Bridge · Complete guide
Bridge: how to play contract bridge, and how to get good at it
An auction, a contract and thirteen tricks to prove it. The deepest card game there is, and the bidding is a language you can spend a lifetime learning.
Bridge is a partnership trick-taking game played in two halves. First an auction, in which the partnerships bid for the right to name trumps and commit to a number of tricks. Then the play, in which one side tries to make that contract and the other tries to break it.
The play is no harder than any trick-taking game: follow suit, highest card or highest trump wins, count your winners before trick one. What makes bridge bridge is the auction. You may not speak to your partner, so every bid has to carry information as well as compete — and an entire vocabulary of conventional meanings has grown up to make that possible.
The modern game exists because of one change. Until 1925, you scored for every trick you took, so bidding barely mattered. Harold Vanderbilt's rule that only the tricks you have contracted for count towards game turned describing your hand accurately into the central skill, and created the game played today.
It is also the most measurable: in duplicate bridge every table plays the same deals, so the luck of the cards is removed almost entirely and your score is how well you played what everybody else also held.
How to play
The auction, the contract, dummy and thirteen tricks — plus what a game is worth, why vulnerability changes everything, and the difference between rubber and duplicate.
Where it comes from
From eighteenth-century whist to Russian Whist's dummy, auction bridge, and the 1925 scoring change that created the modern game — then Culbertson, Goren and a world championship.
- Bridge descends from whist, which had no bidding at all.
- Biritch, or Russian Whist, introduced the exposed dummy and a chosen trump suit in the 1880s.
- Auction bridge (1904) added bidding, but scored tricks whether or not they were bid.
- Harold Vanderbilt's 1925 contract scoring — only bid tricks count — created the modern game.
How to win
Point count and opening bids for beginners, Stayman, transfers and declarer planning for intermediates, and counting the hand, endplays, squeezes and the Law of Total Tricks for advanced players.
- Count your tricks before playing to trick one — winners in no trumps, losers in a suit contract.
- Use the 4-3-2-1 point count; about 25 combined points is the target for game.
- Finding an eight-card major fit is the main job of the auction.
- Learn Stayman, transfers, Blackwood and the takeout double before any other conventions.
Common questions
Is bridge hard to learn?
The play is straightforward — you can play a full deal after one session. The bidding is where the difficulty lies, because bids carry conventional meanings, and that part rewards years of study.
How many points do you need to open?
Twelve high-card points is the standard minimum, counting ace 4, king 3, queen 2, jack 1. About 25 combined points is the usual target for a game contract.
What does a bid of 4 hearts mean?
That you will win ten tricks — four over the book of six — with hearts as trumps. All bids are expressed as tricks over six.
What is the dummy?
The declarer's partner, whose hand is laid face up after the opening lead. Declarer plays both hands; dummy takes no decisions.
What is the difference between rubber and duplicate bridge?
In rubber bridge you play the cards you are dealt and luck matters. In duplicate every table plays the same deals and you are scored against everyone who held your cards, so skill dominates.
Guides
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