How to Play Bridge

Want to learn how to play bridge? The bridge card game continues to gain popularity. A trick-taking game, a game of Bridge requires at least three players. A bridge deck is used. During play, each suit falls into rank, with spades taking the top spot, followed by hearts, diamonds, and clubs. Aces are high; twos are at the bottom. Want to learn how to play? Follow these rules.

Shuffle, Cut, Deal
To begin play, one player spreads a shuffled deck face down. Each player selects one card. The four cards at each end of the deck may not be selected. The player with the highest card deals. The person with the next highest card is the dealer's partner and sits across from her.

The player to the dealer's left shuffles the cards and sets them to the dealer's left. The player on the dealer's right cuts the deck, and the dealer completes the cut. Now, the dealer gives each player 13 cards, one at a time. The player on the dealer's left receives cards first.

Call, Pass, Bid
Players arrange cards by suit and then, let the bidding war begin. The dealer makes the first call, which can be a pass, a bid, a double, or a redouble.

• If a player cannot bid, double, or redouble, she passes. What happens if all players pass in the first round? The next dealer deals a new hand.
• A player bids a number of tricks, which must be more than six, he expects to win. The player names the trump suit only when she wins the bid. For example, a two hearts bid is a bid to win six tricks with hearts as trump. A no trump bid, where no trump suit is named, may be bid with a low bid of one and a high bid of seven. Bids either must be a greater number of odd tricks then the previous bid or be equal to the previous bid but in a higher suit.
• Any player may double the bid the preceding bid made by an opponent.
• A player may redouble a bid made by his teammate and doubled by an opponent.
• The final bid becomes the contract when bidding is closed. The player who first bid the suit won in the contract is the declarer. The partner becomes a dummy; opposing players are defenders.

Play
A trick is when each player plays one card. The first card, or lead, may be any suit, and other hands must follow suit, if possible. Otherwise, any card can be played.

Once the lead is played, the dummy hand is laid out in suits. Each suit vertically arranged. The trump suit is on the declarer's left.

To win a trick, the hand playing the highest trump wins. If no trump is played, the highest card of the suit led wins. The player that wins a trick leads the next trick. The declarer plays both his cards and the dummy's hand.

Scoring
After the last trick is played, each side counts tricks earned. Trick scores are noted below the line on the score sheet. Premium scores are placed above the line. A team wins when they score 100 or more points below the line.

Other premium scoring opportunities:

• Odd tricks exceeding the contract are overtricks and are added to the declarer's premium score.
• Honors, totaling 100 premium points, are given to a player that has four of the five trump - ace, king, queen, jack, ten. Holding all five cards results in 150 points.

The team that wins the first game is termed vulnerable. If they win the second game, the team wins a bonus for the rubber. At the end of the second game, rubber ends. Vulnerable may receive a penalty if it doesn't meet future bids.