Playing Cards In The Game Of Bridge
Friday, November 11th, 2011Playing cards are sold in decks, or packs, of 52. Each deck contains four suits of 13 cards each. Each suit contains an ‘Ace’, which is symbolized by a single picture of the named suit. In Blackjack, a form of poker, the Ace is worth either one or eleven points. The layer decides which value he wants this card to hold. In Bridge, the Ace counts as four points.
Each suit contains three ‘face cards’. These are the Jack, Queen and King. In the game of Bridge, they are worth one, two and three points, respectively. The remaining nine cards within each suit are numbered 2 to 10. In decreasing order of value, the suits are called Spades, Heart, Diamonds and Clubs. Heart and diamonds are red, Clubs and Spades are black.
There are four players in the game of Bridge, divided into two partnerships of two players each. The players in a partnership sit across from each other. The deck is shuffled and dealt until it is exhausted. The game is played in two phases. The first phase is the bidding phase, or auction. The second phase is the play.
During the bidding phase, an auction is held to determine what, if any, suit will be trump, and how many tricks the partnership that ‘wins’ the auction expect to take, plus six. Dealer bids first. If they are in possession of at least 13 high card points(HCP), they may open bidding. Otherwise, bidding progresses around the table until somebody has sufficient points to open. This is the ACOL system of bidding. There are a number of other bidding systems.
Using a set of bidding conventions, or rules, each team tries to establish whether they have enough HCP to play a contract and, if so, whether it should be a suit contract or if they should try to play it in no trump. A majority of trump cards is required in the partnership to have a decent chance of winning. If they find that their HCP are distributed evenly between the four suits, then they will play in a no trump contract.
The contract will be played in a trump suit if a partnership determines that the have a sufficient number of HCP in a specific suit. If the points are distributed more evenly among the four available suits, they will play in no trump. Once the contract of play for a given hand has been agreed, the player sitting to the left of declarer, the person playing the contract, lays down a card. This is called the opening lead.
Once the first card has been led, declarer’s partner places his cards face up on the table. This is the Dummy hand. One by one, each player lays down a card. The player with the highest card in the trump suit wins the trick. If there is no trump suit, then the winner of the trick is the player with the highest card.
When all 52 playing cards have been played, the hand is over and the scores are added up. Each trick counts for 30 points if it is in a major suit (spades or heart) and 20 points for a minor suit (clubs or diamonds). Play goes on until one partnership has scored a total of 100 points.
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