How to Play Bridge

8 July 2026

In this article, I shall teach you how to play the game of bridge. Follow this guide and you will learn the rules of the game!

Elements of the Game

Gather four players, ideally around a square table. Shuffle and deal a deck of cards, such that each player has 13 cards. Let everybody sort their cards by suits.

For now, let the dealer play (lead) the first card. Playing clockwise, each subsequent player must each play a card, subject to the following two rules:

1. if you can, you must follow suit; that is, play a card in the suit that matches that of the lead; and
2. if you are unable to follow suit, then you must choose a card to discard.

Among the players that did not discard, whomever plays the highest card (with Ace high, Deuce small) wins the round of cards, which is also called winning the trick. The player that wins the trick shall then lead the next trick, and the same rules about following suit then applies, until all 13 tricks have been played.

At the end of the game, the winning tricks are combined between you and your partner, which will be the player sitting across from you. The pair that wins the majority of the tricks is said to have won the game (for now).

Trump suit

Shuffle and deal again (ideally with the player left of the previous dealer as the new dealer). For now, let the dealer designate a suit as the trump suit. Cards in the trump suit are powerful, so you should choose a suit that you have a lot of cards in. The person who dictated the trump suit is called the declarer, and their partner the dummy. The declarer will now play both hands in the partnership and attempt to make as many tricks with their desired suit as trump.

Let the player left of the dealer lead the first card. After this initial lead, the dummy will lay down all their cards facing the declarer, organized by suit, and with the trump suit on the declarer’s left side. Play now continues very similarly as before, with the declarer dictating to the dummy which card to play when it is their turn:

1. if you can, follow suit; and
2. if you cannot, you may now choose to play a card in the trump suit; or
3. discard a card just like before.

If a trump card has not been played, then the winner of the trick is decided like before; however, if a trump card has been played this trick, then whomever plays the largest trump card wins the trick, and must now lead the next trick.

Scoring

In bridge, the declarer actually needs to declare both the number of tricks that they think they can take at the minimum and the trump suit that they want to play in (with no-trump being an option). The combination of these two things is called a contract.

Obviously, when you declare a contract, you should be claiming that you can take at least a majority of the tricks, so the lowest level of contract, the 1-level contracts, mean that you are willing to take at least 7 tricks. In general, to make an $n$-level contract, you are saying that you are able to take at least $n+6$ tricks, with $n$ ranging between 1 to 7. For example, if you are willing to take 9 tricks without a trump suit, the contract will be a 3-level no-trump contract, commonly denoted 3NT.

The score of a contract depends both on the level and the suit.

1. For a minor contract (clubs and diamonds), you get 20 points per level;
2. for a major contract (hearts and spades), you get 30 points per level; and
3. for a no-trump contract, you get 40 points for the first level, and 30 points per subsequent level.

When the score of the contract is below 100 points, the contract is considered partscore, and entails an extra 50 points if you make the contract. When the score of the contract is at least 100 points, the contract is considered game, and entails an extra 300 points if you make the contract. Moreover, a 6-level contract is called a small slam, and a 7-level contract is called a grand slam, which also have bonuses attached to it.

If you make overtricks, which are the extra tricks taken on top of your contract, then in a minor contract, you get 20 points per overtrick; similarly, in a major or no-trump contract, you get 30 points per overtrick. On the other hand, if you do not make a contract, you lose 50 points per undertrick to your opponents.

As we can see from the above, playing in a major or no-trump contract is generally better than playing in a minor contract. This will factor into our decision for deciding trump suits.

Auction

The final element of bridge, the auction, is what makes bridge different from other trick-taking games.

In bridge, in order to determine the trump suit fairly, both partnerships have the opportunity to influence the contract via the auction. Just like any other real-life auction, players will sequentially bid, and the highest bidder wins the auction. However, instead of bidding with money, players bid contracts.

For two contracts of different levels, the contract with the higher level is considered larger. For two contracts of the same level, the contracts are ordered, from largest to smallest, no-trumps, spades, hearts, diamonds, and then clubs.

The dealer starts the bidding, and proceeds clockwise. At every turn, players can either:

1. pass;
2. bid a contract, larger than the previous bid if there is one;
3. double an opponent’s bid, or redouble an opponent’s double. We shall not speak of doubles and redoubles for now.

When a bid is placed, and then there are three passes in a row, the contract is set. Between the partnership that won the contract, whomever bids the suit of the contract first is considered the declarer. Play then continues as before.

If there are four passes in a row at the beginning of bidding, then the contract is considered passed out, and the hand is not played.

Conclusion

These are the rules of bridge! Hope you have fun with the game, and if you are interested in strategies, see my elementary bidding guide.