The Game of Bridge

Introduction

Bridge is a card game from the whist family, the games that have tricks and trumps. For the uninitiated (or if you need reminding), a "trick" consists of each player contributing one of his cards, and the highest card of the suit led is the winner of the trick, unless someone has played a trump. A "trump" is any one of the cards of a nominated trump suit. If a player is not able to play a card of the suit led, he may (but doesn't have to) play a trump. If any player has played a trump, the highest trump wins the trick.

There are many different games of whist, some of which you have probably played, such as: Estimation (aka Oh Hell), Knock-Out Whist, Hearts (and the similar UK game of Black Maria). There is also the classic four-handed game of Whist (played by two partnerships, sitting opposite each other) that was very popular in Regency times and is still played enthusiastically at Whist Drives and Whist Clubs by many people today.

Bridge is derived directly from the Whist game of the Regency period, but it has some extra features that make it more interesting and more skilful:

• After the deal (all 52 cards are dealt, 13 to each player), but before play commences, the partnerships bid against each other for the number of tricks they contract to make. The highest bid wins the contract, and also determines the trump suit. The player of that side who first bid the trump suit is called the "declarer". The declarer's side will get bonuses for making the contracted number of tricks or will receive penalties for each trick that they fall short.
• There is a "no trump" designation, which outranks and outscores all of the trump suit designations, so quite often in bridge a deal is played with no suit as trumps.
• Most significantly, the partner of the declarer lays his cards on the table, where they can be seen by the other three players. His hand is designated the "dummy". The declarer, who can now of course see both his and his partner's cards, will play both his and dummy's cards. The player whose hand has become the dummy will take no further part in that deal, other than to play the card that declarer asks him to play.

The full name of the game we now know as bridge is "Contract Bridge". In the early years of the 20th century there were several variations of bridge. Today only Contract Bridge is played, the variation that proved itself to be the most interesting and the most challenging. Therefore the "Contract" part of the game's name has been dropped.

The Rules of Bridge

Almost any book of card games will give you the basic rules of bridge. If you want to see the rules of the game online, look at the Rules of Bridge on www.pagat.com.

(As an aside, if you want to know the rules of any card game, there is Classified Index of Card Games on the same site.)

Author: Chris Burton
bridgeinfo.net