Bridge Card Game and Bidding Terms at the Bridge Table

Playing and bidding to win

The Bridge card game is the most facinating card game that one can play. It is so skillful and can take a lifetime to master. Bridge is a tactical game of cards between 4 people. It can be played for pleasure or more seriously in bridge clubs and tournaments. Bridge follows the rules of many card games in that the highest card wins the trick.

Bridge Card Game Suits

There are 4 suits, each with 13 cards. The suits are spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs. The highest card is the Ace of each suit. The strength of the cards in each suit from strongest to weakest is:-

♥ Ace, King,Queen,Knave,10,9,8,7,6,5, 4, 3 and 2 ♥

The bridge players North and South are teamed up together as are the pair East and West. North and South play against East and West. The 52 cards are shuffled and dealt to the 4 players i.e. 13 cards sequentially dealt face down to each player.

The bidding at Bridge

After the dealer has given out the cards but before cards are played each team must take part in the bidding phase, just like at an auction. Your bid is a declaration of the number of tricks that you think your team can win. The suits are ranked for bidding purposes in terms of their bidding strength. All 52 cards of the regular deck is used to play bridge (without the 2 jokers) and the 4 suits are represented by their trump status with the strongest suit being Spades. The ace is always high in Bridge and never represents a single pip card.

The suits and No Trump bidding

The Clubs are the weakest ranking suit, followed by the Diamonds (stronger than clubs). The Hearts are stronger than diamonds but Spades (stronger than hearts) are the top suit. During the bidding if No Trumps is declared then No Trumps supercedes all the suits and the hand will be played without any trump suit declared.

Bridge Grand slams and small slams

13 tricks can be won and to do so one side must win every trick played. This constitutes a grand slam. Some seasoned players have never bid or played a grand slam hand as the card strength needed is very strong. A royal flush in poker might be considered to be similar but it occurs infrequently.

Slam bidding

The top players bid slams all the time and are on the look out for suitable hands at all times. The amateur Bridge player seldom makes a slam but if you want to improve then you can practice and learn from world class experts like Zia Mahmood. The small slam is a very good score to make at bridge and for this you must make (win) 12 of the 13 tricks available on a hand. To achieve the maximum score for the grand or small slams the declaring side must have bid beforehand to make the agreed tricks.

Join a Bridge club to learn the bridge card game terms

For anyone who is interested in playing bridge it is advisable to join a local bridge club where tuition will be available for all grades of player including beginners. It may take some time to get tuned-in to the terminology used at the bridge table but practice makes perfect, It is estimated that 6 to 8 lessons will be required for a beginner to learn how to play the game of bridge. A lesson should take about 1 hour and the classes should be once per week to allow the beginner to practice using bridge terminology. I recommend that new players should read as much as possible about the bidding between the classes. The actual playing of the cards is the easier part of the game and needs less study as most people have dabbled with playing cards at some time in their lives.

Bidding weak 12 point hands

if you play weak no trumps you will occasionally be dealt a hand with 3 aces as shown opposite. If you are the opening bidder the correct bid is 1 notrump showing a balanced hand and 12 - 14 high card points. I have seen players deciding not to open with this hand and also failing to bid with the hand after partner opened one no trump. the hand is problematic because those players who use the losing trick count will devalue this hand considerable. They reason that it can only take 3 tricks and has 10 losers. My advice is to always bid with the holding shown as shrinking violets have no place at the bridge table.

Other popular card games apart from Bridge & Poker

Whist: Played with two teams of two, precursor of bridge but both jokers are used. Local tournaments are sometimes referred to as ‘whist drives’

Solo: 4 players. Played usually by one player against the other three. Similar to whist.

Skat: Played by 3 or 4 players. Bidding element with a 32 card deck. (2,3,4,5 & 6 not used)

Twenty-five: Traditional Irish game, ideal for 5 players but can have 2 – 8 playing. (5 is top card)

Brag: Traditional British game, many varieties 3-card-brag, 4-card-brag etc to 13-card-brag

Rummy: Mexican origin. Objective is to get rid of all cards by melding, laying off or discarding.

Many of these games are played under alternative names in different countries but they are well known and have withstood the test of time.

Bridge professional card players, my top 4 Bridge Game Champions

Zia Mahmood , the best bridge player ever, huge risk taker, entertaining

Bob Hamman , one of the worlds highest ranked players, partner of Zia.

Bobby Wolff , yet another world champion, writes bridge newspaper columns in hundreds of newspapers worldwide.

Michael Rosenberg , one of the top players in the US for many years, has an encyclopedic knowledge of cardplay and percentages

Bridge card sharps

The 4 players mentioned have all at some point in time been considered to be the best players in the world either collectively or individually.

The bridge card game as played by the above 4 individuals is awesome to behold and if one has the chance it is well worth a visit to any tournament that features these experts.