Bridge is a trick-taking game and is played in two teams with a total of four people. The team is made up of people sitting opposite each other. They play together and the ratings go to both. The first phase of bridge, the bidding, is to determine the number of tricks a team takes and whether a suit is trump. The announced number of tricks must be reached by the teams and at the same time the goal is to prevent the other team from achieving the goal.
As a modern variant, the contract bridge is now understood as bridge. It has been used worldwide since the 1930s and replaced its predecessors auction bridge or whist. Rubberbridge is often played in private circles. There are also tournaments for this. Because bridge, like chess, is practiced as a sport.
A square table is preferred. Two players each form a team, this is also known as a partnership in bridge. The players who play together always sit opposite each other. Now the well-shuffled 52-hand French cards are divided evenly among all four players. Each player receives 13 cards in their hand. Each player sorts their cards by suit and rank.
Target of Bridge
The aim of both teams is to take as many tricks as possible. The objective is set at the beginning of the game by bidding. Whoever has won the bidding from the players and announces the contract becomes a declarer.
Bridge gameplay
From the declarer, the player on the left starts with a color of his choice. Then declarer's partner must place the cards face up on the table. The colors are next to each other and sorted by rank. Now the declarer's partner no longer has any function and may no longer intervene in the game. He may only admit cards that the declarer names and determines. Each trick consists of four cards. In clockwise order, each player places a card face up on the table.
A player starts with a suit that must be served by everyone. Unless a player doesn't own that suit. The player who played the highest card in the suit wins the trick. Then each player turns the card over again and it is face down. The card is placed vertically by the player who won it. The rest of the players who didn't win place their cards horizontally. The partner does not have to play a higher trick if it is clear that the other's card will take the trick anyway. Whoever previously won the trick leads the next trick. He may choose the color to be played. 13 tricks are played in total.
The stitches
In bridge, it is not the points on a card that count, but who has the most tricks. At the beginning of the bidding, a color can be chosen as a trump. If, for example, the required card cannot be played, you can win with a trump. A game with the trump suit is only worthwhile in bridge if at least eight common cards have the same suit. It is bid beforehand to find out exactly that. The tricks won are counted when all 13 tricks have been played. Depending on how many tricks were bid at the beginning decides which team has won.
The simplified irritation
In order to win the game, a game obliges itself to take a certain number of tricks at the bidding. The specified number of stitches must be at least seven. That's step one.
The higher the number of stitches, the higher the bonus. If a team didn't take as many tricks as they bid then they get minus points. There is a good simplified method to estimate the right number of stitches. Each player uses the figures to evaluate their own hand.
Count points together:
There are no points for the numbers two to ten
The jack counts one point
The lady counts two points
The king gets three points
The ace is worth four points
The distributor may announce first and the game opens with 12 points. If the distributor does not have 12 points then you ask the next one. The opener is the player who has at least 12 points. The partner counts the number of cards of each suit and the points on a piece of paper and gives it to the opener.
20 points are relevant
If less than 20 points are reached during the subsequent counting, the game passes to the other team. The clockwise player next to opener then decides the contract. If the opener has counted more than 20 points, then the game remains in his team and he decides on a contract. A contract is decided on using a table. If you have the same number of common cards in two colors, then you decide on the higher-ranking color. If there are fewer than eight common cards of one suit, the game is played without a trump, i.e. Sans Atout. But if there are at least eight common cards of a team color, you choose the color with the most common cards as trump.
