The bidding
After having dealt the 52 cards one at a time, the dealer begins the bidding. During the bidding, the players choose the trump suit or decide to play in No Trump. It is also during the bidding that they fix the level of the final contract.
Each player may in turn bid a contract made of a level (from 1 to 7), and a trump suit or No Trump. You always have to bid a contract higher than the previous one, that is, either at a higher level, or at the same level but with a higher suit. The possible trump suits rank from lowest to highest in the following way:
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♣ (Clubs)
♦ (Diamonds)
♥ (Hearts)
♠ (Spades)
NT (No Trump)
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Suit ranks from the lowest (Clubs) to the highest (NT).
Thus, each player can overbid in turn. For example, after 1♠ you can bid 2♦, after which you can bid 2♥, etc. There may be as many rounds as necessary. As soon as a contract is followed by 3 Passes, the bidding ends. The last bid becomes the final contract, and the play can begin.
MAKING the contract or GOING DOWN
The team who bid the final contract had the advantage of fixing the trump suit (or choosing No Trump). But it also has a contract to make. It must win at least the number of tricks corresponding to the contract level. If it succeeds, it makes the contract and scores points accordingly. If it fails, which is called going down, some points are scored by the other team.
The player who first named the suit of the final contract is called the declarer. The player sitting to his left has the opening lead (he plays the first card). Once this first card is played (and not before), the declarer's partner lays his hand face up on the table. He is called the dummy. He doesn't play his cards himself any more. He plays cards as directed by declarer, his partner.
After the opening lead, dummy's cards are laid down face up.
Declarer controls two hands: dummy's one and his own.
When it is dummy's turn to play, the declarer calls the card he wants, and dummy must play it with no comment. If dummy wins the trick and gets the lead, the declarer must call a card from dummy to lead to the next trick. Note that dummy's cards can be seen by the three other players, which has a great influence on the tactics to adopt.
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If you have more or less understood the explanations of the previous paragraphs, you can already download SimiliBridge, and then practice on short prepared games specially designed for beginners who are starting to play. No other knowledge will be required to play and have fun on the Bridge - Beginner 1 page.
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Minibridge
The most complex part of Bridge is probably the bidding. In order to find the best contract to play, Bridge players have developed various bidding systems allowing partners to share information about for example their number of cards per suit, or the strength of their hands. Alas, these bidding systems are often rather difficult to understand for a beginner.
Fortunately, minibridge allows to play bridge immediately without having to learn any bidding system. Its rules are the same as Bridge, but it helps one player of each team, when it is his turn to bid, by giving him what is called the bidding slip:
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Bidding slip showing that partner has 4 Spades, 2 Hearts, 3 Clubs, 4 Diamonds, and 8 H points. |
So, the bidding slip directly gives part of the information one could get by using a complete bidding system. It displays:
- The number of cards held by partner in each suit
This piece of information allows to easily find a good trump suit (8 cards in the line is often considered as the minimum required). If no trump suit is suitable, the player may decide to play in No Trump.
- The number of H POINTS held by partner
The honor points (or H points) are part of a system used by most Bridge players to evaluate their hand. Some points are given to each of the four highest cards (Ace, King, Queen and Jack), allowing by adding them up to roughly evaluate the strength of a hand.
H points
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Ace = 4
King = 3
Queen = 2
Jack = 1
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So, the information about partner's H points allows to have some idea of the strength of his hand. By adding these points to his, the player knows the total of H points held by his team. Then, he can easily find the level recommended for his contract, by using the decision table well known by Bridge players:
Decision table
| Total of H points |
20 to 22 |
23 to 24 |
25 to 26 |
27 to 29 |
30 to 32 |
33 to 36 |
37 to 40 |
| Recommended level |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
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Of course, in SimiliBridge, all this information is displayed on screen. So, the beginner can find without too much effort an interesting contract, and take pleasure in playing the hand without having had to learn a single system bid.
But SimiliBridge allows also to gradually learn a simple bidding system, while getting the bidding slip each time the situations are too complicated for the only bids known so far. This process allows the beginner to enjoy himself by playing real games with cards dealt at random.
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If you have more or less understood the explanations about minibridge, you know enough to tackle the prepared games of the Bridge - Beginner 2 page. It is through practice that your knowledge will be strengthened, and above all through the pleasure you will have in bidding your first contracts and making them!
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Other little rules
- Bidding a small slam (12 tricks) or a grand slam (13 tricks) and making the contract yields many extra points.
- SimiliBridge proposes several types of games: Rubber Bridge (mostly played with the family or friends), game won by reaching a certain number of points (like in Belote), or game won after a fixed number of deals (like in tournaments).
- In club tournaments, it is duplicate Bridge that prevails: the same deal is played by different teams and their respective scores are compared, which allows to decide on the best one. The luck element is then much weaker than the playing skills.
A few hints to make a good start
For the bidding
- In minibridge, count your honor points precisely, and trust the decision table. It does not guarantee the success of the recommended contract, but it is rarely wrong.
- Check your first system bids rapidly, to start to enjoy the bidding as well. Follow carefully the point ranges indicated (displayed by tooltips in SimiliBridge), and trust the system. It has proved its worth.
For the playing
- Draw the opponents' trumps if your are the declarer. Count the trumps held by the other side (there are 13 trumps in all).
- Don't rush to play your winning cards. In Bridge, the risk of an immediate or quick ruff is very weak (there are 13 cards per suit), and it is rarely urgent to cash an Ace.
- Make a game plan every time you can. Bridge, with dummy's cards laid on the table, allows to build an attack or defense plan, so as to avoid playing at random.
- Check rapidly the techniques of Playing 2 and Playing 3 described in SimiliBridge. They are easy to understand (some help pages will explain them to you), and they will make you progress very fast.
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If you have understood the basic principle of the game, feel free to download SimiliBridge, a Bridge (and Minibridge) card game in free full unlimited version that will allow you to play against the computer quietly. All the rules are detailed in its help pages. The program and the help pages are all in English, with multilingual support for the menus and dialog boxes (Spanish, Italian, German).
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Playing Minibridge with SimiliBridge (MB button pushed). Note the tooltips
of the bidding box that will help you to make a bid.
Direct link to this page, that you are free to use:
https://vincent-brevart.fr/en/reg/bridge-card-game-rules.html
