Bridge – Play Online for Free

Bridge grew out of English whist and pushed it out of the clubs in the 1890s. The oldest known rules, a four-page pamphlet titled "Biritch, or Russian Whist", appeared in England in 1886, and the name bridge goes back to that Biritch, although where the word itself comes from is still unclear. Today's contract bridge took shape in 1925, when the American Harold S. Vanderbilt worked out a new scoring with vulnerability on a cruise through the Panama Canal aboard the steamship Finland. In the early 1930s Ely Culbertson turned it into a craze across the United States, and since 1999 the International Olympic Committee has recognized the World Bridge Federation. Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are among its best-known fans. Here you can play bridge online for free and without signing up, partnered with the computer against two computer opponents.

From the opening bid to the last trick: Bridge rules and strategy

Two partnerships face each other: you sit at the bottom with your partner at the top, against the computer opponents on your left and right. A full deck of 52 cards is used, everyone gets thirteen, and in every suit the ace ranks highest and the two lowest. Each deal has two parts, first the auction and then the play of the 13 tricks.

• The auction: The dealer calls first, then the bidding goes around clockwise. A bid names a level from 1 to 7 and a suit or notrump, ranked from low to high as clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades, notrump. Every bid must outrank the one before it. You can also pass, double an opponent's bid, or answer their double with a redouble. Three passes in a row end the auction, and if all four players pass at once, the cards are dealt again.
• The contract: The last bid stands. Its level plus six gives the number of tricks the declaring side must take at least, so ten for four hearts. The declarer is the player of the partnership who first named the strain of the contract.
• The dummy: The opponent to the declarer's left makes the opening lead. Then the declarer's partner, the dummy, spreads their cards face up on the table, and the declarer plays both hands. If your side wins the auction, you therefore play your partner's cards as well.
• Following suit and trumping: Following suit is compulsory whenever you can. Otherwise you may trump or discard any other card. A trick with a trump in it goes to the highest trump, any other trick to the top card of the led suit. The winner of a trick leads to the next one.
• Contract points: Each trick above six that the contract calls for scores 20 in clubs and diamonds, 30 in hearts and spades, and in notrump 40 for the first and 30 for each after that. With 100 of these points you have a game, so with 3NT, four hearts, four spades, five clubs or five diamonds. There are bonuses for overtricks, for a slam with 12 or 13 tricks bid, for making a doubled contract and for honors: four or five of the five top trumps in one hand, or all four aces in a notrump contract.
• Undertricks and vulnerability: If the declarer falls short, the opponents score points for every missing trick. A vulnerable side pays more for going down, but in return it earns a bigger bonus for a slam.
• Chicago and rubber: You choose the format in the toolbar. Chicago lasts exactly four deals with fixed vulnerability: nobody is vulnerable on the first, the dealer's side on the second and third, and both sides on the fourth. A game brings 300 points there, or 500 when vulnerable, and a part score on the fourth deal still brings 100. In rubber bridge you play until one side has won two games. A game goes to the side that collects 100 contract points, even spread over several deals, and that side is vulnerable from then on. The rubber itself is worth 700 points, or 500 if the games went two to one. In the end the side with more points wins.

Your partner and the two opponents bid a simple standard system. They open hearts and spades only with at least five cards, 1NT shows 15 to 17 points and a balanced hand, two clubs a very strong hand, and Stayman, Blackwood and the takeout double complete the picture. Tap a call in the bidding table and it explains itself, your own calls included, the way your partner understands them. On a computer, simply hovering the mouse over it is enough, and during play a tap on the contract in the scoreboard brings back the whole auction.

With these tips you will make more contracts:

• Count high card points: For the auction an ace counts 4 points, a king 3, a queen 2 and a jack 1. With about 12 points you usually open, and with around 25 between the two of you it pays to look for game.
• Find a major fit: Four hearts or four spades need one trick fewer than five clubs or five diamonds. With eight cards between you in hearts or spades, that suit is usually the best trump, and after 1NT you ask for it with Stayman.
• Plan before you play: Once the dummy is down, count the sure tricks in both hands and work out where the missing ones should come from before you play to the first trick.
• Draw the opponents' trumps: If you hold most of the trumps, play them early so the opponents cannot ruff your high cards in the other suits.
• Against notrump, lead the long suit: As a defender against a notrump contract you usually lead your longest suit, because its small cards turn into tricks once the high ones have gone.
• Bid carefully when vulnerable: A double by the opponents can quickly cost several hundred points there. With a borderline hand, passing is often the better choice.

Partners, tricks, auctions: five card games for lovers of bidding

Want to keep going after the last rubber? These related games are here for you:

• Spades: Identical deck and seating, but without the fight over trumps. Spades are always trumps, and everyone only says beforehand how many tricks they expect.
• Hearts: Thirteen cards a hand again and you still have to follow suit, but here you avoid taking hearts and, above all, the queen of spades.
• Doppelkopf: Two against two as well, only nobody knows at the start who plays with whom. Re and Kontra raise the value of the game there, much like doubles and redoubles at the bridge table.
• Schafkopf: Here too an announcement decides who plays, and the declarer finds a partner through the ace they call.
• Skat: Skat has an auction as well, with game values instead of trick counts, and the winner of the bidding plays alone against the other two.