t find the column you want to read in your regular newspaper. Bridge magazines Some of the information in the following magazines may go a tad over your head until you have played a little bridge, but all of them offer articles for beginners. Bridge Bulletin This fabulous magazine comes from the ACBL. The Bridge World The Bridge World is the granddaddy of all bridge publications and is the most respected bridge publication in the world. Unfortunately, the magazine is aimed primarily at advanced players. However, don’t despair; The Bridge World offers information for players of all levels, including beginners, at its website. You can contact The Bridge World at the website or email [email protected] for current subscription information. Better Bridge by Audrey Grant Audrey Grant, a top international instructor, offers a bi-monthly 24-page magazine. Each issue is full of useful information brought to you by the world’s best players and writers. Many up-to-date tips will have you playing better bridge. The price is $29. Check out BaronBarclay.com or phone 800-274-2221 for more information. Bridge software programs Many excellent teaching programs are available for the computer. The internet You can surf the Net to find all kinds of bridge information and to play bridge online. By the way, kantarbridge.com, is loaded with tips, quizzes, books, travel plans, and even a section on bridge humor. Check it out. Bridge supply sites Want a bridge book, bridge software, or a bridge-related gift? Here are a couple of proven suggestions for obtaining these items. Baron Barclay Bridge Supplies 3600 Chamberlain Ln., #206 Louisville, KY 40241 Phone: 800-274-2221 You can ask for a free catalog before you make any command decisions. Amazon.com also offers many bridge-related items, including books, cards, special bidding boxes, and other useful paraphernalia to enhance your game. Bridge travel Would you like to go on a bridge cruise? Would you like to spend a week at a beautiful five-star hotel and be surrounded with bridge activities? Read on. Bridge instruction on cruise ships Cruise ships offer an unequaled opportunity to immerse yourself in bridge activities. Many major cruise ships set sail with a bridge teacher on board. When the ship is at sea, you get a lesson in the morning and the chance to enter a friendly tournament in the afternoon. However, you can simply play bridge in the card room, if you prefer. Check with the cruise line you’re interested in to verify whether it offers a bridge program. Bridge tours Bridge tours offer great opportunities to play bridge to your heart’s content at some really great places. There are several travel agencies that deal specifically with bridge groups, but you can type “contract bridge tours” into your favorite search engine for more options. Liz Nixon’s World of Cruise and Travel Phone: 800-548-2789 Email: [email protected] Bridge Holidays with Roberta and Arnold Salob Phone 800-807-7009 Alice Travel Phone: 800-229-2542 Finesse West Tours Phone: 800-548-8062

Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-14-2022

Arguably, bridge is the greatest card game ever. Not only is it a lifelong friend, it also enables you to make lifelong friends because it's a partnership game. From the four phases of playing a bridge hand to some expert advice on bidding, get started with playing bridge and then refine your game to increase your chances of winning.