Regarded by many as the most excellent game consisting of cards, Bridge is the most challenging, but the enjoyable game you’ll ever play in your life! This article is made for people who are complete newbies to the game, so if you’re one, then you’ve come to the right place! The bridge is a pretty complicated card game if you compare them to others like solitaire, but once you learn how to play it, it becomes a piece of cake! So, without any further ado, let’s start!
Basics of the game:
- The game itself is divided into two parts, the bidding, and the play. Let’s look at the game first since it directly affects everything you need to know about bidding.
- First off, you’ll need at least four players, as the game is played in teams of two. Each opponent and his teammate sit opposite to each other, not together.
- There are 52 total cards in the entire deck, which essentially means that each player will get 13 cards. The cards are distributed in a clockwise direction, from the dealer to the left of him/her.
- There’s a total of four suits with different rarities, with spades being the highest, then hearts, then diamonds, and then finally clubs on the bottom of the list. The ranking only affects bidding, not the play.
- This is optional, but you can name only one suit as trump. Whether It be clubs or hearts, the trump will then be the highest suit, beating spades.
- The cards of each suit are also ranked in the following order: Ace, King, Queen, Joker, and then the numbers 10 to 2. The Ace is the highest and two is the lowest.
The play:
The primary objective in Bridge is to win tricks with your teammate. What is a method? A trick consists of a total of four cards, one from each player.So, since each player has 13 cards, that means that you’ll have to play 13 tricks per game. There are a few rules for every trick though.
- The first rule is that the very first card that is played is called the lead, you’ll need to play a card belonging to the same suit as the lead card.
- The second rule is that if you don’t have the same suit’s card, you may play a card from any other suit as well.
Now, let’s look at the rules for determining the winner:
- If all the cards are of the same suit, the highest card of that suit wins. For example, if the cards are 8, King, 5 and Ace, then the ace wins.
- However, if there is a trump suit involved, the highest card of the trump suit wins.
The bidding:
This one is straightforward. Bidding is the act done before the play. In the bidding, you decide the trump suit, how many tricks will count as the win, and the lead.
That’s it for the basics of Bridge. This game is a tough one, so go out, find some friends and play to your heart’s content!