Bridge Game Tricks and Tactics

Tactical Bridge Game

The Bridge game is essentially a tactical game of cards between four people consisting of two teams of two with the team partners sitting and facing each other. One team is designated North and South while the opposing pair is identified as East and West.

Bridge Partners

When seated properly each player will have an opponent at both the left and right side but his or her partner will be directly opposite. In other words North and South face each other as do East and West. The cards are a regular deck and the suits are represented by their trump status with the strongest suit being Spades.

Basic Bridge Card Play

The dealer has a pack of 52 cards available (no jokers needed) and deals 13 cards sequentially to each player. The playing board is the table or any flat surface. The object of the game is to win more tricks than your opposing team, but crucially you must announce in the bidding how many tricks your side will obtain. A trick consists of 4 cards, one each played from North, South, East and West. The highest card usually wins.

Declaring Tricks and Bidding at Bridge

Before cards are played each team must make a bid or perhaps several bids, just like at an auction. A bid is a declaration of the number of tricks that your side or team will win. The suits are ranked for bidding purposes as follows

• Clubs (weakest)
• Diamonds (stronger than clubs)
• Hearts (stronger than diamonds)
• Spades (stronger than hearts)
• No Trumps (stronger than spades)

Stop Bidding

The bidding ceases when 3 of the other player have made a ‘pass’ bid which is also known as ‘no bid’. All of the participating bridge players must make at least one bid before the bridge auction stops. The decision as to who plays the hand is simple because it is dictated by the winning bid. Play of the cards then follows until all 13 tricks have been played. The bridge game ends at this point and the scoring is then accessed and agreed by both teams.

Beginners note

It is an excellent idea for beginners to carry a Bridge Guide/Reference with them when they play. Two typical examples are shown above. Another thing to remember is to be courteous to your partner throughout the entire game. Yes, they will make mistakes, but there is no need to point them out. In all likelihood, you yourself will make even bigger errors. Be nice!

Evaluating a Bridge hand of cards

The ace, king, queen and knave are the strongest in each suit and are given a numerical value.

• Knave (1 point)
• Queen (2 points)
• King (3 points)
• Ace (4 points)

All of the remaining cards, 2-10 of each suit, (pip cards) are deemed to have little value and are ignored at this point. In a full deck there are 40 points available using this system.

4 Aces = 16

4 Kings = 12

4 Queens = 8

4 Knave s = 4

As each player has only 13 cards the maximum number of points a single player can hold is 37, that is if he/she were dealt all the aces, all the kings, all the queens and a single knave. This very rarely happens but it would be an extremely strong hand to hold. On average the likelihood is that each player will only be able to count 10 points in the hand. It is when the points value exceeds 10 that you can assume that you may have an opening bid.

Tactics and Bidding at Bridge

As there are 13 tricks available and the likelihood is that North and South will score 6 tricks and so too will East and West. This leaves the 13^th trick or the odd trick available and this is the bid trick. If a bid of ‘ONE CLUB’ is called during the auction this means that the bidding side have contracted to take 7 tricks in total with clubs as the trump suit. If the opponents then bid ‘ONE DIAMOND’ they will assume control of the auction and will vouch to make 7 tricks, but with diamonds as trumps.

Bids at the 2 level surpass bids of one club, one heart etc. A bid of ‘TWO DIAMONDS’ will be better than any one level bid including bids like ‘ONE SPADE’ even though spades are higher ranking than diamonds. The ‘TWO DIAMONDS’ bid will mean that the team declaring the bid will score 8 tricks (6 plus the 2 bid) of the 13 available.

Bridge hands to bid

♠♥♦♣ The lowest bid is of ‘ONE CLUB’ and the highest bid possible is ‘SEVEN NO TRUMPS’ which declares that all 13 tricks will be taken by the declaring side. Bids at the 7 level are called ‘grandslams’ because all of the available 13 tricks must be won. 7 level bids are ‘SEVEN CLUBS’, ‘SEVEN DIAMONDS’, ‘SEVEN HEARTS’, ‘SEVEN SPADES and ‘SEVEN NO TRUMPS’. These high level games are rarely achieved and the more usual game score is targeted. Game scores are 3NT (NINE TRICKS, no trump suit), 4H or 4S (TEN TRICKS, with either hearts or spades as the trump suit) and 5C or 5D (ELEVEN TRICKS, with either clubs or diamonds as the trump suit). These are the basic elements of the game that you must learn by heart (a bit like my schooldays method of learning).

Social Bridge Evening

An evening playing bridge is social and enjoyable and several bridge games can be completed at one sitting. Many bridge clubs will teach the bridge game to new members. There are several bridge cruises available where one can learn and enjoy the art of a game of bridge. You will son find the level at which you are comfortable to play at and once you meet like minded players you will relish the game more. The bridge cruise, or bridge club, will cater for all bridge player levels from beginners to International standard so as to ensure that an enjoyable Bridge game can be enjoyed by all.