This month we are delighted to welcome a new column by Bishop Auckland Bridge Club, bringing one of the most popular and entertaining card games in the world, yet also one of the least well understood, to our readers.
We begin with a brief introduction from secretary, Malcolm Dawson to the local club as well as a summary of the game – a game which develops significant skills such as strategy, problem solving, memory and pattern recognition as well as understanding the relationships between cards.
In following pieces, we will break down various hands, but for now, it’s over to Malcolm:
Bishop Auckland Bridge Club
Playing bridge is one of the most enduring and popular pastimes in the world and for over 100 years it has fascinated people of all types and from all walks of life. It can be utterly compulsive once it has got hold of you and isn’t too hard to learn. All you need is four friends and a pack of cards and you can play at home, in the pub, on holiday – anywhere!
Bishop Auckland Bridge Club meets on Thursdays in the bar at the Golf Club on Thursday evenings at 7.00pm and would welcome new members. If you enjoy the game and have a regular partner why not join us? Further information and contact details can be found on our website at www.bridgewebs.com/bishopauckland/.
Don’t know what Bridge is?
Bridge is a trick-taking card game of skill, using a standard 52-card deck, played by four players in two competing partnerships, with partners sitting opposite each other around a table.
If you can play Whist you will have an idea about how the hands are played, but unlike Whist, before the cards are played, there is something called the auction. During the auction players take it in turns to bid, suggesting how many tricks they think they can make and which suit they would like to be trumps. The last player to bid wins the auction and is known as The Declarer who then tries to make the number of tricks suggested, known as the Contract.
Players compete to take tricks but one major difference from whist is that the as soon as the first card has been played, Declarer’s partner places all of their cards face up on the table, meaning the other three players can see 26 cards – the 13 cards in their own hand and the Declarer’s partner’s 13 face up cards, which are now called the Dummy.
Players take turns to play a card and when four cards have been played the highest card (or highest trump) wins. That is a trick and each deal has thirteen tricks.
While Declarer plays their own cards and those in the dummy, their opponents (the defence) work together to try and prevent Declarer making the promised number of tricks, which they do by playing their cards based on what they see in their own hand, what is in Dummy and the cards their partner plays.
At the end of each hand (that is, each game of 13 cards) the scores are recorded and the results calculated once all the hands have been played. At a Bridge club this will usually be somewhere between 21 and 28 hands (referred to as boards) but playing socially a group of four can obviously play as many or as few as they wish.
If this has piqued your interest, you can access a short YouTube video here (after a brief advert) which explains the game using animations.
Bishop Auckland's local community newspaper.
