How to play bridge

The table: four players, two partnerships

Bridge is played by four people in two fixed partnerships, sitting opposite their partner. The seats are named after compass points: North and South are one side, East and West the other.

Hands are written down and discussed using those names, here and everywhere else.

During the auction you can't see your partner's cards, and you mustn't tell them anything by words, gesture or tone.

Everything you tell them, you tell them with bids, so partnerships agree in advance what their bids mean.

The deal, and what a hand is worth

A standard 52-card pack is dealt out, 13 cards each. Aces are high, and there are no jokers.

Nothing is left over; every card is in somebody's hand. As the play goes on, you can work out more and more about where the cards you can't see are.

Before you bid anything, you count what your hand is worth. The standard method is high card points, and it's simple:

• Ace = 4 points
• King = 3 points
• Queen = 2 points
• Jack = 1 point

There are 40 points in the pack, so an average hand holds 10.

Long suits are worth more than the raw count suggests: a five-card suit often takes tricks with cards that aren't honours at all. Many players add a point for a good one.

The number to remember is 25. A partnership holding about that much can usually make game.

Your job in the auction is largely to find out whether your side has it, and in which suit.

The auction: bidding for a contract

Starting with the dealer and moving clockwise, each player either passes or makes a bid. A bid is a number from 1 to 7 and a strain: one of the four suits, or notrump, meaning no trump suit at all.

The number counts the tricks over six.

So 1♥ promises seven tricks and 4♠ promises ten. The six is called the book.

Each bid must be higher than the last. The strains rank in a fixed order, lowest to highest: ♣ clubs, ♦ diamonds, ♥ hearts, ♠ spades, then notrump.

So 1♠ beats 1♥, and 2♣ beats both.

Hearts and spades are the majors; clubs and diamonds are the minors. The difference matters, because game in a major needs fewer tricks than game in a minor.

The auction ends when a bid is followed by three passes. The last bid becomes the contract.

Two other calls exist. Double says you think the opponents can't make their contract and increases the score either way. Redouble is the reply that says you disagree, and increases it further still.

Declarer, dummy, and the hand that gets laid out

On the side that won the auction, the player who first named the final strain is the declarer. Their partner becomes the dummy.

After the opening lead, dummy lays their entire hand face up on the table and takes no further part. Declarer plays both hands.

The play: thirteen tricks

The player to declarer's left leads first. The opening lead is made before dummy goes down, so the opening leader chooses it without seeing dummy. Play then proceeds clockwise.

1. You must follow suit. If a heart is led and you have any heart, you play one. Breaking this rule is a revoke, which carries a penalty.
2. If you can't follow suit, you may play anything: discard a card from another suit, or play a trump.
3. The trick is won by the highest trump played, or if no trump was played, by the highest card of the suit that was led.
4. The winner leads to the next trick. Repeat thirteen times.

In a notrump contract there are no trumps at all, so the highest card of the suit led always wins. Notrump contracts are about establishing long suits and counting winners; suit contracts are about controlling the hand with your trumps.

Scoring, and why 3NT is so common

If declarer wins at least as many tricks as the contract promised, the contract is made. If not, it goes down, and the defenders score instead.

The tricks bid and made are worth:

• 20 per trick in a minor (♣ or ♦)
• 30 per trick in a major (♥ or ♠)
• 40 for the first trick and 30 thereafter in notrump

Reaching 100 scores a large game bonus, and much of bidding is about getting there. The cheapest routes to it:

• 3NT: nine tricks (40 + 30 + 30).
• 4♥ or 4♠: ten tricks (4 × 30 = 120).
• 5♣ or 5♦: eleven tricks (5 × 20).

So 3NT is a very common contract: it needs nine tricks where a minor-suit game needs eleven.

Bidding and making all thirteen tricks is a grand slam; twelve is a small slam. Both carry large bonuses.

Finally, vulnerability rotates from deal to deal. A vulnerable side scores more for making a contract and loses more for failing, and it changes how much risk is worth taking.

What to learn next

Before learning conventions, learn to open the bidding and respond well. That comes up on every hand.

• The bidding cheat sheet: opening bids, responses and rebids, with the point ranges, on one page.
• A glossary of bridge terms, for the words you'll hear at the table.
• Stayman, a good first convention, played by almost every partnership.