Oxford University Contract Bridge Club - Beginners Lessons

1: Mini-Bridge
Bridge is a trick-taking card game of skill and chance (the relative proportions depending on the variant played) which has similarities with whist, spades, hearts ets. It is played with a standard pack of playing cards (no jokers) with four people sitting around a table. [Aces are considered higher cards than Kings]. Opposite players are a team or partnership and work together to achieve their goals. Players are usually referred to by the compass points North, East, South and West, with North and South creating one partnership and East and West the other. Here is an explanation of Mini-bridge, which provides a simple prelude to the full game of bridge.

Key Concepts
1. Tricks:Each player in turn (clockwise) removes one card from their hand and places it face up in front of them. Whoever plays the rst card to a trick may play any card. If possible the other players must play a card of the same suit as the one led but if they cant follow suit that player may play whatever they like (discard). The trick is won by the highest card of the suit led. The player who has won the previous trick leads to the next one. The aim is to make as many tricks as possible. 2. Trumps: On many deals, one suit will be designated as the trump suit. This is extremely important in determining who wins each trick, for a trump outranks any card of a dierent suit. You must still abide by the rule requiring you to follow suit whenever you can and a player is not required to play a trump if unable to follow suit. Trumps maybe led at any time. Heres an example. Hearts are trumps, north leads to the trick: East and South have no spades and are therefore permitted A to trump the trick; West has a spade and must follow suit. 4 3 The trick is won by South, who played the highest trump. 6 Again, note that a player is not forced to ru. In the above example, both East and South were perfectly free to discard a diamond or a club had they wished. By doing so, however, they may give up any chance of winning this particular trick.

Mini-Bridge

All 52 cards are dealt, each player receiving 13 which they are not allowed to show to the other players at the table. Step 1 Count & announce your HCP: On receiving their cards players should sort their hand into suits and add up their High Card Points (HCP): High Card Points: Ace= 4 points, King= 3 points, Queen= 2 points, Jack= 1 point. [There are a total of 40 HCP in the deck (10 in each suit).] Each player announces the number of HCPs in their hand to the other players at the table [check the four sum to 40]. Which ever partnership has the most HCPs between their two hands become the declaring side, the other other partnership are the defenders. Of the declaring pair, the player with the least HCP places their hand face up on the table so all can see, they are know as the dummy and their partner is referred to as declarer. Step 2- Choosing a contract: Declarer must now choose a trump suit, or select No Trumps, and predict the number of tricks he is going 1

Oxford University Bridge Club - Beginners Lessons to make (known as selecting the contract). If you succeed in your contract you score points. The more you promise to make, the more points you score, provided you succeed! There is a separate page giving full details of scoring but it is quite complicated and you should not worry about the details. Here are some guidelines for selecting a contract 1. Trump suit: First identify between your combined hands which suit you have more of. If this is a major suit (s or s) and you have at least eight of them this should be your trump suit. If your biggest t is a minor (s or s)then you should have at least a 9 card t to make it your trump suit. If you dont have at least an 8 card major t or a nine card minor t then you should probably play in No Trumps. Bare in mind if you have a suit with no control in, your opponents may immediately cash lots of trick in it against a NT contract. 2. Number of tricks: The score you get at the end of the hand is based on the number of tricks you contract to make. Here is a guideline to the recommended number of HCPs needed to achieve each bonus: (a) Game in NT (9 tricks): 25 HCP, Game in a major suit (10 tricks) 26-27HCP, Game in a minor suit(11 tricks) 28-29HCP, (b) Small slam in NT (12 tricks) 33-35HCP, Small slam in any suit (12 tricks) 30-32HCP, (c) Grand slam (13 tricks) 35+HCP (make sure youre not missing an Ace though!). Step 3- Play the hand: Once the contract has been decided the defender to the left of declarer leads to the rst trick. After a trick each player puts the card they have just played face down in front of them in either a portrait direction if their partnership won the trick or a landscape direction if they lost the trick [long edge points in the direction of the pair that won the trick]. You are not permitted to look at the cards that have been played to previous tricks. Play continues until all 13 tricks are played at which point the hand is over. All that is left is to score the hand and put the cards back in the board.

Card Play Tips

The fact that you can see half the pack of cards makes the card play aspect of the game very interesting. Here are some very basic tips to get you started (there will be a more extensive article later): Drawing trumps: as declarer you want to stop your opponents from trumping (also known as rung) your winners so it is often a good idea to remove their trumps. It is important to count carefully as you dont want to waste your trumps. Note however by drawing trumps you may remove your own opportunity to ru things. Setting up long suits: Everyone can make tricks with Aces, the challenge is to make tricks with smaller cards. Consider this layout: AQ3 JT6 K752 984 By playing the A then Q and crossing back to hand with the K we have now set up the 2, so assuming there are no trumps left the 2 is a winner.

Try not to waste your high cards. For example if lead an Ace everyone will play small cards. Instead you should try and use it to capture one of your opponents high cards with it. As a general rule rst and second hands play low to a trick, and third hand plays high. And the most important thing to remember is that you are playing/working as a partnership! Note these are only basic guidelines and there are plenty of times when you want to ignore them. 2