Bridge is a card game played with a deck of 52 cards, no Jokers. There are 4 players at a table. Each player is referred to as North, East, South and West, depending upon where they sit at the table. North-South players sit opposite each other and are a team or partnership. They play against the East-West pair, the other partnership sitting opposite each other. Each player is dealt 13 cards.
The game is played by each player in succession laying one of their cards face up on the table, and the person that played the highest of the 4 cards wins that round. Each round is called a "TRICK". Since each player has 13 cards, there are 13 tricks. Points are awarded based upon the number of tricks each team has won.
There are 2 processes to each game of bridge:
• The first process is the BIDDING process, where each player communicates with their partner to determine how many of the 13 tricks they can take. The team that declares they can take the most tricks wins the "BID", and becomes the offense. They must win that many tricks or more. The other team is the defense, and tries to prevent the offense from winning the declared number of tricks.
• The second process is the trick taking processs (referred to as the "PLAY"), and is by far the fun portion of bridge. One player begins the action by laying one card face up on the table, and the remaining 3 players in rotation lay one card face up on the table. The player with the highest of those 4 cards wins that "trick". This process is repeated 12 more times. If the offense takes the number of tricks they claimed (or more) they are awarded points based upon the number of tricks they predicted. If the defense prevents the offense from winning the predicted number of tricks, the defense is awarded points based upon how many tricks the defense took.
The team that is awarded the most points is the winner.
This web site is written for a beginner, and only deals with the first process, the BIDDING. There are many bidding systems, but this web site will only present a simplified version of the Standard American Yellow Card (SAYC) bidding system.
Deal the cards !
The four players select a dealer by any method. The chosen dealer dispenses 1 card to each player, beginning with the person to the left of the dealer, and rotating clockwise until all players have 13 cards.
Each player collects the 13 cards and arranges them according to suit (clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades). Each player evaluates the hand in preparation for the bidding process.