Barbara Seagram - Barbara Seagram’s Beginning Bridge

1 Getting the Idea

The earliest known deck of playing cards is from China, and dates from more than 1000 years ago. However, there is some suggestion that playing cards actually originated in India. Ardhanari, a goddess in Hindu mythology, was represented holding in her four hands a wand, a cup, a sword and a ring (for wealth), symbols that appeared almost unchanged on medieval cards. Eventually, these suits morphed into the familiar clubs, hearts, spades and diamonds.

This chapter will introduce you to the basic concepts of the game of bridge. By the end of the chapter, although you will not yet be ready to join a game at your local bridge club, you will understand how the game works. If you have already played similar card games, such as euchre or whist, you may find that this chapter moves slowly. We suggest that you skip over any parts that you find boring and advance to the sections that are new to you.

We will start at the very beginning how to deal out the cards. You are then going to progress through all of the major aspects of the game. You will find out about the auction where players bid to decide the goal for each deal. You will then learn about the different roles players take on during the play of the cards defender, declarer and dummy (dont worry, the name isnt personal!). You will be guided through the play of a bridge deal. You will discover the concept of trumps and have a chance to try your hand at the two types of bridge contracts, trump and notrump.

You will also learn a little about scoring, because it will factor into some of your decisions during the auction. Scoring will be explained in more detail in later chapters.

Welcome to the wonderful world of bridge! Bridge is a social game played among four people sitting around a table. If there are four of you starting out together, introduce yourself to the person sitting across from you. Bridge is a partnership game and the person across the table is your partner, someone to be respected and nurtured. The people on either side of you are your worthy opponents.

In bridge, it is usual to use the compass directions to talk about the four players around the table. Were going to do that in this book. It might be helpful to create a guide card. Draw this diagram on a piece of paper:

Dont worry about placing the guide card so that North faces the real North pole. (The actual geography doesnt matter.) If you are following this chapter in a group of four, then you should be sitting at one of the four compass points. That means that North and South are partners, and East and West are partners. If you are reading this by yourself, then we are going to suggest that you arbitrarily consider yourself to be South. From now on, when we show hand diagrams, we are going to refer to each player by their direction.

Trick"

During the play, each player in turn, going clockwise, places a card face up on the table until four cards have been played.

Pull four cards from the deck and place one face down in front of each player. Starting with East (for now) and going clockwise, each player should put their card face up on the table in front of them. You have just played a trick.

Whoever is designated South should pick up the whole deck and shuffle it. Now deal out all fifty-two cards, face down, one at a time to each player, starting on your left (West) and going clockwise. You will end up placing the last card in front of yourself. All players can now pick up their cards. The collection of cards you are holding is called your