Rubber Bridge – the most fun you can have with three friends a pack of cards

Rubber bridge is the oldest and still the popular for the bridge the game. It is usually played in private homes, although there are still some bridge clubs that offer it as an option to the members and players.

One of the reasons for its popularity is that it requires just four players to start a game, unlike other version of bridge that require multiple tables. All you need is three friends and a deck of cards. You don’t even need a specialty bridge table – in fact the term kitchen bridge was coined because it was not uncommon for four players to congregate around the kitchen table for an impromptu and informal game of bridge.

There are three phases to a rubber bridge game – the bidding or Auction, the play and finally the scoring. There is in fact a fourth phase, the Cut, which precedes the game, where a cut of the cards determines how the four players will pair up – who will play with whom.

During the auction phase of bridge the game, the players must assess the value or strength of the cards they have been dealt and they then begin a process of bidding for the number of tricks they expect or hope to win when the cards are played. The players can nominate a suit or no-trumps to be the master denomination. For example a bid of 1 spade is in fact a claim to win seven of the thirteen available tricks, a bid of 2 spade is a claim to win eight tricks, etc.  A pair of players will win points if they win at least as many tricks as the bid for but are heavily penalised if they fail to make their auction bid.

Now phase 2 of a rubber bridge game, the play commences. The player of the auction winning pair who first nominated the trump suit becomes known as the hand Declarer. The opponent on his left has the right to play the first card of the hand, known as the opening lead. The next player (who is the partner of the Declarer) is known for this hand as Dummy and he is required to place his thirteen cards face down on the table for all the see. Now, in a clockwise rotation each player plays a card and must play a card of the same suit as the first card of each trick (this is called following suit). However, if one of the players has no cards in the suit lead, then they have the option of playing a card from one of the other suits (this is called discarding) or better still, playing a cart from the trump suit (this is called trumping in).

Each of these thirteen tricks is won by either the highest card of the suit led by the opening leader or whichever player has played the highest trump card if they have trumped in.

A bridge card game can be tremendous fun if you organise a rubber bridge game.

Bridge Movement Cards. What are they and how they will make your home game more fun!

Do you want to organize a home bridge card game among a large group of friends? What a great and fun idea! This article will describe all you need to run a fun, social and competitive bridge tournament.

First of all, you need to make sure you have all the necessary supplies. If you have 16 players that means there will be four tables in play, so you’ll need four card tables and enough chairs and space to accommodate all these people. Without these, you can’t really get started. To run a competitive bridge the game, you will need to play duplicated hands across the four tables, and this requires a set of bridge boards.

Duplicate bridge is different from rubber bridge in that the players do not deal the cards before each hand. Rather, they use pre-dealt, pre-assigned cards stored in bridge boards or wallets. A good and sensible number of hands or boards to play in a small game of four tables is 16. That means you need a set of 14 boards along with 14 decks of cards.

It is important in a duplicate bridge game to make the game balanced and fair. To achieve this it is ideal that every pair of players plays each of the other pairs once and everyone plays all the bridge boards. This is where a set of the movement cards is needed. A set of movement cards is a schedule that regulate which pair plays which other pair at any time and which of the boards they should be playing at any time. For example in the first round Pair 1 might play Pair 2, Pair 3 might play Pair 4, etc. The movement cards Australia also tell the players which pair they should be playing next and which of the four tables they should be playing at.

At the end of the game each of the eight pairs will have played the other seven pairs and played all the boards in play. This makes the game fun, fair, competitive and social as well as you have had the chance to play everyone at the bridge card game.

Other items you will need to run your bridge the game are score sheets (these are called travellers, as they are stored in the bridge board and travel around the room), bidding boxes and perhaps some pens and pencils for the players to keep their personal score.

At the end of the game, one of the players will score the game and while this requires some expertise, it is not such a difficult process.

The movement cards used in the scenario was called a Howell Card and there are similar cards or schedules for any number of tables from two to 12. Beyond a 12-table bridge game, you would normally use a schedule called a Mitchell Movement.

So next time you organise a bridge card game at home with friends, think beyond the normal rubber or Chicago bridge routine-movement cards give you so many more fun and competitive options.