The Times Beginner’s Guide to Bridge: All you need to play the game. Andrew Robson
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drawing the last trump, and doesn’t need to play a fourth round in the trump suit.
must know
Counting trumps is important. Once you have drawn trumps from your opponents, i.e. exhausted them of their trump cards, you should stop playing in the trump suit and turn to others. Carrying on playing in the trump suit would be a waste because your remaining trumps could probably be made separately, by trumping another suit.
Introducing the bidding
Each bid carries a message and is used to tell your partner what type of hand you have: its strength and which suit(s), if any, you’d like as trumps. Your aim is to outbid the other side with a final bid, a ‘contract’ or trick target, that suits both you and your partner’s hands (hence the term ‘contract’ bridge – see p. 228).
must know
By the end of the bidding, the following will be determined:
• whether the deal will be played in a trump suit (clubs, diamonds, hearts or spades), or without a trump suit (‘no-trumps’ – see p. 27);
• how many tricks need to be made by the side who has bid highest and therefore won the contract; and, by deduction, how many tricks their opponents need in order to stop them from winning;
• which player within the highest bidding partnership is the declarer, and which is the dummy.
Opening the bidding
The bidding starts with the dealer, who decides whether to ‘open the bidding’. If he has an average or worse-than-average hand, he says ‘no bid’ or ‘pass’. If he has a better-than-average hand (12 points is a good guide), he opens the bidding by stating his preferred suit as trumps – choosing one of his longest suits.
In (a), the dealer says ‘Pass’ as he has only ten points (an average point score as there are 40 points in the pack divided between four players).
In (b), the dealer has 14 points – enough to open the bidding. He has more spades than any other suit, and would like spades to be trumps, so he opens ‘One spade’ (see p. 21, ‘Making a bid at the One level’).
Once the dealer has bid (or passed), the bidding moves to the next player in clockwise rotation. If the dealer has passed, the second bidder now follows the same process as the dealer: with less than 12 points, he passes, with 12 or more he opens ‘One…’ followed by the name of his longest suit. The third and fourth bidders similarly need 12 points to open the bidding. Occasionally, when the high cards are evenly distributed, none of the four players will hold 12 or more points. The deal is then ‘thrown in’, and the next player in clockwise rotation deals with the other pack.
Making a bid at the One level
The number in a bid is the number of tricks to be won above six tricks. There are 13 tricks in each deal, of which a partnership entering the bidding is expected to make at least six (just under half). When making a bid at the One level, e.g. ‘One spade’ if spades is your preferred trump suit, this means you are contracting to make one trick on top of the six, i.e. seven tricks, with the nominated suit as trumps (spades in this example). Bidding usually opens at the One level, but see p. 146 for cases where you open above the One level.
After the bidding has opened
Once the bidding has opened, 12 points are no longer needed to bid. You can enter the bidding if you have a good, long suit. There are two options: to make a higher bid – going up the series of steps shown in the diagram on p. 22 – or to pass. Note that your bid must be higher than the previous one. This is where the ranking order of suits is crucial: you can bid a higher-ranked suit or ‘no-trumps’ (a deal played without a trump suit – see p. 27) at the same level (e.g. at the One level), but to bid a lower-ranked suit you must ‘raise the level’ i.e. ‘contract for’ (promise to win) one more trick than the previous bidder.
The bidding continues until three players in a row pass, which signifies the end of the auction.
The bidding steps: the number next to the suit refers to the number of tricks plus six that you are contracting to make in the chosen trump suit, or in no-trumps (NT)
A typical bidding sequence
North deals and passes as he lacks 12+ points needed to open the bidding. East (next in clockwise rotation) opens the bidding with 1♥ – he has 12+ points and his longest (or equal longest) suit is hearts. South then bids 2♣ – he doesn’t need 12 points as the bidding has opened, but must raise the level to ‘Two’ (i.e. an eight-trick target) because clubs are ranked lower than hearts. West supports his partner’s chosen suit, hearts, by bidding 2♥, North then bids 3♣, upping his partnership’s target to nine winning tricks out of thirteen. North’s 3♣ bid ends the auction, because it is followed by three passes in a row, and 3♣ becomes the final contract. South becomes declarer and must make nine (or more) tricks with clubs as trumps; the defenders E-W need to win five tricks in order to stop him.
must know
Bidding essentials:
• Open the bidding with 12+ points.
• Once the bidding has opened, 12+ points are no longer needed to make a bid.
• You have two choices: to make a higher bid, or to pass (as in any other auction).
• The player within the highest-bidding partnership who was first to name the trump suit (or no-trumps) becomes the declarer. His partner becomes dummy.
• The defender on the left of the declarer leads the first card.
After the bidding has ended
Each of the four players has the opportunity to bid on the first round. When the bidding ends (three passes in a row), the highest bid becomes the final contract, and the player who first bid the suit (within the highest-bidding partnership) becomes the declarer. The player on the declarer’s left leads the first card (choosing any card to lead). The declarer’s partner then puts down his hand face up, sorted into suits (his hand is ‘tabled’), and, as the ‘dummy’, takes no further part in playing out the deal, the declarer playing cards from his own hand and from the dummy hand. Thus, everyone playing the deal is able to see half the deck: 13 cards in their own hand and the 13 cards laid out on the table by dummy. The advantage for the declarer is that he is the only player at the table who can see his own partner’s cards, and gets to play them.
In this example, South becomes declarer (by virtue of bidding the trump suit, clubs, first). West, on his left, leads, whereupon dummy (North) tables his cards face up, placing trumps (clubs) on his right, and the other suits (preferably with colours split) to his left, with the highest card in each suit nearest dummy, the lowest nearest the middle of the table.