How to Play Bridge: A Plain Guide to the Rules, Bidding and Play
Jul 3, 2026
Bridge is a trick-taking card game for four people in two partnerships. You sit across from your partner, so North and South play against East and West. One standard 52-card deck is used, and each player receives 13 cards. A hand of bridge has three parts: the auction, the play and the scoring. Once you know how those three parts fit together, everything else in the game is refinement.
The deal and the seats#
The dealer shuffles and deals all 52 cards, one at a time, clockwise. Each player sorts their hand into suits. In casual games the deal rotates clockwise after each hand. In a club game the hands are pre-dealt into boards, so everyone in the room plays the same cards. That format is called duplicate bridge, and you can read how it works in What Is Duplicate Bridge.
The auction: deciding the contract#
The dealer speaks first, and the auction moves clockwise. Each call is either a bid, a pass, a double or a redouble. A bid names a level from 1 to 7 and a strain: clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades or notrump. The level promises to take that many tricks above six. So a bid of 2 hearts promises eight tricks with hearts as trumps, and 3 notrump promises nine tricks with no trump suit.
Each new bid must be higher than the last. Strains rank from low to high: clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades, notrump. So 1 spade outranks 1 heart, and 2 clubs outranks 1 notrump because the level is higher. The auction ends when a bid is followed by three passes. That final bid is the contract. If all four players pass at the start, the hand is thrown in and the next one is dealt.
How do you know what to bid? Partners exchange information through their bids. The basic method is to count points and describe your hand step by step. Our guide to bridge bidding basics walks through point counts, opening bids and the first responses.
Declarer, dummy and the defenders#
The partnership that won the auction is the declaring side. Within that partnership, the player who first named the trump suit (or notrump) becomes the declarer. The declarer's partner is the dummy. The player to the declarer's left makes the opening lead, face up. Then the dummy places all 13 cards face up on the table, sorted into suits, and takes no further part in the hand. The declarer plays both hands. The other two players are the defenders.
Playing the tricks#
A trick is four cards, one from each player, played clockwise. You must follow suit if you can. If you cannot follow suit, you may play any card, including a trump. The highest card of the suit led wins the trick, unless a trump was played, in which case the highest trump wins. The winner of a trick leads to the next one. A hand has 13 tricks.
The declarer's aim is to take at least the number of tricks the contract promised. The defenders try to stop that. Most of good play is a handful of techniques: drawing the trumps, setting up long suits, finessing a missing honour and counting what the other players hold. You learn them over weeks, not minutes, which is why beginners get so much out of practising against robots.
Scoring in brief#
Only tricks above six count. Each trick in clubs or diamonds is worth 20 points, each trick in hearts or spades is worth 30, and notrump scores 40 for the first trick and 30 for each one after. A contract worth 100 or more trick points is a game, and games earn a bonus. Contracts for 12 tricks (small slam) and 13 tricks (grand slam) earn large bonuses. If the declarer falls short, the defenders score for each undertrick instead.
Doubles and redoubles multiply the trick score and the penalties. Vulnerability, which alternates between hands in duplicate, raises both the bonuses and the penalties. You do not have to memorise the table on day one. Every online table works out the score for you, and the pattern becomes familiar after a few sessions.
Where to play your first hands#
The quickest way to learn is to play a lot of hands with patient partners. Shark Bridge Game lets you play a full table with three robots at any hour, undo a card, and see how the robots would have played. When you are ready for real competition, Online Bridge Club runs ACBL-sanctioned robot games where you earn Masterpoints. If you prefer a person to explain the hands, the weekly Play & Learn games pair a game with a teacher who reviews the boards after each round.
Next steps: read Bridge Rules for Beginners for the table procedures, then follow the four-week beginner plan to your first club game.
Frequently asked questions
Is bridge hard to learn?
Bridge is larger than it is hard. The mechanics of a trick take an afternoon to learn, and a beginner can play a full hand against robots on the first day. Bidding takes a few weeks of steady practice, and card play keeps improving for years. Most people who struggle try to memorise everything first. Learn the play, then the point count, then the bids, and play hands from day one.
How many players do you need for bridge?
Bridge is played by exactly four people in two partnerships, with partners sitting opposite each other. There is no three-player or five-player version of the standard game. If you do not have four people, an app such as Shark Bridge Game fills the empty seats with robots, so one person can play a complete hand of bridge at any time of day.
What is the difference between bridge and whist?
Both are trick-taking games for four players in partnerships, and the play of the tricks is almost identical. The difference is the auction. In whist the trump suit is fixed by the deal or by turning up a card. In bridge the players bid for the right to name trumps and promise a number of tricks, and the score depends on whether that promise is kept.
How long does a hand of bridge take?
A single deal takes about seven or eight minutes for experienced players, covering the auction, thirteen tricks and the scoring. Beginners take longer, often fifteen minutes, because they stop to count points and think about each card. A club session of 24 boards runs about three hours. Online robot games are quicker, since the robots bid and play without pausing.
What does 3 notrump mean in bridge?
A bid of 3 notrump is a contract to take nine of the thirteen tricks with no trump suit, so the highest card of the suit led always wins the trick. It is the most common game contract because it reaches 100 trick points with the fewest tricks. A partnership with about 25 combined high card points and balanced hands usually aims for it.
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