How do you play Bridge?

How do you play bridge?

• I've heard it is one of the hardest card games to play and I want to know how to play it.

• Answer:

  Learning to be an expert bridge player takes many years of practice. The basic rules are fairly simple, but the tactics and strategies take time to learn and master. Very simply: You need 4 players and one pack of standard playing cards. The players play as two partnerships who sit opposite each other - North & South and East & West. All the cards are dealt, so that each player holds 13 cards. Each player sorts the cards into their suits - Spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs. Before the "bidding" begins each player adds up the number of points in their hand. Counting 4 for each ace held, 3 for each king, 2 for each queen and 1 for each jack. There are 40 points in total. Working clockwise round the table, each player must decide whether to open the bidding (which you do if you hold 12 or more points) or pass. If a player passes, the next player has to decide if they can open the bidding. Bids progress around the table, with each bid telling your partner something about the number of points and the distribution of the cards in your hand. The aim is to agree a "contract" which says that you and your partner believe you can win the number of "tricks" that you bid for. Bids can either be in a suit or in "No Trumps" (NT). A suit bid means you want to use that suit as trumps, no trumps means what it says! Once the contract is agreed, the person who first bid the suit (or NT) that is used becomes the declarer. Their partner becomes the "dummy" and takes no further part in the game. Each player in turns plays a card, starting with the person to the left of the declarer. Declarer plays both their own hand and the dummy hand. Each person must follow suit if they can. If they can't they can throw away a card, or use a card from the trump suit (unless playing in NT) to win the "trick". The partnership win if they make or exceed the number of tricks bid for. For example, a bid of 3 Hearts means you think you can win 9 tricks. The first 6 tricks don't form part of the bid. Those are the basics. You can read more by going to the link below.