I've chosen the title of this opinion because some people say that Bridge is a card game that equals Chess. The rules are very easy but the strategy makes the game and that's what makes this game difficult. I can somethimes play it very long and the better the other players are, the more I get the feeling that I play very bad but I'd like also to say that there is no need to learn it for years, but you need to practice it and the more you play, the better you get. :)
Bridge - the origins, the presence and the future ================================================== Today's variants of this game developed out of a game called Wrist that is very similar to Bridge and that's one of the oldest card games. Wrist developed probably out of a game called Trump and there are notes about Trump from the 16th century.
Bridge is the one and only card game that is acknowledged as a sport and the WBF (World Bridge Foundation is an olympic acknowledged sports organisation. In Salt Lake City 2002 there will be first olympic competitions in Open, Women
and Juniors. WBF exists since 1958 and organizes every year world championsships and Bridge - olympics.
Bridge - the rules =================== Like I written, Bridge is pretty easy. It's played with 52 french cards and four players in pairs. The game bagins always with a bidding and each player tries to delare how many tricks he's able to make. The bidding then look like that:
North East South West 1Spade Pass 2Hearts 1NT 3Spades Pass 5Spades Pass Pass Pass
In this case north plays 11 tricks, beacause once the suit or also no trump means that the player declares that he makes seven tricks and then you add it out of the number of the suit, that means that twice the suit makes 9 tricks, three times - nine tricks etc. and 7x the suit are all the 13 tricks and that's also called grand slam.
When you decide to play by suits, then it's very important to have also a lot of cards of this suit and it's also very useful when you have big cards like aces, kings, etc. If you have a lot of big cards in every suit then it's recommended to play without a trump. There is a possibility to signalize the partner with the way of bidding how many aces you have, but I cannot explain it how it goes because it would take a very long time. It's also imprtant to know that the suits have also their value and it looks like this: clubs - diamonds - hearts - spades - NT (no trump), that means that if someone else bids 2 hearts, you cannot bid 2 clubs anymore, but you may bid 2 spades.
There is also a possiblity to double or redouble the points. In the normal case double is used when one of the players thinks that the opponent is not able to make the contract and redouble may use only the played that sets the contract, if he thinks that he's able to do the contact. A bidding with double and redouble could look like this in our example:
North East South West 1Spade Pass 2Hearts 1NT 3Spades Pass 5Spades Dbl Rdbl Pass Pass Pass
Note: After a redouble there is only a possiblity for other players to pass the contract or to set another contract.
In our example game the player on the north has to try to make 11 tricks and that's why because north was the first one who set the contract in spades. The hand of his partner is now visible to all players and east starts to play. To play spades means that spades are now the trump suit and spade always wins but if there are still enough cards in trumpless suits then it wins the highest card. When you play no trump then it wins always the highest card and when the other players don't have one suit anymore then it wins every card you play.
Bridge - the strategy
================ That is probably the most difficult and there is no strategy that you can say if you always play like this then you'll always win. I'd say that one of the most important things is that you always count the cards that are playing and there are 13 cards of each suit. If you and your partner have about 9-11 cards of one suit then it's mostly better to play then the trump directly and after the last opponent's cards of the trump have fallen than you may play the game like a game with no trump. Very important for this type of game are singletons and doubletons, beacause if you don't have any cards of a suit you may slam even kings and aces with a very low trump card.
A big part of a good strategy is also to mislead the opponents, beacause every good player starts always a game with a try to forsee how the hand(s) of his opponent(s) look like and you should also try to do that. :)
One thing I'd like to say too in this chapter. There are no bad hands in Bridge. It always depends on you what you make out of your hand.
The last few words ====================
Bridge is a game for people who like to use their brain and composite fun with thinking. When you find a good team that it's a question of time that you find out which type of strategy is the most suitable for you and you'll don't want to miss anymore. If someone would like to try this game, I'd like to recommend a game network at http://www.zone.com and maybe you'll meet there one day. :)
I hope I made this game more understandable for you and if someone has any questions don't mind to mail me.
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Very useful op. I've never known the rules of this game but I do now! Thanks :-)
Thiesy 21.07.2002 18:59
For people who like to use their brain? Mmmmh...nothing for me ;o)))
pauljm 15.10.2001 14:11
Hi and welcome to Ciao UK. Your translation into English is not too bad, although there are a few obvious errors (it's Whist rather than Wrist, for example). The main problem is that you are just too ambitious in the scope of your opinion and frankly fail to meet the challenge. Bridge is a game that is simple in the machanics but complex in the playing strategy. Unfortunately your desciption makes even the mechanics seem complicated. You use a number of terms and conventions without explanation and really your attempt to explain bidding is beyond the scope of an article of this length. Let me try to explain a little more. You begin by mentioning winning tricks without saying either what tricks are or how they are won. You then go on to illustrate this by using the north/east/south/west convention without explaining that either. I think that you would have been better to limit yourself to an explanation of the history (OK as written) then the basic rules (what tricks are and how you win them) and finally a small section on the strategies behind bidding. If you decide to rewrite this, let me know and I'd be happy to review my rating. Good luck, Paul.
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