When we first set out to add Bridge to pogo.com Classic Games, we added a rules section, as with all of our games. However, because Bridge is such a complex game, simply stating the rules is not going to help a new player learn to play well. A player needs to learn to bid.

Bidding is the heart of Bridge, and the reason it is often compared in complexity to Chess. While you may be able to hold your own at casual tables just bidding from the gut ("I have a strong hand and six hearts. I'll bid 1."), when you move up to the advanced tables, you will find yourself outclassed by partnerships who are using an advanced bidding system, a means of encoding bids so that they communicate very specific message—a message which often appears to be something it is not.

There are literally hundreds of bidding systems in the world today, and there are entire books devoted to just one bidding system. Clearly, a short set of web pages cannot make you an expert in every bidding system. However, there is a bidding system known as "Standard American" which is used by most casual American Bridge players. It's a long process, but if you are willing to be patient and alternate playing time and reading time, these pages will attempt to teach you the basics of Standard American bidding.

You won't remember every concept the first time you are exposed to it. To help you, we have linked potentially confusing concepts back to the lessons in which they were defined. You can follow the link, re-read the definition and then use your browser's BACK button to return to your current lesson.

Even if you are already familiar with another bidding system, or think you are already familiar with Standard American, you should certainly peruse these pages to see what we teach, as the teachings could use bidding schemes different from those you learned.

Remember: you should always inquire of your partner what bidding system they would like to use (if any). Don't worry about giving anything away to your opponents. In tournaments, both partnerships are required to reveal and, if necessary, explain their bidding system to the opposition.

At the beginning of each hand in a game of Bridge, the players hold an auction to determine the stakes of the hand and the trump suit. Each player may either pass or make a bid higher than the previous one. The auction continues until three players pass in a row. The player who made the highest bid then wins the auction, and his team becomes the declarers. His opponents are the defenders.

A normal bid has two components: a number and a suit. The number is the number of tricks beyond six that the player thinks her partnership can make, if the suit she names becomes trump. For example, a bid of " 2," if it were to become the contract for the round, would mean that the declaring team would have to take 8 tricks (2 plus 6) in order to make contract, and that diamonds would be that round's trump suit. Throughout this document, the standard symbols are used for the suits: for clubs, for diamonds, for hearts, and for spades. No Trump is abbreviated NT.

Each player must bid higher than the previous bid, unless she elects to "pass." Bids increase in value by suit (low to high: , , , , No Trump), and then by number (low to high: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). The lowest possible bid is "1". 1 is higher, 1NT is above both, and 2 out-ranks any of these 1 bids. The highest possible bid is "7NT." (If you're having trouble remembering the order of the suits, notice that they're alphabetical.)

When you are first dealt your hand, it can be a little confusing. Most bridge players use a simple heuristic to evaluate their hand. This consists of converting the highest cards in each suit to "points;" and counting points in your head. First, count the face cards. Score each Ace as four points, each King as three, each Queen as two and each Jack as one. (For these purposes, anything less than a Jack is worthless.)

Then, find your shortest suits. Add three points for each void suit—a suit where you have zero cards. Add two points for each singleton, or one-card suit. And add one point for each doubleton, a suit with two cards.

If you have zero or one doubletons, and an Ace, King, or Queen in every suit, this is referred to as a balanced hand. You will have a distribution of 4-3-3-3, 4-4-3-2, or 5-3-3-2. A balanced hand is very useful during contracts with a No Trump suit.

For example, evaluate the following hand:
  A, K, 10, 3
  A, Q, J, 7, 3, 2
  void
  8, 7, 4

This hand scores seven points in spades (four for the Ace and three for the King), seven points in hearts (four for the Ace, two for the Queen and one for the Jack), three points in diamonds (three for a void suit), and zero in clubs. The total is 17 points. This is a strong hand. You would really like for hearts to be trump, and definitely don't want diamonds to be trump.

You can rate your hand by the following simple table:

The object of Bridge is to score points, and the easiest way to score a large bonus is to win a rubber. Winning a rubber means winning two games. The object of bidding, therefore, is to win games without exposing your side to undue risk.

A key point: In order to win a game in one hand (starting from zero and in the absence of doubles) you need to make a contract of at least 3NT, 4, 4, 5, or 5. These bids are often referred to as game bids.The premise for this is explained more in the Bridge Rules.

Step One is to determine the best suit for your partnership. You should figure that with eight cards in a suit, it will be better to play with that suit as trump, even if you are missing the Ace and King. With two evenly distributed hands, you will want to play in No Trump.

While we are discussing game bids, we should also mention two corresponding terms. A bid lower than a game bid is called a part score. Any 1 or 2 bid is a part score. So is a bid of 3 in any suit (not No Trump), as well as 4, and 4. A bid of 6 or 7 in any suit is called a slam bid. Making a 6 bid (by taking twelve tricks) is called a small slam. Making a 7 bid (taking all thirteen tricks) is a grand slam (and about as common as the baseball feat of the same name). There are very large bonuses for making either of the slams, if you choose to bid that high.

This is fairly simple. It's what you would do if you hadn't read anything at all. However, we will establish some easy guidelines for you, because as you progress through the rest of the lessons, you will be told to go play with what you've learned, and there will be large gaping holes in your bidding vocabulary. You'll have to bid from the gut to fill these holes. Even once you have mastered the system, there will still be many cases where you will find yourself bidding on instinct.

Rule Number One
If your partner makes a game bid (3NT, 4, 4, 5, or 5), take that as a signal to stop. There is no advantage to making, for example, a 5NT bid as opposed to a 3NT bid. However, there is much added risk: in the 5NT bid, you need 11 tricks to win, whereas in the 3NT you need 9 tricks to win. Compare:

Since there is no advantage to scoring points beyond a hundred below the line, you can see that it is much more advantageous to stop at 3NT: you score the same total points in the best case, and gain points instead of losing points in all other cases. The same is true of the other game bids.

Rule Number Two
In trying to establish an eight-card suit, remember that three in your hand is sufficient to support, if you think your partner has five or more cards. So if you hold six hearts, three spades, two diamonds and two clubs, the bidding might go something like this:

Partner	Opp	You	Opp
1	Pass	2	Pass
2	Pass

You can assume that your insistent partner has five or more spades and two or fewer hearts. If you don't bid spades now, your partner may assume that you have two or fewer spades, and an excellent trump suit might be wasted.

Rule Number Three
Bid once with your longest suit, but if the partnership isn't finding a match, at least mention your other long suits (those with 4 or more cards).

Congratulations! You've finished the first lesson! It was long, but you've certainly earned the right to go play. Take the Quiz below to see how much you've learned, and then we recommend you go out onto the site and play for about an hour before you take the next lesson. Pay attention to when you overbid and when you underbid, and to what "feels" like a reasonable contract.

NOTE: In this first version of online Bridge, the computer players will always pass. Thus, it would be a wise move to play with other humans to get a real feeling for how bidding will work.

1. How many points does this hand have? Is it balanced?
   J, 2
   A, 7, 3
   10, 9, 8, 7, 5, 4, 2
   6
   
   
2. How many points does this hand have? Is it balanced?
   A, J, 6, 2
   Q, 9, 2
   Q, 10, 8
   A, K, 3
   
   
3. How many points does this hand have? Is it balanced?
   K, Q, J, 6, 3
   A
   A, K, 10, 8, 7, 3, 2
   void
   
   
4. Is this a strong hand? Is it balanced?
   Q, 9, 8
   K, 10, 7
   J, 10, 8, 6
   A, 10, 9
   
   
5. Is this a strong hand? Is it balanced?
   A, K, 10, 7, 5, 3
   A, Q, 9
   10, 9, 8
   J
   
   
6. Is 3 a game bid?
   
   
7. Is 4 a game bid?
   
   
8. Is 5 a game bid?
   
   
9. If you know that you and your partner have enough cards to win 11 tricks, and you know from the bidding that spades are your best suit, what should you bid?
   
   
10. Gut response: You have the following hand, and the bidding has progressed as follows:
    A, K, 10, 9, 5, 2
    A, Q, J
    7, 4, 2
    8
    
    

    Opp	Partner	Opp	You
    Pass	1	Pass	1
    2	2	Pass

    
    
    What should you bid?

1. 8 points. 2 for the club singleton, 4 for the Ace of hearts, and 2 in spades—1 for the Jack and 1 for the doubleton. It is clearly unbalanced, since it is very long in diamonds and short in clubs and spades.
2. 16 points. 7 in clubs, 2 in diamonds, 2 in hearts, and 5 in spades. With a 4-3-3-3 distribution and a Queen in every suit, it is definitely balanced.
3. 22 points. 3 for the void club suit, 7 in diamonds, 6 in hearts, and 6 in spades. The void in clubs means it is not a balanced hand.
4. This hand evaluates out to 10 points—the perfectly average hand. Despite the abundance of high number cards (10's and 9's), it is merely average. Also, it is not balanced because it does not have at least a Queen in every suit: the best diamond is the Jack. If had it held the Queen of diamonds instead, it would be balanced.
5. Yes. It comes out to 16 points—the minimum to consider a hand Strong. It is not balanced.
6. No. 3 is worth 90 points below the line, which is not enough for a game.
7. Yes. 4 is worth 120 points below the line, which is a game.
8. 5 is worth 150 points below the line, which will win you a game if you make it. However, it is not considered a "game bid" because it is past the minimum value to win a game in spades.
9. 4. Bidding 5 exposes the partnership to unnecessary risk for no gain.
10. 4. If your partner has enough to open the bidding and you have a strong hand (16 points), then you clearly should be bidding for game. While your six spades are very nice, your partner is offering five or more hearts and denying that she matches your spades. And you do have the three hearts needed to support her—in fact, you have three high hearts. Despite your weakness in diamonds, the partnership should have little difficulty making ten tricks with hearts as trump.