Beginners’ Bridge Blog | How To Play Bridge

Opener's Rebid After Left Hand Opponent Overcall

After a player (“you”) has opened the bidding there is the possibility that the player on your left, who is part of the opposing partnership, might overcall. When this happens it can sometimes mean that your partner has to bid at a higher level when making a change of suit response than they otherwise would have.

Look at this example

South

West

North

East

1 h

Pass

North’s two spade response shows a holding of 9+ points and 5 or more spades. If West hadn’t made a two club

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The Rule of 14

The Rule Of 14 is a bridge bidding convention used in Acol bridge. It is used by the responder when they are replying to their partner’s opening bid.

When the opener has opened with a bid of one of a suit and the responder has a weakish hand with a suit that can be also be bid at the one level it is usually right to do so rather than making a bid of 1NT. However, if a change of suit response would take us to the two level and we have fewer than 9 points that is when we

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Fourth Suit Forcing

Fourth suit forcing is a bridge convention. It is used to help you find the right contract, including finding 5-3 major suit fits and finding stopper for No Trumps. It is used when you are responder and have 11+ points and:

Three suits have already been bid (hence the name) You don’t already have a major suit fit (8+ cards in a suit) with your partner You want to find out more information about partner’s hand

At this stage (3 suits already bid) a bid of the fourth suit doesn’t mean that you hold good cards in the suit and

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The Rule of 20

The Rule of 20 is one of the techniques you will learn when learning how to bid in bridge. It is used in just one situation – when deciding if your hand is suitable for opening the bidding. As a general rule, a hand should contain 12 or more high card points (HCP) if you are going to open the bidding. Sometimes, though, you might want to open the bidding with a hand that contains fewer points. This is when you use The Rule of 20 – its purpose is to decide if a hand with fewer than 12 points

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Slam Bidding

What is a Slam?

There are two types of slam – a small slam and a grand slam.

A small slam means you bid for and win 12 out of the 13 available tricks.

A grand slam means you bid for and win all 13 tricks.

Why Bid For a Slam?

If you are learning how to bid in bridge, you might be wondering why you would risk bidding for a small or grand slam when you could bid for fewer tricks and be certain of winning.

The answer is points. If you bid for and win a small slam,

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The Losing Trick Count

What is the Losing Trick Count?

It is a more accurate way of valuing an unbalanced hand when you know you have an eight card fit. Without using this method you will probably have used shortage points when valuing a hand with a known eight card fit. To do this you count five for a void, 3 for a singleton in a suit and 1 for a doubleton suit. However, this is not the most accurate method of valuing an unabalanced hand and most bridge players use the Losing Trick Count instead.

Why Should You Use it?

It makes

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Bridge Holidays 2012 - For Beginners and Improvers

Last year, I added a selection of bridge holidays for beginners. It proved to be a popular post, so here is an updated list of bridge holidays for beginner’s and improvers.

HF Holidays are offering two breaks for beginners. One in February 2012 and one in October 2012. Both are for four nights.

Urchfont Manor have a beginners bridge weekend in January 2012. They also have a weekend for improvers in April 2012.

If you fancy a week in the sun and can get together a group of 4 – 10 players you

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Rule of 11

At first glance, this rule sounds rather complicated! Don’t worry, if you are the defending partnership it’s just a useful little technique to help you decide which card to play in the opening round of a game.

There are several “rules” that the opener can use to help decide which card to play when opening the first round in a game of bridge. The Rule of 11 is used by the third player (the opener’s partner) to help him/her decide which card to play.

When To Use The Rule Of 11

It is usually used when the game is

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Duplicate Bridge Scoring

Learning how to score at bridge makes it easier to understand the bridge bidding system. Once you know how to score you will understand why it is better to play in hearts/spades/NT than diamonds or clubs and why players will continue bidding to the 4, 5, 6 or even 7 level instead of stopping at the 3 or 4 level.

Let’s start with the absolute basics.

No points are scored for the first 6 tricks. A contract for 1 of a suit (or 1NT) means you think you will make 7 tricks (6 + 1 bid). A contract for

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bridge hands to play

If you are learning to play bridge it is helpful to find some bridge hands to play online.

At No Fear Bridge you will find hundreds of bridge hands to play, covering a wide range of topics.

Some hands allow you to play the whole hand and then show you what you have scored. You are then given advice on the best way to play the hand.

Some hands are set up as tutorials where you choose which card to play, or which bid to make and you are then given feedback on wrong

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